Monica Mary Agnew-Kinnaman

Born and raised in Yorkshire—Emily Bronte and James Herriot country—where her father worked as a medical doctor and a Church of England minister, Monica (aka: Nicky) went to the same school the Bronte's had attended and knew Siegfried and Tristan Farnon whom Herriot had worked with. When WWII began, she served in the British Army, anti-artillery division, assigned to gun sites that fired on the German planes as they flew bombing missions over England. She married during the war and her son was born and raised in England. After the war’s end and a divorce, she traveled the US and met her second husband, Glenn Kinnaman.

Monica received her RN, bachelor's, FNP, master's, and PhD over the next few decades, earning her PhD in Psychology at age 70 and changing careers from medicine to psychology. In her late seventies and early eighties she worked at the men's medium-security prisons in Cañon City, developing an anger-management program. In her early nineties, with her two children writing and publishing, one sister having published two books, and her father having published an award-winning novel in the early 1900s, she decided to learn how to use a computer and begin writing. She first wrote So This Is Heaven, a book about her many dog rescues, followed by a series of three children's books about an Old English Sheepdog who wanted to be a hero (The Adventures of Samson). All were published. She has also appeared in an anthology of veteran's stories, and eight of the Chicken Soup for the Soul anthologies, with a ninth story coming out this fall. From her nineties until her death at age 106, she also remained active in multiple veteran's groups and was interviewed often about her service in WWII. Her last interview was on May 6th, 2024, talking about WWII to a group of 5th graders with news reporters present.

Monica was widowed in 1998 but is survived by her sister Rosamund Gay Hembach in upstate New York, and her son, Jeremy Agnew, her daughter, Liz Colter, her grandchildren, Tracy Predmore and Christine Kirkland, and her four great-grandchildren, Gage Konrad, and Kaiya, Creede, and Aspen Kirkland, all residing in Colorado.

A memorial service will be announced later to be held in Colorado Springs sometime in July. Per her wishes, in lieu of flowers, please donate to the Animal Legal Defense Fund or another animal charity of choice.