Ethel A. Crawford

Ethel Alexander Crawford, 90, passed away September 26, 2021, in Columbia, South Carolina due to heart failure. Ethel was a long-time resident of Columbia, having moved here in 1992 with her husband, Lacey, from a twenty-five year stay at the Baha’i World Center in Haifa, Israel. There Ethel had served as a pilgrim guide and docent where she assisted thousands of pilgrims who visited the Baha’i Holy places there from all corners of the earth. Her husband, Lacey, served as the photographer for the Universal House of Justice during that time.

Ethel was born in 1931 in St Louis, Missouri, to a young mother who died the year of Ethel’s birth. She then lived with her maternal grandfather and his wife in Illinois, until he died when she was ten years old. She ultimately found her way to Chicago where she trained and worked as a nurse. She married Lacey Crawford, who was a photographer for Ebony magazine. It was his work that brought them into contact with the Baha’i Faith for the first time, as his magazine assignment in the late 1960’s included creating an article on the Baha’i House of Worship in Wilmette, Illinois, just north of Chicago. They both became Baha’is in a few months and, as Ethel recounted, they were swept up into activities, travel, learning and service that continued for the next 57 years.

In Columbia, she served on the Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’is of North Richland County, and she assisted almost every aspect of community life in South Carolina from teaching children and adult classes, interfaith activities, proclamation and teaching and administrative work. She also served, consecutively, the National Baha’i Community with teaching work, race amity activities, and education. Ethel had a wonderful voice, and she found time and energy also to sing and support the national Baha’i choir.

Ethel lived her life with a strength, a compassion, and a joy that reflected her deep faith in God and she believed the Baha’i vision, that, with His guidance, humanity had the potential to achieve peace and establish justice in the world.

A graveside service will be held at 1:00 pm on Wednesday, September 29, 2021 at Elmwood Cemetery.

Ethel will lie at rest at Elmwood Cemetery in Columbia, but, if one can judge by her life on earth, she will continue serving her Lord just as productively and happily in the world to come.