American Lady devotee of Swami Vivekananda whose notes of his classes in Northern California, along with those of Mr. Rhodehamel, are the only records of Swamiji’s lectures and classes in San Francisco and Alameda, when he spoke “to large audiences and small, at least sixty-one times” within a period of forty-six days (Swami Vivekananda in the West, New Discoveries, Vol. 5, p. 371). Miss Ansell, living in the California Street Home of Truth at the time, initially took the notes to practise shorthand. She attended Swamiji’s first lecture at the Unitarian Church in Oakland with her friends on 25.2.1900. Through Miss Lydia Bell, ,the the Head of the Home of Truth, she was drawn to Oriental philosophy as well as Swamiji. Took notes of almost all his lectures in that region from 16.3.1900 to 29.5.1900. However, only in 1945 undertook the task of transcribing the notes at the request of Swami Ashokananda. Four of the transcripts, edited by the latter, were published in the 1946 issues of The Voice of India, the magazine published by the Vedanta Society of Northern California. All were incorporated in the Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda. She also met Swamis Turiyananda, Abhedananda and Trigunatitananda. Swami Turiyananda imparted initiation to her naming her Ujvala. Spent her last seven years in Vivekananda House of Hollywood Centre and died there on 31.1.1955. Her reminiscences of Swamiji published by this centre in its journal Vedanta and the West (May-June 1954) were included in the Reminiscences of Swami Vivekananda (1961). A Bengali version appeared in the Udbodhan (57. 1, 3, 4). (Udbodhan, 57.3.167)
The story is this. The brahmacharini who came to her room, as was usual, about seven o’clock on that Monday morning, found Ujjvala in bed, unconscious. She had been her usual lively self the evening before, having especially enjoyed some chocolate fudge I had made. We had, all of us, been sitting in Swami Prabhavananda’s room. Suddenly Prabhavananda had asked Ujjvala: “Ujjvala, have you become butter?” He later said that the question had come to him unexpectedly and that he had given expression to it without quite knowing why. This was a reference to something Swami Turiyananda had told her around 1900 at Shanti Ashrama, that if she worked hard at spiritual life she could become butter. (The allusion of course being that one’s sadhana is a process of separating what is useful and precious in one’s true nature from what is worthless). To everyone’s surprise, as Ujjvala by nature tended to be self-deprecating, she had firmly replied: “Yes!” (Katha Upanishad 2.3.17)
The doctor stated that Ujjvala had a massive stroke in her sleep. I went to her room. She was very attached to me, so I knew that I could rouse her if anyone could. In effect a certain consciousness did return, only to reject my salutations, as if to say, “Now let me be; I have serious things to do” and plunge inside again. It went on like this until about noon. Then she whispered, “Mother”, and tears flowed from the outside of her eyes. Swami Turiyananda had once told her: “What you want, you will get. If you went entertainment, you will get entertainment. If you want Mother you will get Mother.”
In an instant — from the dramatic change, which came over her face — yes, it changed from flesh to clay — I saw that Ujjvala had died. Swami Prabhavananda had waited gravely in his room. When I brought him the news, he said, “Her guru came for her”.
— Swami Vidyatmananda (Source: Western Women in the Footsteps of Swami Vivekananda)