Mary Ellen Crowley Suyematsu was born in Cheyenne in 1916. She graduated from St. Mary’s Academy in Cheyenne and attended the University of Nebraska in Lincoln for two years prior to transferring to the University of Wyoming in Laramie. There she received her Bachelors degree in Liberal Arts. Ellen also earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Library Science from the University of Denver, and her law degree from Fordham University School of Law in New York City. Ellen’s father, Frank J. Crowley, was a native of Cheyenne and served as the District Superintendent of the Railway Mail Service. Her mother, Miriam G. Keliher Crowley, was born in Rapid City, South Dakota, and taught at Johnson Junior High School in South Cheyenne.

In 1949, Ellen returned to Wyoming where she became Wyoming’s first State Librarian. She served as an assistant Attorney General for Wyoming and was named Woman of the Year by the Cheyenne Chamber of Commerce. She also served as a member of the Wyoming House of Representatives 1973-1987.

In 1954, Ellen married Toshiro [Tosh] Suyematsu, an attorney in Cheyenne and Laramie and a decorated veteran of World War Two of Japanese decent. Mr. Suyematsu served as the US Attorney for Wyoming. Ellen met Tosh while studying for the Wyoming Bar exam in Laramie. They were married in Colorado rather than Wyoming because of an anti-miscegenation statute that prohibited interracial marriages in Wyoming at that time. Ellen and Tosh made their home near Carpenter in eastern Wyoming until Tosh’s death from a motor vehicle accident in 1994. Ellen then returned to Cheyenne to live until she passed away in 2001 at the age of 84.