Life of Agnes Alexander
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Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Duane Troxel, Life of Agnes Alexander, bahai-library.com.
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Life of Agnes Alexander

Duane Troxel

1998

EARLY in the nineteenth century Christian missionaries sailed from America
to take Christianity to the Polynesians of the Pacific. Rev. William
Patterson Alexander and his wife Mary Ann and the Rev. Dr. Dwight Baldwin
and his wife Abigail Charlotte were among the very earliest missionaries
who set sail from New Bedford, Massachusetts around South America to reach
the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii). Among the grandchildren of the Alexanders
and the Baldwins appeared Agnes Baldwin Alexander, who, in 1900 became the
first Bahá'í of Hawaii and (perhaps) its first Esperantist.

Agnes Baldwin Alexander was born at home in Honolulu, Hawaii on July 21st,
1875. She enjoyed a high social rank because she was a descendent of two
of the earliest and most distinguished Christian missionary families. Her
father William DeWitt Alexander was one of Hawaii's most famous men. He
was the Kingdom of Hawaii's first Surveyor General; a member of the King's
Privy Council; President of Punahou School and Oahu College and author of
"A Brief History of the Hawaiian People".

Though her family was not wealthy she lived comfortably and enjoyed a
close-knit family life that included many uncles and aunts, cousins,
nephews and nieces who lived on the various islands that make up the
Hawaiian archipelago.

Ms. Alexander suffered from poor health in her youth. At age 20 she
graduated from Oahu College in a class of seven students. She delivered
her graduation essay on "Our Poor Relations," which urged everyone to show
kindness to animals.

In 1900 Ms. Alexander joined a group of Island peers who were going on a
trip to American and Europe. While she was in Rome visiting an aunt who
had married an Italian gentleman she met Mrs. Charlotte Dixon, an American
Bahá'í who was just returning from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, which is
also the world headquarters of the Bahá'í Faith. Although Mrs. Dixon made
no mention of the Bahá'í Faith by name she gave Agnes a prayer copied out
in longhand. Agnes later wrote:

"The prayer seemed to answer all the longings of my heart.
After that we met for three successive evenings. ... The third evening
after meeting with Mrs. Dixon, when I retired to my room, sleep did not
come. "That night (Nov. 26, 1900) an overwhelming realization came to me,
which was neither a dream nor vision, that Christ had come on the
earth.""

When Agnes told Mrs. Dixon of her epiphany she was taught some details of
the Bahá'í revelation. It was the practice in those days to apply for
membership directly to the head of the Bahá'í Faith, Abdul-Baha1. Ms.
Alexander wrote to 'Abdu'l-Bahá and He accepted her membership in the
Bahá'í worldwide community.

Ms. Alexander received further deepening in her new faith through Bahá'í
groups in Paris, France and in Eliot, Maine in the U.S. On December 26,
1901 she returned home to Hawaii thereby becoming the first Bahá'í to set
foot in those islands.

In the spring of 1913 Agnes Alexander's parents died. She left Hawaii with
the intention of becoming a teacher of the Bahá'í Faith in some foreign
land. Sometime in October, 1913 Ms. Alexander was visiting Mrs. May
(Bolles) Maxwell in Montreal, Canada when she came across a passage from
'Abdu'l-Bahá in which he encouraged the study of Esperanto.2 "From that
moment there was ignited in my heart the desire to obey His request."3

During the winter of 1913-1914 Agnes lived in Brooklyn, New York. It was
there she received a Tablet from 'Abdu'l-Bahá directing her to take the
Bahá'í teachings to Japan. He said, "if thou travelest toward Japan
unquestionably Divine confirmations shall descend upon thee. . ."4 During
that same winter in Brooklyn she received her first instruction in
Esperanto from Mr. and Mrs. Rufus W. Powell, two Brooklyn Bahá'ís.5

In May, 1914, Ms. Alexander sailed from New York to Genoa, Italy. Mrs.
Rufus Powell came to see her off. She brought Agnes "an Esperanto student
book, which she had covered with linen on which she had embroidered a
green star. The precious little book . . . gave me the foundation of the
Esperanto language."6 From that time forth Ms. Alexander studied Esperanto
on her own becoming accomplished in the new language.

While in Locarno, Italy during the summer of 1914, Ms. Alexander joined
the Universal Esperanto Association (UEA). It was through her UEA
membership that she met a Russian Esperantist in Geneva. When Agnes told
the woman that she was headed to Japan the lady asked her to look up
Vasily Eroshenko7, a blind Russian Esperantist living in Tokyo.

When Agnes reached Tokyo she found the twenty-four year old Mr. Eroshenko.
"He is the first fruits of my joining the Universal Esperanto
Association."8 Eroshenko became the means by which Ms. Alexander was able
to teach the Bahá'í Faith to both the blind and female Japanese. "It was
he who helped me to learn English and Esperanto Braille,9 bringing me in
close touch with the blind of Japan. It was through his effort that I had
the joy of sharing the Bahá'í Message with Tokujiro Torii10 and through
him with the blind of Japan. It was he who introduced me to the writer,
U.[jaku] Akita, who was sympathetic to the Cause, and wrote magazine
articles through which the first Japanese young woman accepted the Bahá'í
Message."11

Ms. Alexander would read the Bahá'í teachings in English to Eroshenko and
he would take them down in English Braille. From these Braille renderings
he then translated the words into Esperanto so they could be published in
the Japanese Esperanto newspaper, La Orienta Azio. This collaboration also
resulted in the translation of Bahá'u'lláh's mystic composition The Hidden
Words into Esperanto.

Ms. Alexander attended her first Esperanto meeting in Japan on February 4,
1915. She took along a copy of the Bahá'í Revelation in Esperanto. She
later wrote of Esperanto:

God used this language, which came into the world through the
Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh, to spread His Message in Japan. That night, two
weeks after I had reached Tokyo, when I attended the first Esperanto
meeting in Japan, was the beginning of my work in making the Bahá'í
teachings known among the Esperantists of Japan. From the northern island
of Hokkaido to Nagasaki in Kyushu, as well as Korea, the Message of
Bahá'u'lláh was heard, for Esperanto was more widely spread in Japan than
in any country outside of Russia.12

In the summer of 1918 Ms. Alexander was the invited guest of the Esperanto
Association of North America which met at Green Acre in Maine. She spoke
on the Esperantists of Japan. "This gave me a wonderful opportunity, not
only in making a better understanding between the Esperantists of the two
countries, but in bringing to their attention the Bahá'í teachings and
words of 'Abdu'l-Bahá concerning a universal language. When I quoted the
words of 'Abdu'l-Bahá, they were received with great applause."13

Ms. Alexander was ever thankful to Esperanto as it was her connection to
the Japanese people and the precious means for disseminating the Bahá'í
teachings. She said, "Through the wonderful means of Esperanto, the Bahá'í
Message became known in the important centers of Japan, where it met with
keen response and no prejudice."14

Agnes was also active in promoting the Bahá'í teachings through Esperanto
in Korea and China. As early as 1921 a China-born Korean who was living in
Tokyo asked Ms. Alexander if she would teach Esperanto to a group of
Chinese at the Chinese YMCA. She accepted and taught the sixteen students
Esperanto conversation.15 Following the great Japanese earthquake of 1
September 1923, which took place during the Esperanto convention, Agnes
left Japan with her sister and teamed up with the famous Bahá'í, Martha
Root,16 in Peiping (Beijing) China. On a number of occasions they spoke of
the Bahá'í Faith at an Esperanto school in Peiping where Martha had been
assisting in the teaching of English.17

Ms. Alexander was a good friend and correspondent of Lidia Zamenhof,18
daughter of Esperanto's creator who had become an ardent Bahá'í. Ms.
Zamenhof translated the basic Bahá'í text, Bahá'u'lláh and the New Era, by
John Esslemont, into Esperanto. Ms. Alexander's review of the translation
was published in the Japanese Esperanto magazine, Orienta Revuo along with
a picture of Lidia.19

Agnes Baldwin Alexander moved back and forth between Hawaii and Japan
numerous times between 1914 and 1967. All the while she continued her
Bahá'í work through its conduit: Esperanto. In July 1965, as she was
preparing to attend the World Congress of Esperantists in Tokyo, she fell
and broke her hip.20 She was brought home to Honolulu in 1967 where she
lived out her last four years in a retirement residence that overlooked
the site of her birth.

On the first day of January, 1971 her spirit winged its flight to the
world of never-fading splendour. She was 95. She was buried behind
Hawaii's historic Kawaiahao Church with her missionary forebears with whom
she was united by service both in life and in death.

Ms. Alexander's contributions to the cause of Esperanto in Southeast Asia
would be difficult to exaggerate. It became her principal means of
piercing the barrier of traditional languages. With it she extended to
women, the blind and mainstream Japanese, Chinese and Koreans the healing
Message of Bahá'u'lláh. She taught its language in schools, assisted in it
Esperanto translations of key Bahá'í works, gave radio broadcasts[21 Ibid.
p.76.22] in its tongue, sang its songs and shared warm fellowship with its
adherents in many lands.

Notes:
(footnotes missing)

Family tree, from Wikipedia:

William P. Alexander

(1805–1884)

Mary Ann McKinney

(1810–1888)

Amos Starr Cooke

(1810–1871)

Juliette Montague

(1812–1896)

Dwight Baldwin

(1798–1886)

Charlotte Fowler

(1805–1873)

J. W. Smith

(1810–1887

David Dwight Baldwin

(1831–1912)

W. O. Smith

(1848–1929)

William D. Alexander

(1833–1913)

Abigail Baldwin

(1847–1912)

Samuel T. Alexander

(1836–1904)

Martha Eliza Cooke

Ann Elizabeth Alexander

(1843–1940)

Henry P. Baldwin

(1842–1911)

Emily Whitney Alexander

(1846–1943)

Agnes Alexander

(1875–1971)

Annie Montague Alexander

(1867–1950)

C.W. Dickey

(1871–1942)

Belle Dickey

(1880–1972)

James Dole

(1877–1958)

Henry Alexander Baldwin

(1871–1946)

Ethel Frances Smith

(1879–1967)

J. Walter Cameron

(1895–1976)

Francis Baldwin

(1904–1996)

Colin C. Cameron

(1927–1992)

(Kapalua)

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-- Life of Agnes Alexander (Used by permission of the curator)