Cleo Spurlock Wallace

Who is Cleo Spurlock Wallace?

Cleo Spurlock Wallace was an American speech therapist born in Garo, Colorado.

In 1933, Spurlock was one of the first six recipients of four-year scholarships to the University of Denver; she graduated in 1937. That same year, she married investment broker Thomas Wallace.

She subsequently earned a Rockefeller Foundation Teaching Fellowship to the University of Denver, where she received a Master's degree in speech pathology in 1943.

Wallace then began teaching high school, where she received her first referral from a local physician. She worked with the child after school in her home; before long, she began treating other children with speech and language disorders. In 1948, to meet the needs of her growing clientele, she purchased two buildings with the help of businessman Henry Winter and founded Wallace Village for Children, a nonprofit organization. When her husband died that same year, she turned all of her attention to her work. She paid one dollar for a five-year lease on a building at 4414 Logan Street, and moved in with five teachers and thirty students.