From 1863 through 1869 Elkanah and Irena Beard served in the Mississippi Valley and inaugurated a Quaker relief effort that would have an impact on the region for more than sixty years. They labored among the recently freed slaves providing food, clothing, education and religious services. After their time in the south they offered themselves to the London Missionary Society for Friends for service in India. From 1869 through 1872 they worked in mission stations in India teaching and preaching. Due to Irena's poor health, they returned to Richmond in 1872.

Elkanah and Irena Beard came to Winchester, Indiana in April of 1873 and were a part of Winchester Friends Church through it's beginning years, through the building of the first Quarterly Meetinghouse in 1874 and through the building of the present Meetinghouse in 1898. During those years they maintained a home here and traveled at various times throughout the US preaching and spent several years working with Indians in Oklahoma.

In 1898, when Elkanah was 65 and Irena 63 they made available, with a donation of $1000 the brick residence and lot adjoining the Winchester Friends Meetinghouse on the south to be used as the parsonage.

From Elkanah's obituary in 1905:

"For many years rheumatism and heart trouble prevented him from laboring in the cause of Christian religion which he so much loved. In no place did he show his refined Christian character more than in his home: a good neighbor, safe advisor and loving husband. In all his cares and labor he was ably assisted by his wife, the choice of his youth, with whom he lived for over 52 years. But he has fought the good fight and gone to his reward leaving his wife, one brother and two sisters and many friends who will sadly miss him, yet rejoice in the thought that he was a good and faithful servant of the Lord."