Evelyn Elizabeth Faucett was born on February 28, 1917 in Moradabad, in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. Her parents, Robert Isaac Faucett and Myrtle Bare Faucett, were Methodist missionaries in India for many decades as were her grandparents, Charles Lysander Bare and Susan Winchell Bare.
Evelyn was the youngest of four siblings, including Marguerite Faucett Holmes, Winchell Faucett and Leonard Faucett. Evelyn’s family was truly remarkable for the love they shared, their strong commitment to Methodism and to religious values and principles common to the world’s religions. All of the family spoke Hindi as well as English and some were fluent in Urdu. During the summer temperatures were often above 110 on the lowland plains of India and the family would retreat to Nainital, a hill station in Uttarakhand where her father was in the minister of the first Methodist church in Southeast Asia, founded in 1858. The church is still standing today and has a small, but vital, presence in the town’s diverse religious community which also includes two other places of worship: a Sikh Gurudwara and the Jama Masjid, an architecturally stunning mosque. The Faucett family missionaries were well known for building schools in northern India and Evelyn’s father had the rare opportunity to provide ministerial services and pastoral counseling in an isolated leper colony where others feared to go.
Evelyn attended the Woodstock School in Mussoorrie, another hill station with spectacular views of the central axis of the Himalayas. During some of the time she was there her sister, Marguerite, was on the faculty. Woodstock is a boarding school, initially conceived as a school for the children of missionaries and now an internationally recognized boarding school enrolling children from diverse backgrounds from around the world. Evelyn attended Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa, graduating in 1939. She was president of the Pi Beta Phi sorority and thus was a sorority sister with both her great niece, Elizabeth Holmes Spaulding, a Pi Beta Phi graduate of Knox College – and her grandmother, Susan Winchell Bare. Evelyn’s yearbook noted that she was “Just so sweet and peppy that everyone likes her.” Characteristics that never changed throughout her entire life. After World War II, Evelyn and her dear friend, Sue Warren, bicycled 1000 miles across England and Europe, ending their memorable trip in Paris. As Americans traveling “on a shoestring” they were greeted warmly everywhere they went and had many offers of free meals and free places to stay. Following in the footsteps of other family members, Evelyn had a long and distinguished career in the Methodist church. She was a church secretary and administrator at the First Methodist churches in Evanston, Illinois and Iowa City, Iowa.
After retirement at age 72 Evelyn moved to Nashville, Tennessee and lived with Sue Warren for many years. Consistent with Evelyn’s lifelong interests in India and the world’s religions, one of the first places she always took visitors was the beautiful Sri Ganesha (Hindu) Temple in Nashville. Evelyn moved to Chelsea Retirement Community in 2012 and thoroughly enjoyed her experiences and friendships there. It has been the perfect place for her with the possible exception of the Tilapia entre, a fish she had not previously heard of and which left her palate somewhat nonplussed. One of her peak experiences at CRC was when her soon to be 105 year old brother Winchell was transported by ambulance from a nursing home near Chicago in 2012 so that they could spend the last few weeks of his life together. Although Evelyn’s health declined slowly and then more rapidly over the past year she never lost the ability to show affection for residents and staff at CRC - she had the last laugh on all of us when we learned that she still had a valid driver’s license in her possession when she passed away on September 2 at age 99.
Evelyn’s loving family includes her nephew, Robert Holmes, and her honorary niece, Sara Holmes, as well as her nieces Ellen Faucett and Debbie Faucett. She is also survived by her great niece, Elizabeth (Holmes) Spaulding, her husband Dan Spaulding and daughter Abby Spaulding. Also surviving Evelyn are her great nephew, Charles Holmes, his wife Jen Lockwood and their children, Sophie, Will and Ingrid Holmes. Following the deaths of her siblings, Evelyn became the benevolent matriarch and moral center of the Faucett and Holmes families and we have always been deeply grateful for the abundant love and care that she showered upon each member of the family.
A celebration of her life will be held on Monday, October 3, 10:00 am, at Chelsea Retirement Community Chapel.
Click here to view or sign Evelyn's online guestbook.