Retired Spokane Bishop Leigh Wallace dies in Montana
Episcopal News Service. October 12, 2010 [101210-04]
ENS staff
The Diocese of Spokane's sixth bishop, the Rt. Rev. Leigh Allen Wallace, Jr., 83, died Oct. 7 at St. Patrick's Hospital in Missoula, Montana.
Wallace was elected and consecrated in 1979 and served until 1991. He succeeded Bishop John R. Wyatt who had served the diocese since May 1967.
Wallace and his wife, Pat, who survives him, then returned to Missoula where Wallace had been rector of the Church of the Holy Spirit from 1971-1978.
Wallace was born in Norman, Oklahoma, and lived most of his childhood in Great Falls, Montana. He served in the Navy during World War II, completed college at the University of Montana in 1950 and returned to Great Falls to work at his father's lumber yard. Wallace graduated from Virginia Theological Seminary in 1962. He was first assigned to Montana mission congregations in Sheridan, Virginia City and Ennis, and went on to be rector of St. Luke's Billings and then Holy Spirit, Missoula.
In addition to his wife, Pat, Wallace is survived by daughter Jenny Wallace and her husband Blake Nakanishi of Honolulu, Hawaii; son Dick Wallace and his wife Janet of Lacey, Washington; son Bill Wallace and his partner Tom Suydam of Alexandria, Virginia, and six grandchildren.
A funeral liturgy was held Oct. 12 at Holy Spirit. Diocese of Montana Bishop Franklin Brookhart presided while current Spokane Bishop James E Waggoner, Jr. and Minnesota Bishop Brian N. Prior, a former Spokane priest, participated.
Special prayers will be offered for Wallace during the concluding Eucharist at the Spokane's Diocesan Convention Oct. 15-17 at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist in Spokane, Washington.