Dunn, Clara and Hyde
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Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Graham Hassall, Dunn, Clara and Hyde, bahai-library.com.
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Dunn, Clara and Hyde

Graham Hassall

2000-01

Clara and Hyde Dunn are among the few Bahá'ís who left their
homes to pioneer in response to 'Abdu'l-Bahá's Tablets of the
Divine Plan. They travelled to Australia, where their combined
efforts across several decades succeeded in established a firm
pillar of the world-wide Bahá'í community. Both were named Hands
of the Cause of God by Shoghi Effendi, Hyde posthumously, in
1951, and Clara in 1952.

Hyde was born in London, the son of a chemist, 5 March 1855.
As a young man he worked in England and France, before migrating
to North America with his first wife, Fanny. He worked as a
travelling salesman for Borne's Milk Company. In Seattle in about
1905, Hyde overheard Ward Fitzgerald quoting the words spoken by
Bahá'u'lláh to E.G. Browne: "This earth is one country and
mankind its citizens, regard ye not one another as
strangers" (early translation). Hyde was attracted by these
words, and soon became a Bahá'í. He commenced travelling with
Fitzgerald to share the message with others. Subsequently, such
prominent Bahá'ís as Thornton Chase, Lua Getsinger and Ella
Cooper assisted Hyde in his close investigation of the Bahá'í
teachings. In about 1907 Hyde met Clara Davis when he entered her
office in Walla Walla, Washington, to place an advertisement for
a Bahá'í meeting he and Fitzgerald were holding that evening.
Clara perceived that the two men had not eaten for some time, and
invited them to share her supper. She listened to their message,
and some time after became a Bahá'í. She was then living alone in
Washington. She had been born Clara Holder, on 12 May 1869, and
had married, at the age of 16, a man named Davis and left Ireland
for Canada, but had lost her husband in an accident before the
birth of her son. Unable to both raise the child and earn a
living, the baby was cared for by her late husband's family.

Hyde had taught the Bahá'í Faith enthusiastically in
California and was among the first to teach it in Nevada. Hyde's
enquiring and earnest letters to Thornton Chase, enquiring into
the deeper teachings of the Faith, prompted his mentor to write
several pages, addressing such themes as the nature of fear, the
station of the Persian martyrs in comparison with the American
Bahá'ís, the resurrection of Christian teachings through the
Bahá'í revelation, the mistaking of the holy spirit for the
spirit of man; and prompted Chase to write to Hyde Dunn in
February 1911: "Your letters are such a pleasure to me. I
see shining through them the earnest soul, which has tasted of
heavenly food and found it so delicious that it ever hungers for
the Table of the Lord."

Both Hyde Dunn and Clara Davis met 'Abdu'l-Bahá when he
visited California in October 1912. Hyde attended as many
addresses by the Master that he could. The impact of being in his
presence gave both he and Clara strength for the remainder of
their lives. Hyde's first wife Fanny died in 1916, and a year
later he and Clara married. In Berkeley, they lived close to
Kathrine Frankland, and Clara knew well Kathryn's sister Hazel
Tomlinson of Santa Rosa. They knew Imogene Hoagg well, and spoke
in the homes of Dr Woodson and Frances Allen, the first Bahá'ís
in Berkely, and of Jesse Vance Matteson in Fruitvale, Oakland.
Agnes Alexander dined at their home in Oakland.

When, in 1919, Clara and Hyde learnt of the call Abdu'l-Bahá
had made in his "Tablets of the Divine Plan" for
teachers to take the message of Bahá'u'lláh to the many lands
that he himself was now unable to visit, they shared the same
immediate thought: Hyde is reported to have looked up and said
"let us go where 'Abdu'l-Bahá wished to go". They
decided to go, despite being low in funds. Hyde was always a
successful salesman, but spent his income readily on his teaching
activities - whether on travel and Bahá'í literature, on fine
clothes, or food, with which to serve the many who attended the
Dunn's firesides. They invariably rented a well-appointed
apartment or cottage, rather than a simple one, in order to have
the best surroundings in which to present the Faith.

When Clara suggested that Hyde might go alone to Australia to
save the expense, a cable was sent to 'Abdu'l-Bahá, who replied
that both should go, thus settling the matter. When some among
the San Francisco Bahá'ís expressed concerned that an "old
couple" intended travelling so far to spread the Bahá'í
message, Hyde is reported to have replied that he would sooner
die than not respond to 'Abdu'l-Bahá's call. After a two month
sojourn in Hawaii, and a short stop in Samoa, the Dunns arrived
in Sydney on 10 April, 1920. Their lack of funds brought distress
in the first few months, during which Clara was able to find
work. Within a year, however, Hyde acquired a position as
travelling salesman for the Bacchus Marsh Milk Company (soon
after acquired by Nestles Milk Co), initially within New South
Wales. Typically, he travelled to country towns during the week
while Clara remained in a rented cottage in the state-capital,
inviting people to weekend meetings for which Hyde returned home
and spoke. When he out-performed all other company salesmen in
the first year, he requested that he be made an
"interstate" man. In the subsequent decade his work
took him to every state, and to every major city and town in the
country.

Post-war skepticism, in addition to increasing disillusion
with the sectarianism and dogmatism of the major churches,
contributed to growing interest in alternate religions and
philosophies in Australian society, and Hyde continued to speak,
as he had done in North America, to "new thought" and
new-age religious groups. In Melbourne in 1923, for instance, he
spoke on Friday evenings in the home of a herbalist to audiences
of over one-hundred, and on another visit to the Victorian state
capital the Dunns spoke by invitation to an audience at a
Theosophical lodge, and at Spiritualist churches, an Occult
church, and the Lyceum Club. After two years of travelling and
meeting people, Sydney optometrist Oswald Whitaker, who had been
interested in Theosophy, accepted Hyde Dunn's definition of
"love" as being "the whole law and power of the
Great Universe" and became the first Australian Bahá'í. Soon
after, photographer and model-maker Effie Baker accepted Dunn's
message immediately after hearing it at Melbourne's New
Civilisation Centre. By July 1923 Hyde had visited 225 towns, an
average of one new town for each four and a half days work since
commencing with Nestles.

Clara had a charitable nature, and gathered others around her
to rally to a just cause. The suffering in her early years had
developed her sense of compassion, whether for those close to
her, or for others whose plight she came to know. Hyde had a
friendly disposition, and a distinguished, upright appearance. He
retained an English accent, and spoke in an engaging and inspired
manner. "With the heart filled with the flame of the love of
God," he once explained to a New Zealand friend, "we
can stand on any platform, turn our faces to Bahá'u'lláh and
deliver His Message of Gladtidings to all peoples, with a
conviction and power, through His help that will reach the hearts
of the hearers and penetrate their understandings, through the
power of the Spirit - It gives the power to the audience to see
with the eye of the heart, which is all embracing." With
business acquaintances, Hyde was a keen observer of economic and
political conditions, although felt he lacked the training to
fully express himself, and referred at one time to the bounty of
having friends who helped him "for want of training and
technique". In conversation and in correspondence with his
Bahá'í friends, however, he spread his enthusiasm for the close
study of scripture. The "Hidden Words", he once wrote
to Gretta Lamprill, had been to his "thirsty longing soul
like a balm or pure water on the hot desert of search and
longing".

It was with this attitude that the Dunns fostered small and
isolated Bahá'í communities across Australia and New Zealand, and
guided them toward the establishment of a National Spiritual
Assembly. The first Local Assembly was established in Melbourne,
in December 1923, followed by others in Perth, in July 1924, and
Adelaide, in December 1924. Assemblies were also established in
Sydney in April 1925, and in Auckland early in 1923. These
assemblies lacked firm foundations, and declined when the Dunns
moved to another city. Subsequent visits were required to revive
them.

When Clara Dunn met Shoghi Effendi in the course of her
pilgrimage in 1932, the Guardian stressed the necessity of
forming a National Assembly, and this was achieved in 1934, with
delegates coming from Adelaide, Sydney and Auckland (New Zealand)
Assemblies. Hyde served on the Assembly during its first year. He
was now in his seventies, and Shoghi Effendi instructed the
national body to provide for the comfort of the pioneers, to whom
the Australian and New Zealand Bahá'í communities owed so much.
The Guardian had great affection for Hyde Dunn. In God Passes By
he referred to him as "great-hearted and heroic"; and
he included the Dunns among the pioneers he wrote of in Advent of
Divine Justice who had "won the eternal distinction of being
the first to raise the call of Yá Bahá'u'l-Abhá in such highly
important and widely scattered centres and territories as....the
Islands of the Pacific...Australia and New Zealand...".
Those who had become Bahá'ís after hearing the Dunns numbered
above one hundred, and this hundred, in turn, had assisted in
firmly establishing Bahá'í communities throughout the South
Pacific. Such notable Bahá'ís as Gretta Lamprill, Bertha Dobbins,
and Harold and Florence Fitzner - all of whom became Knights of
Bahá'u'lláh in the World Crusade - were among those attracted to
the Cause of Bahá'u'lláh in the 1920s by Clara and Hyde Dunn. By
1933, when Hyde retired aged nearly 80, he had worked for some
eleven years in Australia. He died in Sydney on 7 February 1941.

Clara had always regarded Hyde as the better speaker. But
after his passing, the friends turned to her, and fully expected
her to speak in his stead. She invariably commenced her talks
with 'Abdu'l-Bahá's question: "do you know in what day you
are living?". In later years her speech was suffused with
supplication, as she frequently recited the prayers which began
"O Thou incomparable God!...", and "O God! O God!
This is a broken-winged bird and his flight is very
slow...". When the National Assembly called for pioneers at
the commencement of a new phase of teaching in 1943, Clara
settled in Brisbane for several months. Subsequently she
recommenced the visits to the major centres which had ceased in
the years of Hyde's last illness. She visited the Bahá'ís in
Adelaide, Sydney, Melbourne, and Hobart, as well as numerous
smaller towns, always ensuring that she returned in
December-January to participate in summer schools at the
Yerrinbool Bahá'í school property south of Sydney - as the school
committee's guest, in a room adjacent to the Hyde Dunn Hall.
Participants at many schools in the 1940s and 1950s were
privileged to hear "mother" Dunn recount how she meet
'Abdu'l-Bahá, and tell of her many years of travel with Hyde. She
attended her last summer school in 1959.

On 29 February 1952 Clara Dunn was appointed by Shoghi Effendi
as one of the Hands of the Cause. Now in her late years, she
gathered her strength to fulfil her far-reaching spiritual and
administrative responsibilities. At the commencement of the World
Crusade the Guardian directed her to travel amongst the Bahá'í
communities in Australia and New Zealand, and in October 1953 she
attended the New Delhi conference. In April 1954 the Guardian
appointed her as Trustee for the Continental Fund for
Australasia, and at the same time, Shoghi Effendi requested that
she appoint two members to the newly established "Auxiliary
Boards". At national convention, Clara appointed H. Collis
Featherstone and Thelma Perks. Mr Featherstone was later
appointed as Hand of the Cause, and Thelma subsequently served on
the Continental Board of Counsellors for Australasia. Both
assisted Clara greatly in her duties, often writing reports to
the Guardian on her behalf. Her companion on many inter-state
visits, Thelma had acted as a daughter to the Dunns from as early
as the 1940s, before she had herself become a Bahá'í, and was now
privileged to assist Clara in her work as a Hand of the Cause.

Clara ventured several times to be with the New Zealand Bahá'í
friends. She attended their summer school in 1954, and
represented the Guardian at their inaugural national convention,
in 1957. Although physically frail, she remained robust in
spirit. Later in the year she insisted on taking her place at the
meeting of the Hands of the Cause which followed the sudden
passing of the Guardian. From early years in which she
experienced intense personal suffering, Clara Dunn lived to see
her pain transmitted into spiritual joy, the result of a life
lived in service, prayer, and dedication. She died in Sydney on
18 November 1960.

Bibliography

Australian Bahá'í Bulletin (various, 1934-1960).

Hassall, Graham, "Outpost of a World Religion: the
Bahá'í Faith in Australia 1920-1947", Journal of
Religious History, 16:3, June 1991.

Shoghi Effendi, Advent of Divine Justice, Bahá'í
Publishing Trust, Wilmette, 1990.

- God Passes By, Bahá'í Publishing Trust, Wilmette,
1970.

Alexander, Agnes, History of the Bahá'í Faith in Hawaii
1902-1942.

Australian Bahá'í Bulletin (various numbers
1944-1990)

Dunn Papers, Australian Bahá'í Archives.

New Zealand Bahá'í Archives. MS 22.12.02.

Thornton Chase Papers. M4 Bos 2/13. US Bahá'í Archives.

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-- Dunn, Clara and Hyde (Used by permission of the curator)