# Moody, Susan

*Exported from [Holy-Writings.com](https://www.holy-writings.com/) on 2026-06-20 — 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: R. Jackson Armstrong-Ingram, Moody, Susan, bahai-library.com.
> ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
> 
> Moody, Susan
> 
> R. Jackson Armstrong-Ingram
> 
> 1998
> 
> Moody, Susan I. (1851-1934). Early Chicago Bahá'í and pioneer in the
> development of education and healthcare for women in Iran.
> 
> Susan I. Moody was born in Amsterdam, New York, United States of America,
> on November 20, 1851. Accounts of her education suggest a somewhat eclectic
> mix of studies in art, music, and some medicine. She also acted as
> "spinster-mother" to her brother's children for many years.
> 
> When Moody was fifty, she decided to focus on medicine and she finished her
> studies and established a practice in Chicago, Illinois. It was not unusual
> in the late nineteenth or early twentieth centuries for an American woman
> in her middle years to train as a doctor especially as training at that
> time usually took two years or less and most doctors worked out of their
> homes making it both a practical and respectable option for middle-class
> earning by women.
> 
> At the same time as she was establishing herself professionally, Moody
> became involved with the Chicago Bahá'í community. She studied the Bahá'í
> Faith with Isabella Brittingham and became a convinced Bahá'í around 1903.
> She was an active member of the Chicago Bahá'í community from the start,
> hosting meetings in her home and being involved with women's activities
> generally. She was involved with beginning a Bahá'í Sunday School for the
> children of the community, and was also a delegate to the convention in
> March 1909 at which the Bahai Temple Unity was formed.
> 
> It was partly as a result of her inclination to hospitality that Moody was
> to begin preparing for her last and most significant career move. In 1905
> she took in Ameen Ullah Fareed as a boarder. Fareed was 'Abdu'l-Bahá's
> nephew and had originally come to Chicago in 1901 to serve as interpreter
> for his father, Mirza Assadullah, one of the early Bahá'í teachers sent to
> the United States by 'Abdu'l-Bahá. Fareed also came to Chicago to study
> medicine, so he had a vocational link with Moody. While Fareed was staying
> in her home, Moody took advantage of the opportunity to gain a basic grasp
> of Persian language and culture.
> 
> In 1909, an appeal reached the Bahá'ís of Chicago from a small group of
> Iranian Bahá'í doctors who were starting a hospital in Tehran, Persia, for
> an American woman doctor to come and work with them so that the new
> hospital's services would be available to women. The appeal was endorsed by
> 'Abdu'l-Bahá and Moody agreed to go.
> 
> Moody travelled to Tehran in late 1909, breaking her journey at 'Akka,
> Palestine, to spend several days visiting 'Abdu'l-Bahá. She arrived in
> Tehran November 25, 1909, and within a few weeks had a flourishing private
> practice as well as her work with the group of doctors at the hospital.
> 
> Moody was particularly concerned with the health needs of women. She saw
> many of the health problems she encountered among them as exacerbated by
> lack of even the most basic knowledge of hygiene and nursing skills and she
> began to instruct some Iranian women in practical nursing and midwifery.
> 
> Moody's interest in improving the situation of Iranian woman through
> education was not limited to matters of health. In 1910, she helped build
> on efforts that had been made by conducting small schools for girls in some
> Tehran Bahá'í homes to establish a formal school for girls under the
> auspices of the Tehran Bahá'í community. This school was not restricted to
> Bahá'ís, however, and it became a highly regarded institution educating
> numerous girls to the point where they could qualify as teachers themselves
> and help develop schools for girls throughout the country.
> 
> Within the Bahá'í community, Moody was also instrumental in the founding of
> Bahá'í religious study classes for girls in 1914. These classes provided a
> comprehensive, graduated course of study in their religion for Bahá'í girls
> that was intended to give them a grounding in their faith comparable to
> that already available to boys.
> 
> Moody was assisted in her efforts not only by local women who had laid the
> groundwork on which she was able to help them build but by three other
> American Bahá'í women who came specifically to work with her.
> 
> Elizabeth Stewart, a niece of Isabella Brittingham, was a trained nurse who
> came to work and live with Moody in 1910. Later in 1910, they were joined
> by Dr Sarah Clock who took a house in another part of town. In 1911,
> Lillian Kappes arrived to share Clock's house.
> 
> The first three women had come primarily because of their medical expertise
> and had found themselves much involved with education. Kappes came
> specifically to head the girls' school and put it on a solid academic
> basis. She also taught at the boys' school which was also run by the Tehran
> Bahá'í community.
> 
> Both Clock and Kappes spent the rest of their lives in Iran. Kappes died in
> 1920. Moody renamed the building fund for new premises for the girls'
> school that had been started the previous year in Kappes' honor and this
> fund was a major support for the work of the school in subsequent years.
> Clock died in 1922. Kappes and Clock were buried in the terrace surrounding
> the shrine of the Bahá'í martyrs Varqa and Ruhu'llah.
> 
> Due to political unrest and anti-American feeling in Tehran in 1924, Moody
> and Stewart left Iran in the latter part of that year and arrived back in
> the United States in early 1925. Moody spent much of her time there
> campaigning for support for the girls' school in Tehran. She also nursed
> Stewart through recurring ill health until Stewart's death in October 1926.
> 
> After the death of Kappes, the girls' school had continued operating with
> teachers who had themselves been taught there by Kappes. In 1922, Dr
> Genvieve Coy, a specialist in educational psychology, arrived to take
> charge for a time. By late 1926, however, Shoghi Effendi was writing to the
> American Bahá'í community of the need for one or two American Bahá'ís to
> take up residence in Tehran and asking that Moody be consulted in this
> matter.
> 
> In late 1928, Moody herself returned to Tehran accompanied by Adelaide
> Sharp who was to take over the girls' school and assist with the boys' one.
> Sharp took a house of her own and was shortly joined by her mother, Clara,
> who kept house for her and assisted in her work with the schools.
> 
> After her return to Tehran, Moody moved in with a Persian family the father
> of whom she had known since his childhood. Her age and health did not
> permit her to be as active as before, but she did see a small number of
> private patients and hold a free clinic. She also regularly visited the
> girls' school.
> 
> Moody was much loved by the Tehran Bahá'í community and had many visitors
> during occasional bouts of illness that confined her to her room. She
> became increasingly infirm in the early 1930s but remained mentally
> vigorous. She died October 23, 1934, after a fairly brief illness. Her
> funeral was a large affair and she was buried near the graves of Kappes and
> Clock.
> 
> Bibliography
> 
> Original sources in the National Bahá'í Archives, Wilmette, Illinois, that
> are of particular interest on Moody and her activities include the Orol
> Platt Papers, and copies of Moody's correspondence of 1909-1910 in the
> Thornton Chase Papers.
> 
> There were many mentions of her activities in The Star of the West and
> Bahá'í News over the years.
> 
> "A Bahá'í Pioneer of East and West - Doctor Susan I. Moody (The Hand-Maid
> of the Most High)" by Jessie E. Revell in The Bahá'í World, Vol VI (483-
> 486) is useful but not always reliable.
> 
> Further discussion of the contribution made to the education of girls in
> Tehran by Moody and her associates can be found in R. Jackson Armstrong-
> Ingram. 1986. "American Bahá'í Women and the Education of Girls in Tehran,
> 1909-1934." in Peter Smith (ed.) Studies in Babi and Bahá'í History, Vol
> III: In Iran. Los Angeles: Kalimat Press.
> 
> METADATA
> 
> Views14843 views since posted 1999; last edit 2012;
> 
> previous at archive.org.../armstrong-ingram_encyclopedia_susan_moody;
> URLs changed in 2010, see archive.org.../bahai-library.org
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> Citation: ris/443
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> — *Moody, Susan (Used by permission of the curator)*