The biography of Marion Jack 1866-1954

Among the graves in the Sofia War Cemetery is a simple granite headstone bearing a remarkable inscription:

How did this lone Canadian painter come to be in Bulgaria? What brought her? Why did she choose to stay in this unfamiliar country all during the ravages and trials of the Second World War? Who was Marion Jack and why was she called an ‘immortal heroine’? An adventurer who travelled by boat up the Yukon, an art student in Paris, a suffragette in London, a teacher in the Middle Eastern household of ‘Abdu'l-Bahá, a ‘pioneer’ who took the message of Bahá'u'lláh to the heart of the Balkans — unstoppable, indomitable, she was ‘General’ Jack, who was never afraid to dare.

Although she spent nearly 30 years in Bulgaria, she never mastered the language. She had difficulties with money and with the authorities, was bombed and evacuated during the war, slept in a cold schoolroom and was often hungry and insufficiently clad. Yet Marion Jack’s resting-place in Bulgaria is a shrine ‘which the people of that country will increasingly honour and cherish’. She is for present-day Bahá'ís an 'inspiration and example’.