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Quoted in Never be Afraid to Dare, Jasion, p228-9
He would suggest that, when writing to the European centres, you share with the believers the glorious example of the life of Marion Jack. Young or old could never find a more inspiring pioneer in whose footsteps to walk, than this wonderful soul.
For over thirty years, with an enlarged heart and many other ailments she remained at her post in Bulgaria. Never well-to-do, she often suffered actual poverty and want: want of heat, want of clothing, want of food, when her money failed to reach her because Bulgaria had come under the Soviet zone of influence. She was bombed, lost her possessions, she was evacuated, she lived in drafty, cold dormitories for many, many months in the country, she returned, valiant, to the capital of Bulgaria after the war and continued, on foot, to carry out her teaching work.
The Guardian himself urged her strongly, when the war first began to threaten to cut her off' in Bulgaria, to go to Switzerland. She was a Canadian subject and ran great risks by remaining, not to mention the dangers and privations of war. However, she begged the Guardian not to insist and assured him her one desire was to remain with her spiritual children. This she did, up to the last breath of her glorious life. Her tomb will become a national shrine, immensely loved and revered, as the Faith rises in stature in that country.
He thinks that every Bahà’i and most particularly those who have left their homes and gone to serve in foreign fields, should know of, and turn their gaze to, Marion Jack.
[ltr to European Teaching Committee, 25 May 1954]
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