Leilani Mcclure

Rauni Leilani Brown McClure passed away peacefully on December 27, 2018, in Uvalde, Texas, after a long illness. She was born January 10, 1940, in Honolulu, Hawaii, to Dr. Paul Hart Brown and Rauni Sophia (Seline) Brown while Dr. Brown was serving in the Army in World War II. She spent her childhood in the Belgian Congo, where her parents were medical missionaries with Africa Inland Mission. She attended Rethy Academy (the Congo) and the Rift Valley Academy (Kenya). She came to the United States when she was 16 to attend Wheaton Academy and graduated from Moody Bible Institute in 1960. She married Homer David McClure in April 1962 while at Wheaton College and graduated from Michigan State University in 1964. Her first two children, Esther Jewel and Paul David, were born in Michigan before David got a job teaching at the University of Nigeria at Nsukka (Africa). The family relocated to Sierra Leone, where her third child, Jonathan Joseph, was born. She subsequently lived in Austin, Texas; Southern Mexico; Guatemala; and finally, in Uvalde where Leilani found a spiritual home at St. Philip's Episcopal Church. Leilani earned her master's degree in Human Relations and Cross-Cultural Communications from the University of Oklahoma, and continued her education at SWTJC for many years, as well as teaching at the Uvalde Community Christian School. She was a story-teller, a poet, a painter, an author, a fearless traveler who made three pilgrimages to Israel, and a life-long learner known for her curiosity and boundless creativity. She is survived by ex-husband David and her three children: Esther and husband Ernest Lilley of Alexandria, Virginia; Paul, his wife Donna, and their three children - Jonathan, Andrew, and Michel - of Summerville, South Carolina; Jonathan, his wife Becky and their three children - Micah, Caleb, and Paul - of Redlands, California, along with her brother Paul Henry Brown and her sisters Winnie Pitman and Esther Brown. Family, friends, and others who she touched in her long life are invited to visitation on Thursday, January 3, between 5:00 and 7:00 pm at Rushing-Estes-Knowles Mortuary and to her Memorial Service at 10:30 am on Friday, January 4, 2019, at St. Philip's Episcopal church with a reception to follow in Grace Hall. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made in Leilani's name to El Progreso Memorial Library, 301 W. Main St., Uvalde, TX 78801 to honor her love of literacy and learning.

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