Marty Ravellette

Marty Ravellette was the fourth[1] child of the farm family of Ernest D. Ravellette and Laurene Ravellette (née Frohreich).[2][3] He was born without arms, though not because of Thalidomide which was an issue in the later 1950s and 1960s.[1] Faced with the challenge of this disability his family was convinced to place him at 2 months old at the Good Shepherd Home (today the Good Shepherd Rehabilitation Network) in Allentown, Pennsylvania. The main practice at Good Shepherd was mainstreaming and there they trained him in adapting the use of his legs and feet as arms and hand as well as an early prosthetic arms he later stopped using. Ravellette was not the first armless person to go through the Good Shepherd facility - that was Ray Meyers[4] - who was an inspiration to Ravellette.[1] Ravellette, while missing arms, favored his left foot like many do their left hand.[5] Ravellete was known to entertain people with his use of feet and body to do tricks.[6] While there Ravellette attended regular public school as well starting with Jefferson Elementary School and then South Mountain Junior High.[7] At the age of 11 Ravellette suffered burns from a fire accident. At the age of 16 Ravellette rejoined his family partly because he was a discipline problem but was initially barred from attending high school by the principle - in the era, as Ravellette understood it, physical handicaps were equated with mental handicaps.[1] Ravellette's mother sued the school and produced transcripts from his public school years while living at the Good Shepherd. However while attending high school Ravellete's reputation was not built because of his lack of arms as much as by his "rebel" confrontational attitude where he "didn't back down"[1] when fellow students picked at his difference and towns people treated him differently - "For the first time, I felt like I was a cripple."[7] But living on a farm taught him to not be afraid of work. His family did not have running water and at one point it was his job to fill water troughs from a "hand" pump.[1] For the high school prom Ravellette recalled he was denied a date saying "Marty, when I want to get married I want to marry a man, not half a one."[8]

After graduating circa 1957 the family moved to Oceanside, California and Ravellette ran away from home.[9] In San Diego Ravellette began to work in a variety of jobs.[1] Unemployed in 1962 he was driving from Los Angeles, California to his home on San Diego when he was pulled over in a line of cars for speeding.[10] After taking his driver's license the officer noticed that he was handed the license by Ravellette's foot. After proving he had a valid driver's license he sent Ravellette on with a citation. The incident was picked up by the Associated Press and it ran in several newspapers across the country. One place in particular was where JoBeth Johnson lived in Florida and they struck up a long-distance relationship that grew to a marriage after Ravellette moved to Klamath Falls, Oregon in 1963.[11] They lived there a number of years; he, a member of the Church of Christ and she a Baptist.[12] Together they had a daughter, Nancy (who was born with arms.) and a son who died as a child in a car accident.[13]

Around 1967[2] after some community college, Ravellette soon moved to San Diego living in boarding house,[1] where he was entertaining men with parlor tricks when he met Ray Estes who pointed out he was being used for their amusement and they were not his friends. In the same period Estes noticed he was much more agile with his feet and remarked "If God has seen fit to put you on earth without arms, it's up to the rest of us to accept you - not you to accept us."[1] which Ravellette took as a turning point in his life. Estes and Ravellette would be long time friends. Estes had joined the Baháʼí Faith in 1966[14] and Ravellette also converted to the religion in 1967.[2] Soon his mother[15] and wife[16] were visible serving in the religion and the Ravellettes had a second child May 21, 1970 after they moved to Eugene, Oregon - Marcus Husayn Ravellette - "Husayn" is a name recognized in Baháʼí circles as the birth-name of the founder, Baháʼu'lláh. However, on June 11, 1975 Marcus was killed in an automobile accident[17] and buried as a Baháʼí.[1] Marty and JoBeth divorced some time afterwards. Ravellete moved to Teaneck, New Jersey where he became a grounds keeper at the Baháʼí property there. It was near there in Paramus, New Jersey that he met the woman who would be his next wife - Maree.[1]

In 1991[2] Ravellette moved to Chapel Hill, North Carolina and lived in various circumstances but gained enough notoriety to win North Carolina's Disabled Citizen of the Year in 1994[18] while running a landscaping business called "Hands on Landscaping." However he again gained national fame when he rescued an elderly lady from a burning vehicle.[19] He appeared on national television shows like Discovery Channel[1] (which won an Award of Merit by Carolina Silver Reels)[20] and other shows though initially he had sought no publicity.[1] Following this he had the opportunity to go back to the Good Shepherd for a reunion[21] and began a period of reconnecting with his family while at the same time finding another with whom he would marry - African-American Maree.[22] Additionally he began to speak to groups - for example he was a frequent guest at a journalism class of Chuck Stone[1] at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill[23] as well as other opportunities[9] using stories of his life and physical challenges to underpin larger lessons on the benefits of diversity, justice, equality, and the unity of humankind. Inspired by his beliefs as a long-time member of the Baháʼí Faith, he would often quote one of his favorite lines from the Baháʼí sacred writings: “Noble have I created thee; why hast thou abased thyself" and observing that he was in a special position to serve humanity because of his differentness - "Why was I born? Why was I born with no arms?… Now serve mankind with no arms and not yourself!" During the filming of a documentary on his life[1] published in 2003 he met Tony Melendez, a performer similarly armless, and his mother died the year it was published.[1] The documentary was picked up by the Volunteer and Information Quinte advocacy network for disabled people and telecast on television subtitled in Romanian.[24]

Late morning on November 12, 2007, Ravellette was in a car accident in southern Alamance County, North Carolina at Highway 87 where the little town of Eli Whitney, North Carolina is and he failed to yield to an oncoming lumber truck. He was ejected from the vehicle because he did not wear a seatbelt because of his disability and died later that day at UNC Hospital[25] just a few days after another Baháʼí was similarly killed in an accident at the same intersection.[26] He is buried at Maplewood Cemetery, Durham, North Carolina.[2]

• He won the Governor's Trophy for outstanding handicapped person of Oregon in 1968.[7]
• He appeared on the Sally Jessy Raphael show in 1990.[7]
• He won the North Carolina's Disabled Citizen of the Year in 1994.[18]
• In 1998 he appeared on The Today Show[7] twice (October and another date)[8] and The Rosie O'Donnell Show.[7][21] and won the Robert P. Connelly Medal for Heroism from Kiwanis.[27]

• Ravellete was the 28th honoree on the "Wall of Honor" at the Good Shepherd Home, June 26, 1999[1] and lead the parade of the Fête del la Musique in Carrboro, North Carolina.[28]

• He is featured in the documentary film No Arms Needed: A Hero Among Us produced & directed by Bill Hayes, written by Kirk Streb,[29] and shown on the Discovery Channel on May 8, 2004[5] and elsewhere.[24]

• Susan Audé, a Baháʼí telecaster without use of her legs.
• James Wesley Turpin, another famous Baháʼí who lived in Chapel Hill, North Carolina

• North Carolina Collection clipping file, 1990-2009 (Ravellette, Marty (1939 - 2007)), North Carolina People, Places, and Things, Wilson Library, University Library of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.