Ruth Pringle
Ruth Pringle | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | c. 1920 United States |
| Died | August 22, 2003 Costa Rica |
| Other names | Ruth Yancey |
| NSA member | Nicaragua 1961 - 1962 Panama 1962 - 1964 |
| ABM | Americas 1963 - 1980 |
| Counsellor | Americas 1980 - 2000 |
Ruth Pringle (c. 1920 - August 22, 2003) was an American Bahá’í who served as a Continental Counselor for the Americas.
Biography[edit]
Pringle was born in approximately 1920 in the south of the United States as Ruth Yancey. She enrolled to study nursing in the late 1930s and her school was segregated with Pringle refusing to sit separately to white students and objecting to segregation of the classrooms which resulted in her having to meet with the Dean. Her efforts did lead to some desegregation. After graduating she completed postgraduate courses in surgical nursing and operating room technique in Chicago and completed a degree in zoology and chemistry.[1]
In 1953 Pringle became a Bahá’í after reading the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh for the first time and she pioneered to Puerto Rica two months after declaring. In 1956 she pioneered to Honduras and then Guatemala for a year before returning to Honduras. She later pioneered to Nicaragua where she was elected to the first National Spiritual Assembly of Nicaragua when the body was established in 1961.[1]
In the early 1960's Pringle pioneered to Panama where she married Alan Pringle which was the first Bahá’í wedding to be legally recognized in the country. She was elected to the National Spiritual Assembly of Panama and she and her husband went to the First International Convention in the Holy Land where they participated in the election of the Universal House of Justice and they then attended the World Congress in London which she gave a talk at. After the Convention and Congress she was appointed as an Auxiliary Board member in November 1963.[1]
Pringle continued to serve as an Auxiliary Board member throughout the 1970's speaking at several conferences throughout the decade and in 1975 she accompanied Ruhiyyih Khanum on the Green Light Expedition through South America. In 1980 she was appointed as a Counselor for the Americas by the Universal House of Justice for a five year term. She was reappointed for several successive terms before completing her service as Counselor in 2000.[1]
Pringle passed away in Costa Rica in 2003. The Universal House of Justice wrote the following in a message conveyed after her passing:
"Her magnificent career, spanning a full-half century and including two decades of splendid, resolute service as a Continental Counsellor, has shed new and fresh luster upon the American Baha'i community's historic world mission."[1]
References[edit]
