WASHINGTON - Janet Manion, who established a leading nonprofit foundation that supports veterans and the families of fallen troops in honor of her son, First Lieutenant Travis Manion, who was killed in Iraq, died April 24 at a hospital in Doylestown, Pa. She was 58.

She had complications from cancer, said her husband, Tom Manion.

Mrs. Manion was a force in the veterans-assistance community, said Bonnie Carroll, president of the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors, an organization known as TAPS that collaborates frequently with the Travis Manion Foundation.

“She was so selfless in caring for all those who were hurting, making sure they could find comfort, hope and support,’’ Carroll said.

Founded in 2007, the Travis Manion Foundation has endowed hundreds of thousands of dollars in fellowships and scholarships for wounded and disabled veterans. Through TAPS, the Travis Manion Foundation has also sponsored grief and bereavement seminars for the families of fallen service members.

Mrs. Manion and her husband, a retired Marine Corps Reserve colonel, were hosting a barbecue at their Doylestown home when the doorbell rang on April 29, 2007. Mrs. Manion answered the door and encountered a Marine in a crisp olive uniform. She immediately slammed the door in his face, shutting it so hard that she broke its lower hinge. She began screaming.

She was informed that her son, a 2004 Naval Academy graduate, had been killed by sniper fire during an ambush outside Fallujah, Iraq. During a ceremony in 2008, Marine General John Allen, the current commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, presented Manion family members with their son’s posthumous Silver Star - the military’s third-highest award for valor.