DEEPLY GRIEVED ANNOUNCE PASSING ETHEL REVELL SAINTLY
STEADFAST SELFSACRIFICING PROMOTER CAUSE GOD. BLESSED BY ASSOCIATION ABDULBAHA
COURSE HIS VISIT AMERICA AND RECEIPT TABLETS FROM HIM. HER TIRELESS LABOURS
STERLING QUALITIES EARNED ADMIRATION SHOGHI EFFENDI WHO APPOINTED HER
INTERNATIONAL BAHAI COUNCIL AS ITS WESTERN ASSISTANT SECRETARY. THIS CROWN HER
SERVICES CONTINUED MEMBERSHIP ELECTED COUNCIL SUBSEQUENT SERVICES MANY
CAPACITIES WORLD CENTRE INCLUDING SECRETARY HANDS HOLY LAND. URGE NATIONAL
ASSEMBLIES HOLD BEFITTING MEMORIAL GATHERINGS HER HONOUR IN ALL MASHRIQUL-
ADHKARS OTHER CENTRES. PRAYING HOLY SHRINES PROGRESS HER RADIANT SOUL ABHA
KINGDOM.
With these words the Universal House of Justice on 9
February 1984 announced to the Bahá’i world the passing of one who lived her
life of dedicated service as though no alternative existed and who would have
been amazed to be accorded such accolades.
The Revells were a devout Christian family living in
Philadelphia. Pennsylvania. U.S.A. The father, Edward, was a weaver, who passed
away, after years of illness, in 1900, leaving his forty-one-year-old wife Mary
with six young children, though Ethel herself mentions there being eight
children in the family. Mary Revell, though tiny in size, was a pillar of
strength, possessed of phenomenal courage. Before her husband died, foreseeing
the difficulties of her situation, he told her she would never be able to keep
all the children with her, but she assured him he need not worry, she would do
so; she got employment in a factory and with the assistance of the older
children, who valiantly got jobs at an early age, she preserved her home and
kept her family together. Ethel’s own employment certificate shows she was
fourteen when she went to work; most of her working life she was listed as
'stenographer'. Like her mother, she was small and delicate in build.
 |
| Mary Revell and daughters, 1914 |
Annie McKinney, Mary Revell’s sister, was one of America’s
early believers and interested Mary and her daughters, Jessie and Ethel, in the
Bahá’í teachings; they attended meetings in 1906 taught by Mrs. Isabella
Brittingham, a renowned and erudite Bahá’i, and as a result Mary Revell,
Jessie, not yet fifteen, and Ethel, not yet ten, accepted the Faith. Gradually
the whole family became Bahá’is and the Revell home became the hub of
activities in Philadelphia for many decades. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had a great love for
this family, particularly its most distinguished members Mary, Jessie and
Ethel, who received a number of Tablets from Him; in one written to Mary Revell
in 1908 from the prison-city of ‘Akká He foreshadows His teaching mission to
the West: “Thy letter was received and was of the utmost sweetness for it
began: ‘O Thou Ensign of Peace and Salvation!’ It is the hope of this
imprisoned one to become the cause of Peace and Salvation in the world and
summon the inhabitants of the globe to love, kindness, righteousness,
uprightness and the adoration of Truth…”
