Mary Nellenor Worthy, age 77, daughter of Joseph Worthy and Jannie Glass Worthy Murphy, who was born December 27,1940, in Atlanta, Georgia, passed away August 23, 2018, in Jacksonville, Florida.

Mary was perhaps best known as the loving and caring mother of her five children, but there was much more to her.  As a Spelman College student in the late 1950s and early 1960s, she was among the first to engage in the student-led sit-ins of the civil rights movement, and she was a student in one of only two college courses that the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., ever taught.  A student of nonviolence, she joined the Baha'i Faith in college, meeting her future husband (and father of all her children), the late Duane Dean Dumbleton, at a Baha'i youth conference shortly thereafter.  They were married on her birthday in 1962, and both were later featured in the famous April 1965 Ebony magazine article about the Baha'i Faith, under the banner "World's Newest Religion Stresses Brotherhood, Peace." (They later divorced in the mid-1990s.)

Peace would become her personal watchword for the rest of her life.  She was a philosopher by temperament, majoring in philosophy at Spelman and later pursuing graduate study in philosophy at the University of Georgia (although it should be noted she was also admitted to medical school at Emory University, and elected not to attend) – an enterprise she abandoned when her fifth child was born. Ultimately, she chose to express her considerable creative, intellectual, and activist passions through the study and creation of art, notably, pottery and wire sculpture, naming her enterprise Peaceways Studio, inscribing each piece with her personal motto, "Love One Another." Her artwork was exhibited at Florida Community College at Jacksonville (now known as Florida State College at Jacksonville), the Jacksonville Women's Center, and other venues, in addition to being purchased by a number of art collectors.

An avid reader, she could be found many mornings and evenings with a weighty tome in her hands, the learnings from which she shared with family and friends.  Two of her favorites were Baha'i books, namely, The Divine Art of Living and Divine Therapy . These inspirational volumes carried her through many of life's vicissitudes with her characteristic dignity, grace, and optimism. She was also known for her sense of humor, her profound commitment to the Baha'i principle of the independent investigation of truth, her deep love of animals (especially her many cats), the joy she found in gardening, and her irrepressible do-it-yourself sensibilities.

Several times throughout her life, she wrote letters to dignitaries and officials, including President Barack Obama, urging them to act in the spirit of peace and for the advancement of humankind. She often said, "The spirit of religion is to live love and speak truth," which she distilled from her reading of Viktor Frankl's famous book, Man's Search for Meaning .  Indeed, she lived love and spoke truth from the beginning to the end of her precious and exemplary life.

Mary was preceded in death by her parents, Joseph Worthy and Jannie Glass Worthy Murphy, as well as by her ex-husband, Dr. Duane Dean Dumbleton; her son-in-law, Michael Ward; her grand-daughter, Aliyah Karmil Phillips; her sister Estelle Worthy Gorman; and her brother, Thomas Worthy.