Alice Ambler Award

Alice Ambler was a member of Plymouth Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends. She lived across the street from the Meetinghouse at a time when Plymouth Meeting was a crossroad village is Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, USA. For those of us who came to the Meeting in the 1950’, 60’s and 70’s she was our introduction to a generation of Friends that had made the transition from a quietists period of Friends to a Religious Society fully engaged in the post-World War Two world. The lives of this generation of Eastern Friends reinterpreted their Religious Society’s faith and Practice in response to a rapidly contracting world; blending personal and corporate revelation of God’s will with practical engagement of the sufferings of the people of the world’s many cultures.
 
Alice was the last plain-speaking Friend in our Monthly Meeting; the use of Thee and Thou when speaking to people, as well as scriptural references to illuminate a point. She was the first woman of her family to complete college and used her degree to work as a social worker, teacher, and shop keeper in our communities. Alice was part of the stream of public woman of America who worked outside of the home to improve the situation of her fellow Americans. She was one of a generation of Quaker women who were the daughters (both literally and spiritually) of Mothers such as Susan B. Anthony, Lucretia Mott, and Alice Paul. The swirl of the world during her lifetime brought her the experience of two World Wars, the struggle for woman’s right to vote, House Committee on Un-American Affairs investigation of members of her Quaker Meeting community, the Civil rights movement and Viet Nam. During these times she maintained close and active participation in her faith community urging us to understand the concerns of the world and to response to them.
 
Upon her death Plymouth Monthly Meeting established the Alice Ambler Award to honor those in our community and in the wider world who continue her work of building community based upon peace and social justice. The award has been granted to High school students for work they have done in their communities and to organizations both local and global who are actively working with peace and social concern issues.