Moody, Emma Revell (1842–1903)

British-born wife of American evangelist Dwight L. Moody. Name variations: Mrs. D.L. Moody. Born Emma Revell in 1842 in London, England; died in 1903 (some sources cite 1902) in Northfield, Massachusetts; daughter of Fleming Revell and Emma (Manning) Revell; married Dwight L. Moody (a Congregationalist evangelist), in 1862; children: Emma; W.R.; Paul.

Born in London, England, in 1842, Emma Revell Moody was raised a Baptist and emigrated with her family to Chicago in 1849. She was teaching Sunday School by age 15 and public school by age 17. She met her future husband Dwight L. Moody while taking a class at a mission school where he worked, and soon became a volunteer in his Congregational evangelical organization. They were married in 1862. Dwight was a popular evangelist by the early 1870s, and Moody accompanied him as he traveled and preached (frequently backed by an organist) throughout the country; they had no permanent home until their last years. Moody took great pleasure in teaching children, including her own, and was with her husband when he founded the Northfield (Massachusetts) Seminary for girls in 1879, the Mount Hermon School for boys in 1881, and the Chicago Bible Institute (now the Moody Bible Institute) in 1889. She died at age 61 in Northfield, Massachusetts. Her granddaughter Emma Moody Powell wrote a biography of her, Heavenly Destiny.

Ellen Dennis French , freelance writer, Murrieta, California