Mavis Nymon

Mavis Nymon
Born	September 15, 1921
Died	March 3, 2013 (aged 91)
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Mavis Nymon (September 15, 1921 - March 3, 2013) was an American Bahá’í who was named a Knight of Bahá’u’lláh for pioneering to Togo.

Biography

Nymon was born in Fargo, North Dakota. She contracted polio as a child and had to relearn how to walk when she was three. She wanted to visit Africa from when she was sixteen. In her career she secured a job as an instructor at the University of Minnesota.

In 1950 Nymon first heard of the Bahá’í Faith and in 1952 she attended the Louhelen Summer School in Michigan and declared and she was elected to the Local Spiritual Assembly of St. Paul, Minnesota. She volunteered to pioneer to Africa after the Ten Year Crusade began in 1953 and the United States Africa Teaching Committee assigned her to go to French Togoland with Vivian Wesson. They could not secure visas to Togoland but secured visas for Liberia and arrived in Monrovia on April 27, 1954, where they secured visas for Togoland and then went to Accra, Ghana, where they were able to to secure passage to Lomé in Togoland arriving on May 2 to join David Tanyi who had pioneered to the country from Cameroon shortly before.

Nymon and Wesson's visas expired after four months and they returned to Liberia where they founded a literacy school in Bomi Hills and in 1957 Enoch Olinga appointed Nymon as an Auxiliary Board member. She returned to the United States in mid-1958 where she completed a Masters degree and PhD in nutrition and public health and in 1960 she began lecturing at North Dakota State University. In 1964 she returned to Togoland for a brief visit, and she also visited Norway, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Iceland, Lebanon, Nigeria, Panama, Uganda, Turkey and the United Kingdom on travel teaching trips. In 1983 she retired from North Dakota State University.

In 2004 Nymon returned to Lomé, Togo, to attend a celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the Bahá’í Faith in Togo. She passed away in 2013.