# In Memoriam: Mercedes Sanchez (1912-1999)

*Exported from [Holy-Writings.com](https://www.holy-writings.com/) on 2026-06-21 — 1 clipping.*

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> Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Boris Handal, In Memoriam: Mercedes Sanchez (1912-1999), bahai-library.com.
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> 
> In Memoriam
> Mercedes Sanchez (1912-1999)
> by Boris Handal
> 2021
> 
> (Sept 11, 1912 – Aug 3, 1999)
> 
> We are grieved to learn of the passing of the much loved, staunch maidservant of
> Bahá’u’lláh Mercedes Sánchez. Her many decades of selfless, consecrated service in the
> teaching and administrative spheres are exemplary. Present and future generations of
> Peruvian believers will warmly remember her kindness, her love, and her nurturing spirit.
> You are urged to hold memorial meetings in major centres of your country.
> 
> Be assured of our ardent prayers in the Holy Shrines for the progress of her radiant soul
> in the worlds to come. Kindly extend our heartfelt condolences to her family.
> 
> The Universal House of Justice
> Mercedes (Meche) Sanchez joined the Faith in Lima, Peru, on Christmas Eve 1946. Having been
> a staunch Catholic believer, Meche’s journey towards embracing the Cause was a hard, but
> worthwhile, spiritual battle. Divine intervention came through Eve Nicklin, the first American
> pioneer to settle in Peru in 1941. Eve Nicklin, known as the Spiritual Mother of Peru, had
> established the Universal Friendship Club at her place to attract people to the Faith. The club
> consisted of firesides where topics like unity and brotherhood were discussed along with social
> activities such as picnics, games, sports and other outdoor activities. Most early Peruvian Bahá’ís
> had been students of English and were confirmed through the love that Eve instilled in those
> gatherings.
> 
> Meche’s encounter with the Faith happened at a time when the legacy of the Second World War
> had left a thirst for knowledge of other countries, whose news had come around during the
> conflagration like an informal geography lesson. Many enrolled in English classes, particularly
> young people, wishing one day to taste fortune in the great Republic of the North. That was the
> period of the beginnings of commercial aviation, the atom, the radio airing new ideas such as world
> peace, religious tolerance, unity of nations, freedom and democracy.
> 
> A successful dressmaker for Lima’s upper class society, Meche had decided to take English
> lessons so that she could undertake a correspondence course to improve her dress design
> expertise. She then approached a German, teacher of English, who after considering Meche’s work
> schedule too complex for arranging lessons, referred her to Eve Nicklin. Meche was warned,
> however, that Eve Nicklin had a "strange religión”. In Meche’s words:
> 
> When I met her [Eve Nicklin], she was forming it [the Universal Friendship Club]
> and her Local Assembly was elected two years earlier. I got invited to that club. She said:
> "Well, I hope to see you here on Wednesday, we have a club." Well, I was not a Bahá’í
> and I had difficulty understanding alien things. I saw the pictures and just asked, “Who is
> the man on this table?” which was ‘Abdu'l-Bahá. There was a young interpreter, Manuel
> Vera, who explained it to me ... Then I went on Wednesday and there was an American,
> Gwenne Sholtis, who was en route to Bolivia being a pioneer there, and then she played a
> game, where we were all sitting on the carpet on the floor. We were all young and the
> questions and answers were all in English. It was very simple and nice which I seemed to
> like. Eve then asked me to read from her worn out book Bahá'u'lláh and the New Era a
> passage about equal rights for men and women. I read it and she told me, “Ah, you read
> very well Meche. Do you not want to come on Saturday to talk about this point?" "What
> happens on Saturday?” I said. [Eve replied]: "The youths meet and we all read from that
> book. You will read and Manuel Vera will give the explanations that I am going to give in
> English because he is the translator." All this was in English. "Perfect," I said.
> 
> I went and told a close friend who I knew since we were children. His name was
> Demetrio ... and he worked with me. I said, "Demetrio, you know, I have been invited
> by a lady Eve Nicklin. She is nice and gives classes on Saturday. I will read this
> paragraph from this book and then we will comment, but you know, I am a bit scared
> because I do not know what it is, whether it is political because it [the book] speaks of
> rights of men and women and I have also heard about a universal currency." And he told
> me: "But Meche, why do you get involved with those things? You do not know." "Well,"
> I told him, "but we must also have new experiences in our lives. And that's why I invite
> you because you are my friend. I will invite my brother Enrique and a few of his
> university friends and some other people. It would not be that they will throw tomatoes at
> me [laughing].” "Well," he said," let’s go together”.
> 
> Saturday came and I had already read and prepared myself on that book. I went
> with my brother, my brother-in-law and some friends of my brother. When I finished
> reading the book I gave my opinion, because I was always concerned with achieving
> justice, social justice, but not through religion but by other means. Then Eve Nicklin
> explained and gave me an account of what the Bahá’í Faith is.
> 
> I was astonished when Demetrio raised his hand and said: "What do I have to do
> to join this movement?” 'Well, you have to read such and such book" said Eve. On
> Monday, when he came to my house I told him: "But Demetrio, what have you done?
> Belonging to this movement? If here it says that this movement is religion." "Yes Meche
> [he replied] because I have always been a free thinker. You've never seen me going to
> Mass or having Communion. You are the fanatic that always takes the Communion every
> first Friday, going to Mass and all those things. But my mind is completely different"
> 
> So, for almost a year I was bothering the Bahá’ís, sometimes mocking at them
> within myself because I thought, "These four people, what do they think? Jesus Christ is
> the Son of God ... and how can they say that Bahá'u'lláh is the return of Christ". And then
> I went through my internal strife, my spoken confessions with Father Fordín, who had
> been my spiritual guide since I took communion at the age of seven years. And I
> explained to him that they [the Bahá’ís] forbid nothing to me. He, a very intelligent man,
> said: "We have to be careful because they may be the false prophets who will come …
> But anyway, if they do not forbid you anything, keep investigating" And so, after a year
> in December, I said" I want to belong to this Faith".
> 
> By that time the Lima Bahá’í community had no more than thirty members. The following year
> she was elected to the Local Spiritual Assembly and also chosen by the community to represent
> Peru at the Second South American Bahá’í Congress to be held in January 2008 in Santiago,
> Chile. Meche and Eve embarked on a small ship that stopped at every port en route, taking
> fifteen days to reach their destination. The only people on the ship were the captain, his wife and
> a few women to whom the Faith was delivered. They also taught the Faith at each port along the
> way.
> 
> This congress which was followed by a summer school had a great impression on Meche and on
> the other native believers. There, these few early South American believers, armed with a very
> basic knowledge of the Faith and scattered through the vast subcontinent, realised that they were
> part of a major brotherhood linking them, despite the tyranny of the distance. There were
> delegates from Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Uruguay and Chile. Their inspiration and
> guidance came from the beloved Guardian Shoghi Effendi who through personal correspondence
> from Haifa was lovingly guiding them step by step. The delegates also realised that they were all
> learning, asking simple questions, focusing on teaching methods to expand their Faith. As a
> result, a public talk was held and an article on the Faith appeared in El Mercurio. The beloved
> Guardian sent also a special message for the event.
> Meche’s participation in the Santiago Congress enhanced her capabilities and enthusiasm to
> serve the Cause of God at the local, national and international level. Being a successful business
> women, she offered a rented flat where she used to rent night dresses, to serve as the Lima
> Bahá’í centre for many years. It is in this venue where CEBSA, the Bahá’í Teaching Committee
> for South America, after transferring its seat from Santiago to Lima, began an intensive
> publishing program producing Bahá’í literature in Spanish such as Baha’u’llah and the New Era,
> with the assistance of an old mimeograph and the local youth. Her house was also a place where
> both international and national visitors were generously accommodated.
> 
> In 1951 Meche was elected to the first Regional National Spiritual Assembly for ten South
> American countries (Perú, Ecuador, Chile, Bolivia, Venezuela, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay,
> Colombia and Argentina). Such a body was later re-arranged into two regional national
> assemblies each with five countries under their jurisdictions where Meche also served with great
> devotion, frequently travelling overseas for institutional meetings and other events. She made
> innumerable teaching trips to the interior of the country and served as homefront pioneer to help
> establish the Local Spiritual Assemblies required by the goals of the Ten Year Crusade. In 1961
> the National Spiritual Assembly of Peru was formed and two years later Meche had the privilege
> of being present at the first election of the Universal House of Justice in 1963. Some few years
> later, Meche was appointed a member of the Auxiliary Board to the Hands of the Cause,
> continuing her teaching trips to the interior of the country and encouraging the friends in summer
> schools and other events.
> 
> The 1997 National Convention of Peru paid a beautiful homage to Meche when she, for health
> reasons, was released from her almost forty-year long services as Auxiliary Board member. At
> the closing of the event, someone asked that all those who served as Assistants to Meche should
> stand up. It was emotionally overwhelming to see that almost all attendants, including all
> attending Auxiliary Board and National Spiritual Assembly members, instantaneously rose to
> their feet. There were dozens of friends that during decades and under various circumstances had
> served under her loving guidance and care, and now were paying tribute to her work whose
> loving education was later affectionately known as “Meche’s School”.
> 
> She was the embodiment of love and affability, always wise and tactful. She could easily solve
> any dispute, cure the hurt soul and bring conciliation back again. Of frail health - she had
> poliomyelitis as a child which left as sequela a limp and tachycardia - her radiant presence filled
> any meeting immediately with encouragement and affection for one another. Her extreme
> positive outlook was present even in the worst circumstances, an attitude that very often was
> hilariously celebrated by the friends. Although never married, her spiritual children were many,
> with one youth writing of his sorrow at her passing: “Dear Meche, from your nearness to God,
> together with other angels like you, you can see this community raised for the most part by you.
> God willing, we will be worthy of your pride…”
>
> — *In Memoriam: Mercedes Sanchez (1912-1999) (Used by permission of the curator)*