In Memoriam 1992-1997/Ellen Catherine Sims

ELLEN CATHERINE SIMS

1906—1993

GRIEVED PASSING OF DEVOTED PIONEER OF FAITH ELLEN SIMS. HER MEMORABLE RECORD OF SERVICE TO THE FAITH GREATLY ENRICHED BY FOUR DECADES OF EXTENSIVE SACRIFICIAL TEACHING AND ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIVITIES IN SOUTH AMERICA. PRAYING FOR PROGRESS HER RADIANT SOUL IN THE ABHA KINGDOM. KINDLY CONVEY OUR LOVING SYMPATHY MEMBERS HER FAMILY.

Universal House ofjustice August 26, 1993

llen was born in Hurley, Wisconsin, on March 14, 1906, to Edwin Lincoln and Cecilia Jeanette Cochrane. She was the oldest of nine children, six ofwhom lived.

Her father was a Presbyterian, and her mother came from a staunch Roman Catholic family. Ellen and two of her siblings were enrolled in a Catholic school in New London, Wisconsin. Her father considered the school’s disciplinarian measures to be too harsh and placed them in the public school.

Ellen enrolled in the Normal School, and at sixteen she was the youngest licensed school teacher in the state of Wisconsin. She taught all grades in one—room schoolhouses for several years. She was also an accomplished pianist and played in theaters for silent movies. She was offered a scholarship to the Chicago Conservatory of Music and, at the same time, a teaching position in the Oak Park, Illinois, school system. She chose the latter.

Her family’s financial situation went from one extreme to the other as her father worked as the owner and operator of a gambling concession in a New London hotel. Ellen used to become very upset whenever her aunts came to Visit them, dressed in fur coats and jewels. She felt that they looked down on her family that often times had very little or nothing to eat. Because she had suffered during her Childhood and youth, especially from the attitudes shown by her mother’s family, Ellen began to search for a religion that was just.

Ellen investigated whatever religion or sect she stumbled across. She considered Mormonism, Rosicrucianism, and spiritualism. While exploring the latter she must have displayed a special sensitivity because she was invited to become a medium with a famous Spiritualist. While in a se’ance, sitting in the Circle holding hands with the people on each side of her, she heard a voice telling her not to do it, that it was dangerous. At another time, while resting after lunch one day, she looked toward the

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door and saw a luminous man with a beard standing there, smiling at her. He beckoned to her. She sat up and for some reason said, “I’m not ready yet,” upon which he smiled and left. Years later she saw a photograph and recognized the man as ‘Abdu’l-Bahá.

\While she was teaching in Oak Park, she met and married Stuart Sims, an Englishborn electrical engineer. At the time female teachers were not permitted to be married, so she and Stuart kept the marriage secret until the end of the school year.

Owing to the family’s financial problems and the death ofher mother, she and Stuart took her youngest brother, Donald, to live with them. When the school term ended, the three of them moved to Montreal, Canada, where Stuart had been transferred. There, in June 1930, she gave birth to their first daughter, June. Shirley was born in December 1931.

In 1933 Ellen and Stuart moved to New York City. During the Depression Stuart had a difficult time finding work, and Ellen’s only luxury was to ride the streetcar to the public library once a week for books. There she found Balad’u’llzz’la and tlae New Em. She took it home and copied most of it, thinking she would never see the book again. She was convinced that she had finally found what she was looking for. But she could not find the Bahá’ís.

The family moved to New Jersey where Stuart found work. He was a Freemason and wanted Ellen to be introduced to the Wife of a Mason friend. Ellen was not interested until one day when she asked the friend out of courtesy about the health of his wife. The man replied that she was in New York City at a Bahá’í meeting. Suddenly Ellen had to meet her.

Ellen attended Bahá’í meetings in the city and wanted to become a Bahá’í, but she thought she would wait until Stuart was ready to accept the Faith as well. In 1938

Ellen Catherine Sim:

she fasted and studied the Cleanings. When she read, “For the faith of no man can be conditioned by any one except himself,”43 she went back to New York and declared. It was Naw—Ri’iz. A few months later Stuart accepted the Faith.

Both Stuart and Ellen served on the Local Assembly of Newark, New Jersey, and later on the first Assembly of Red Bank. They served on the Regional Teaching Committee and gave public talks, and Ellen served as chairman of the publicity committee.

In October of 1944 their last child, Dawn Táhirih, was born.

Eight years later Ellen and Stuart separated. Through the National Assembly she consulted with the Guardian, who advised her to take Dawn and pioneer, naming several African countries. This was not to be. In 1953 Ellen and Dawn went to the

43 Cleaning: from the Writing: of Bahd’zz’lla'lv (Wilmette: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1983, 2005 printing), sec. LXXV.

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dedication of the Temple in Wilmette, and on the way back they were in a car accident. It took Ellen a year to recover.

Later they went to the annual Souvenir Picnic in West Englewood, New Jersey, where Ellen met members of the National Assembly OfSOLrth America and the entire membership of the Western Hemisphere Teaching Committee. They all urged her to pioneer to South America, and two months later, with the approval of the Guardian, she and Dawn were on their way to Paraguay.

She was a member of the Local Spiritual Assembly ofAsuncién for many years, and in 1957, when the first Regional Assembly of the Republics of Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Bolivia was formed, she was elected to it.

In 1959 she was one of two delegates elected to the Regional Bahá’í Convention in Santiago, Chile. In 1961 Ellen and Dawn moved to Colombia where Ellen served in Medelin and Pereira and was again elected to the National Assembly. She and the other members attended the election of the first Universal House of Justice in Haifa and the Jubilee in London in 1963.

After serving the Faith in Colombia for several years, and as more Colombians were being elected to the National Assembly, Ellen asked to move to Bolivia. Permission was granted, and a period of her most intensive activity began. She served in Cochabamba and Sucre. Again she was elected to the National Assembly, serving as its treasurer 1968—1969. She served on the National Teaching Committee and the Regional Teaching Committees for the Departments of Chuquisaca and Cochabamba.

She was attacked by robbers while living in the local Bahá’í center in Cochabamba. When they left, she contacted the local friends, who came and took her to the

hospital. She had two black eyes and required stitches, but when the friends came to visit her, all she could talk about was the publicity the Faith had received because of the incident.

Her transfer from Cochabamba to Sucre was as a result of the Hand of the Cause Rúḥíyyih Khánum’s Visit to Sucre. Upon Rúḥíyyih Khánum’s return to Cochabamba, she said, “Ellen, you must go to Sucre!” and so she did. During her stay in Sucre she broke her hip in an accident. While she was recuperating, there was a revolution, and Ellen was terrified that the rebels would carry out their threat and blow up the gas depot under her apartment.

From Bolivia Ellen went to Argentina, where she underwent two more hip operations. During her stay in Rosario, while she was in a body cast, the Spiritual Assembly ofArgentina appointed her to the National Proclamation Committee, along with Dawn and her son—in—law, Zia. Ellen used to joke about it, saying that she had the ideas, Dawn put them on paper, and Zia carried them out.

Ellen pioneered to Santiago del Estero, returning to Rosario a year later for her second hip operation. When she was again able to walk, she returned to Paraguay, spending two years in Caacupé. She was on the Summer School Committee and the National Bulletin Committee. Later the National Assembly asked her to move to the Ḥaẓíratu’l-Quds in Asuncion to serve as caretaker and hostess.

In Asuncion she served for several years on the Local Spiritual Assembly, the Feast Committee, the National Teaching Committee (secretary for two years), the National Literature Committee, and the National Asiatic Teaching Committee. During the last ten years of her life, Ellen found it difficult to walk, and she rarely left the National Center, except to attend

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special Bahá’í functions. Her last service to the Faith was a translation of an article on Huqt’iqu’lláh, which she gave to the secretary of the National Assembly on the afternoon of August 24, 1993, saying, “My work is finished.” Ellen passed away at 1:00 AM the following day.

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