Ellen Moxley was a powerhouse of a woman whose profound belief in the sacredness of all life and all creatures was the driving force of her life. She was the beloved mother of Marian Beeby and deeply loved civil partner of Helen Steven who died in 2016. She received both the Right Livelihood Award in 2001 and the Gandhi International Peace Prize in 2004.
Ellen was already in her mid- 40s by the time we met her but recently she spoke to us of her earlier life.
She was born in Nanjing China in 1935. Her mother Marian had left New York to go to China with her Mandarin teacher, Sun, to teach English. She married Sun and they had Ellen. The political situation was worsening rapidly and Marian and her baby daughter escaped back to the USA just before the Japanese invasion in 1937. In 1945 Ellen’s mother married Jim Moxley. Ellen went to high school in San Francisco and then went on to the Ivy League College for women, Mt Holyoke in Massachusetts, where she graduated in Zoology in 1957. It was in studying zoology that she discovered the sacredness and beauty of all life and all creatures. While working at San Diego Zoo in a summer job Ellen rescued Nebbie the raccoon, hiding him in her bag to smuggle him out – possibly her first time practicing nonviolent direct action. It was also at University that she first attended Quaker Meeting and became part of a community that was a wellspring of strength and support and a focus for her commitment for the rest of her life.
Ellen and her mother moved to Europe round about 1961 first to live in Paris and then London where Ellen taught for a year and then worked as a research assistant in St. Bartholomew’s Hospital for 4 years. Her Mother died in 1967 and Ellen found much support from her Quaker friends in London.
In 1971 Ellen was appointed by the Gordon Barclay Vietnam Fund, a Quaker organisation, to manage an orphanage in Saigon. She lived and worked in Vietnam from 1972 to 1974 and during that time made life- long friends, met Helen Steven who was to become her life partner and also met Marian, a baby in the orphanage whom she adopted formally in 1975.
By 1981 Ellen had moved to Scotland and she, Helen and Marian were a family. Ellen became involved with the Peace Movement in Scotland, and was a founder member of the Gareloch Horticulturalists Nonviolent Direct Action Group. She was an active member of Amnesty International and she joined the Scottish National Party as they were the only party with an anti- nuclear stance.
In 1985 with the support of Quakers and the Iona Community Ellen and Helen opened Peace House in Braco near Dunblane. They ran residential courses on peace and justice themes most weekends for 12 years. They worked as a most effective team, planning programmes and developing material together while Ellen also provided beautiful food. More than 10,000 people were challenged, inspired and nurtured over the years.
In 1999, after closing Peace House Ellen became more involved with Trident Ploughshares. Along with two other women she boarded the nuclear weapons facility Maytime in Loch Goil and emptied it of all its computers and equipment – leaving only the first aid kit. For this action they were arrested and kept on remand in Cornton Vale Prison for 3 months until the trial. They were acquitted by the sheriff in a historic judgement. It was this daring action that led to the Right Livelihood Award in 2001.
In 2002 Helen and Ellen ‘retired’ to Burnside, their house in Raffin in the far north- west. Ellen loved her life with Helen at the edge of the Atlantic Ocean in this wonderful community of neighbours who supported each other and enjoyed a rich social life. Ellen became known for her great food and welcome, and her activism was channelled through Assynt for Peace and her ongoing Iona Community commitment. Generosity and nurture characterised Ellen’s life as did her courage, her fierce intelligence, and her unswerving focus on working for peace for which she and Helen were recognised when they were awarded the Gandhi International Peace Prize in 2004.
From her mid -70s Ellen’s health began to deteriorate as a result of a lung condition. But this didn’t stop her undertaking a 4 day fast for peace outside the Scottish Parliament to commemorate Hiroshima Day and Nagasaki Day in August 2015 when she was 80. As she reduced her work she had more time to enjoy opera – especially when it was streamed from the Met on TV, and tried out stained glass work and pottery. She and Helen had wonderful trips to Florence, to Orkney and on the Norwegian Arctic cruise.
The last three years of Ellen’s life, after Helen died, were an enormous struggle for her. As well as grieving deeply she could not reconcile herself easily to her frailty. However, she was glad she moved to Kirk Road in Lochinver in 2017 and was relieved to live in a house where the post was delivered through her front door and her bin emptied from her back door. She was always warm and enjoyed its beautiful micro climate and the generous support of the Assynt Centre. A lifetime of compassionate activism and a lively mind ensured that she was always interested in what was happening in anti- nuclear and environmental struggles around the world.
Ellen died peacefully at her home in Lochinver on July 8th 2019, with close friends at her side.