Biography
Eleanor Calkins was a pacifist jailed with her husband Kenneth in the 1958 nonviolent protest against the Atlas intercontinental ballistic missile base near Cheyenne, Wyoming. Convicted of trespassing, the couple served 104-day sentences and marked their first wedding anniversary in jail.
The October 18, 1958 issue of L’Adunata dei Refrattari, summarizing Liberation’s September report, identifies Eleanor Calkins as Kenneth Calkins’s wife and reports that she, Theodore Olson, John White and Erika Ensor received the same fines and refused payment. The stated penalty for Kenneth was $100 plus $4 in court costs. This account does not independently give Eleanor’s admission or discharge date, or establish that every named person completed an identical jail stay.
L’Adunata dei Refrattari, October 18, 1958, pages 2–3, Uomini e missili.
The September 22, 1958 National Guardian, spelling her name Ellanor, reports that she and Kenneth were held for several hours at the Cheyenne missile site on August 18 and arrested after returning August 19. She was in Laramie County Jail on August 29, and the couple marked their first wedding anniversary there on August 31. The report describes their 104-day sentences as ongoing; it does not establish a final discharge day or completed aggregate service. A mission of conscience, printed page 7.
