Alice Spillman Manion, a 50-year resident of Pacific Palisades and an active, longtime advocate for women and the elderly, passed away on December 3. She was 85. Born in Fon du Lac, Wisconsin, Ally, as she liked to be called, received a bachelor’s degree in education in 1946 from the University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh, and later in life obtained a master’s degree in Marriage and Family Counseling from Azusa Pacific University. In 1945, she began exploring the Southwest when she took a kindergarten teaching position in Globe, Arizona, for a year. Although they were good friends before the war, Alice and Brian G. Manion fell in love during World War II through letters and during his leaves. She returned to Wisconsin and married Brian on February 2, 1946, soon after he was discharged from the U.S. Coast Guard. He had been in the Pacific Theater, serving on a destroyer and troop transport ships, and was stationed in Hawaii for 18 months. After the war, the Manions lived in Denver, where Brian attended law school, and then moved to Los Angeles, settling in Pacific Palisades in 1954. Ally, a full-time mom, and Brian, an attorney, raised two children, Kate and Sean. In 1967, with the kids at Paul Revere and Palisades High, Ally started team-teaching and group counseling for women. Three years later she co-founded and was director of the Information Center for Women (now UCLA Extension Advisory Service), which administered and organized vocational information and advice. Professionals from across the nation came there for training and established counseling, advisory and vocational training for women in their own cities based upon the model design by Ally and her co-founders. In 1974, Ally co-founded, along with Dr. Yung Ho Liu and others, OPICA (Older Persons Information and Counseling Associates), one of the nation’s first and most innovative day care centers for the elderly. She worked there with passion and commitment for 21 years and built many lasting friendships with co-workers and clients. More recently, from the late 1990s into 2003 Ally volunteered at California Villa, a home for the elderly in Van Nuys, where she led support groups and did one-on-one counseling. The Manions had a wonderful 51-year marriage, and always had a circle of very close friends. As more than one friend said after Ally’s passing, ‘Life somehow seems unacceptable without Ally and Brian.’ Music, especially opera, was central in their lives. One of their personal opera highlights was seeing ‘La Traviata’ and Verdi’s ‘Nabucco’ performed in an outdoor amphitheater on a trip to Italy. In addition, she had a great love of the Southwest and especially the folk art. But she and Brian had eclectic tastes and also enjoyed paintings by abstract impressionists. And they instilled their love of life and the arts in their children. They were also longtime activists in progressive/liberal political issues and worked to save and conserve habitat in the Santa Monica Mountains. Ally was recognized far and wide as a culinary expert. She was well known for her Thanksgiving dinners and her Christmas parties with homemade cookies and other baked treats. One person would travel 500 miles just for her homemade blueberry pie. Predeceased by her husband in 1997, Alice is survived by her son Sean of Topanga, and by daughter Kate Manion-Haines (husband Tom) and granddaughters Margaret and Kelsey, who reside in Lee’s Summit, Missouri. A memorial celebration will be held on December 29. Please call the family for details at 454-3242. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to The Opera Buffs (P.O. Box 642647, L.A., CA 90064), the ACLU (ACLU.org), Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC.org), or Temescal Canyon Association (P.O.Box 1101, Pacific Palisades, CA 90272).
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