Meagan Shannon Brown

6/2/1964 - 9/7/2025

Meagan Shannon Brown died peacefully shortly after midnight on Sunday, Sept. 7, 2025, at her home in Lancaster Township, Indiana. 

Born June 2, 1964, in Madison, Indiana, she was the daughter of Carl T. and Lena V. (DeVore) McDole. She married Mark Robert Bahlke on May 28, 2017.

Meg’s spirituality and love for nature, history, and art, as well as her deep love for her family and friends, sustained her through her diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. She fought hard and was determined not to allow her diagnosis to dominate her life. As she once said, “I may have cancer, but cancer does not have me.”

Her hobbies included organic gardening on the historic farm she lived on with her family and later, with her husband Mark. She also enjoyed sewing, painting with watercolors, and studying the Bible.

She spent a lot of time as a Civil War re-enactor and had a deep love for history, especially the history of Lancaster Township and the people who were involved with and founded Eleutherian College, an institution opened in 1848 to educate anyone who wished to learn, regardless of their gender or race. 

She spent 10 years researching, as a volunteer, the families who helped establish the college and led the abolitionist movement in Lancaster, Indiana. She compiled “The Abolitionist Community of Lancaster, Indiana: A reference guide with brief biographies and genealogy of people in relation to the area,” which she finished compiling in April 2006.

“She said that she was frustrated that through the years so many people knew bits and pieces about Eleutherian College, but that no one attempted to put it all together,” said her friend, Mark Furnish, who relied on her research to help him complete his Ph.D. dissertation from Purdue University. “So, she decided that she would be that person.”

Her goal was to ensure that the facts about Lancaster, Eleutherian, and the roles played by residents there in the local workings of the Underground Railroad and the opportunities for anyone wanting to learn to receive an education, would be preserved. She wanted to “pay homage to the extraordinary people who risked all for a cause they felt was their duty, as servants of God, to help those who could not voice their opinions.”

Much of the information she obtained was from the descendants of those Lancaster families: the Waltons, the Hoyts, the Hayses, the Nelsons, the Hursts, the Cravens, the Harrises, the Tibbetses, and others.

Meg is survived by her husband, Mark; her father; her sister, Judy Phillips of Madison, as well as uncles, aunts, and many nieces and nephews. She was preceded in death by her mother, a sister, Dena (Jesse) Webster of Bedford, Ky., a brother, a nephew, and aunts, uncles, and grandparents.

A private celebration of her life has been planned.