Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Dorothy Freeman Gilstrap, From Copper to Gold: The Life of Dorothy Baker, bahai-library.com.
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Champion Builder Books are a series of biographies about indi-
viduals who have been instrumental in helping the North Ameri-
can Bahá í community fulfill its destiny—in the words of Shoghi
Effendi, the Guardian of the Bahá'í Faith—as “the champion
builders of Bahá'u'lláh's rising World Order.”

Other Champion Builder Books:

To Move the World: Louis Gregory and the Advancement of
Racial Unity in America
by Gayle Morrison

Martha Root: Lioness at the Threshold
by M. R. Garis

Zikrullah Khadem, The Itinerant Hand of the Cause of God:
With Love
by Javidukht Khadem

ii
Dorothy Baker, a photograph taken in the late 1930s,
and one of her favorites.

iii
iv
THE LIFE OF
Dorothy Baker
“Is it ever possible,” they ask, “for copper to be transmuted into
gold?” Say, Yes, by my Lord, it is possible.—Bahá’u’lláh

BY
DOROTHY FREEMAN GILSTRAP

Researched by Louise B. Mathias

Bahá’í Publishing Trust
Wilmette, Illinois

v
Bahá’í Publishing Trust, Wilmette, Illinois 60091-2844

Copyright © 1999 by Dorothy Freeman Gilstrap

All Rights Reserved. Published 1999

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data.
Freeman, Dorothy. 1951–
From Copper to Gold: the life of Dorothy Baker / by Dorothy
Freeman Gilstrap; researched by Louise B. Matthias. — [2nd ed.]
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-87743-255-4
1. Baker. Dorothy. 1898-1954. 2. Hands of the Cause of God—
Biography. 3. Bahais—Biography. I. Title
BP395.B35F74 1998
297.9’3’09—dc21
[B]
98-31611
CIP

vi
This book is dedicated, as was the life of Dorothy Baker,
to the Guardian of the Bahá’í Faith,

Shoghi Effendi

whose vision for humankind continues to inspire in myriad hearts
the longing to give their all to the Cause for which he
so nobly and selflessly lived.

vii
viii
Table of Contents
List of illustrations .................................................................................................................. x
Researcher’s preface to the second edition ..........................................................................xiv
Author’s preface to the second edition .............................................................................. xviii
Author’s preface to the first edition ...................................................................................... xx
Acknowledgments ..............................................................................................................xxiv
Prologue: Autumn 1912 ......................................................................................................... 1
1. Fifteen years earlier, 1896 .............................................................................................. 9
3. Final year at school, 1916–17 ....................................................................................... 27
3. Teacher’s training college, 1917–19............................................................................. 35
4. Grammar school teacher and suitors, 1920................................................................... 49
5. Frank Baker and proposal, 1920–21 ............................................................................. 61
6. Marriage, birth of Louise, and the psychic, 1921–23 ................................................... 73
7. Move to Buffalo, birth of Bill and the passing of Sara, 1923–26 ................................. 87
8. Move to Lima, Ohio; health scares and deepening, 1927–30..................................... 107
9. Early depression years, deepening, and teaching at Louhelen, 1931–32 ................... 123
10. Passing of Mother Beecher, 1932 ............................................................................... 139
11. Growth of the Lima Bahá’í community, 1932–34...................................................... 147
12. Expanding horizons and development of skills, 1934–36 .......................................... 171
13. Local opposition encountered and countered, 1936–37 ............................................. 189
14. NSA member and public speaker, 1937–39 ............................................................... 203
15. Travel teaching in North America, 1940–41 .............................................................. 225
16. Memories of Dorothy; her talks and letters, 1940s..................................................... 241
17. Teacher and administrator, 1944–51 .......................................................................... 283
18. International arena and Louise Baker, 1943–51 ......................................................... 317
19. Growing family & appointment as Hand of the Cause of God, 1947–1951 .............. 367
20. International responsibilities & pioneering plans, 1951–53 ....................................... 389
21. Conference & travel teaching in India, 1953 .............................................................. 430
22. BOAC Comet Flight 781 crash & aftermath, 1954 .................................................... 472
Epilogue .............................................................................................................................. 486
Appendix I: Selected works by Dorothy Baker ................................................................. 500
Appendix II: Selected radio talks given by Dorothy Baker ............................................... 536

ix
List of
illustrations
Dorothy Baker Frontispiece
1 ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in New York, 1912 xxix
2 Dorothy King Beecher, circa 1911 xxx
3 Luella King Gorham, 1894 11
4 Mother Beecher, circa 1925 21
5 Dorothy, 1899 24
6 Dorothy “reading” with her doll, circa 1900 24
7 Dorothy all dressed up, circa 1904 24
8 Dorothy feeding the chickens, 1904 25
9 Dorothy, her mother Luella, and brother David 25
10 David and Dorothy Beecher, circa 1912 29
11 At Montclair Normal School, 1918 42
12 Dorothy, about 1919 53
13 The wedding party at Budd Lake, June 18, 1921 74
14 Conrad and Sara, 1924 88
15 The Baker family at Budd Lake, July 1923 91
16 Dorothy and her mother holding
“Winnie Lou,” 1922 95
17 Mother Beecher with her son Henry and grandson
David, holding his daughter Susan, 1923 96
18 Louise Baker, Dorothy, her father Henry Beecher,
and grandmother Ellen Beecher, 1922 96

x
19 Bill and Dorothy, 1924 99
20 Louise and Bill with their grandfather Henry, 1927 100
21 Louise and Bill with their grandmother Luella, 1927 100
22 Conrad takes Louise and Bill canoeing
on Budd Lake, 1927 100
23 Bill, Dorothy, and Louise, circa 1927 109
24 Bill and Louise Baker in Lima, 1928 109
25 Dorothy behind her new home, circa 1927 110
26 Dorothy’s father, Henry Beecher, 1933 145
27 Mother Beecher at ninety, June 1930 145
28 Louise, Dorothy, Frank, and Bill in 1932 149
29 Dorothy at Summer School in the mid-1930s 177
30 Louhelen Bahá’í School in the 1930s 178
31 Dorothy and Frank at Louhelen 179
32 Bahá’í class at Louhelen, 1935 180
33 Bahá’í class on the lawn at Louhelen 181
34 Bill and Conrad Baker, circa 1936 208
35 The National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís
of the United States and Canada, May 1938 220
36 National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the
United States and Canada, 1940 232
37 Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Lima, 1940s 245
38 Mary Lou Ewing, 1945 246
39 Elisabeth Cheney, 1944 265
40 Bahá’í representatives from Latin America with the
National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the
United States and Canada, 1944 289
41 The Inter-America Committee in the mid-1940s 319
42 Bogota, Colombia, 1944 320
43 Rice Lake Summer School, 1946 333
44 On their way to Europe: Louise and Dorothy Baker,
January 1948 341

xi
45 … and in Madrid, March 1948 342
46 Hubert Matthias, Louise Baker Matthias,
and Virginia Orbison, 1948 347
47 Portugal, 1948: in Hubert‘s Citröen 347
48 Dorothy Baker in Lisbon, 1948 353
49 Bill Baker and Annamarie Mattoon ‘s wedding 369
50 Frank Baker in the 1940s 373
51 Hand of the Cause of God Dorothy Baker, 1951 387
52 Convention of South America, Buenos Aires, 1952 392
53 In Haifa on the long-awaited pilgrimage 401
54 Hands of the Cause of God attending the First
Intercontinental Teaching Conference,
Kampala, February 1953 405
55 In Kampala, making a point 406
56 Hands of the Cause attending the Third Interconti-
nental Teaching Conference, Stockholm, July 1953 418
57 Hands of the Cause of God at the All-America
Intercontinental Teaching Conference, May 1953 419
58 In the House of Worship, Wilmette, 1953,
with Matthew Bullock 420
59 National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís
of the United States, 1953 425
60 Budd Lake, September 1953, four generations 426
61 New Delhi, October 1953: Bahá’ís who attended all
four Intercontinental Teaching Conferences 432
62 Speakers at the New Delhi Town Hall,
October 1953 436
63 With friends in Kanpur, December 5, 1953 441
64 Addressing Sanskrit College, University of Banaras,
December 10, 1953 442
65 At Lady Irwin College for Girls, New Delhi, 1953 446
66 “What do you think of me in a Sari?” 451

xii
67 With the Maharani of Scindia at the Palace, Gwalior,
November 1953 455
68 In Karachi, January 9, 1954 475
69 Elba, 1954 487
70 Monument erected in memory of those who lost
their lives in the crash of January 10, 1954 491
71 Luella Beecher and Frank Baker in Grenada,
West Indies, 1956 493
72 Some of Dorothy Baker's legacy, circa 1955 494
73 Hand of the Cause of God, Dorothy Baker, 1953 497

xiii
Researcher’s
preface to the
second edition
Within days of Mother’s passing people began to urge me to write
her biography. To each I gave the same answer. I could write about
her as my mother, but by the time I was grown and her work
expanded to more than local teaching, I was away at school, then
in Latin America, and later in Portugal as a pioneer. We were
usually in different countries and even on different continents.
There were others, I felt, who were more directly involved and
knew far more about her later life and work.
For twenty-two years I did little more than tell occasional sto-
ries about her. On January 26, 1976, our daughter Dorothy again
asked me to write about Mother’s life. She didn’t want to know
her grandmother simply as a two-dimensional, paper cut-out an-
gel. For some reason the penny finally dropped. When she left the
house, I sat down and wrote to the secretary of the Local Spiri-
tual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Lima, Ohio, to ask the friends
there to gather information and stories they remembered about
Mother. Sealing the envelope I thought, “Well, I might as well
write to a few other people, too,” and I started a list. In the next
few days the project snowballed, and I settled down to the task of
gathering as much information as I could still locate, some twenty-
two years after Mother’s passing.
Many, many people sent eulogies. I explained in a sort of gen-

xiv
eral letter that, while the eulogies were deeply appreciated, they
were not useful in creating a biography. I needed stories—action,
conversation, description of actual events, and detail whenever it
could be recalled.
Collecting information on Mother became my fulltime occu-
pation for the next year and a half. From one person I might re-
ceive a partial account of some incident important in Mother’s
life which would trigger a memory of my own. I might remember
the event, but in no detail, and only enough to see the mistakes
and to know how very much was missing. Each time this hap-
pened I dropped everything else to say prayers. Time after time,
about a week after my prayers several letters would arrive, each
recounting some aspect of the event until finally it would fall into
place, complete and clear.
Toward the end of my research I felt that I was not the person
who should write the book. I thought of several people and after
prayerful consideration narrowed the choice to three individuals,
all women. Two had known Mother intimately and had worked
closely with her at various times. The third was our twenty-seven-
year-old daughter Dorothy, who, so far as I knew, had never con-
sidered writing as a career. Nonetheless, for some reason I could
not fathom, I kept her on my ever-shortening list of possible bi-
ographers. When I prayed for guidance, I invariably found my-
self absolutely sure that she was the one who should write it. Fi-
nally, I gave in and asked her. As it happened she had been work-
ing in television news and had become very interested in writing.
So the die was cast. She was delighted and honored to accept my
offer.1
In 1929, when Rosemary Sala attended her first Bahá’í national
convention, the convention chairman called on Mother, who was

The book was first published five and a half years later, in 1984.

xv
still a young woman herself, and announced, “We have among us
Dorothy Baker, the granddaughter of Mother Beecher. Dorothy,
won’t you come forward and say a few words?”
Dorothy stood before the assemblage and spoke about guid-
ance: how to achieve it, how to recognize it, and the importance
of following it. At the end of each thought she concluded, “Blessed
is he who follows guidance.”
In choosing the author of this biography of my mother, Dor-
othy Beecher Baker, I was surely and unmistakably guided, and
the world is blessed by my choice.
LOUISE BAKER MATTHIAS
January 1996
Grenada, West Indies

xvi
xvii
Author’s preface
to the
second edition
What a pleasure it was to delve back into the life of Dorothy
Baker and to be able to add the many stories people have shared
since the first edition of the book. If you are a returning reader, I
think you will find new insights into her life, particularly her years
of greatest service. If you are a new reader, welcome. We are a
large and happy family, those of us who hold Dorothy Baker dear,
and we welcome you to join us. May her story inspire your service
and fill your heart.
DOROTHY FREEMAN GILSTRAP
March 10, 1998
Arlington, Texas

xviii
xix
Author’s preface
to the
first edition
Every life is unique in its sensations and intensity, its boredom
and its restlessness. No human effort can hope to faithfully repre-
sent the experience of life, even of one’s own. The reality lives on
in memory or heart, but the moment escapes. The arts live, in
part, to reconstruct for our eyes, our ears, our spirits, the essence
of experience and perceptions. Biography, if it is to reveal the
essence of a person, must do the same.
Mocking those life stories written as the dullest sort of history,
Virginia Woolf defined the biographer’s task as “to plod without
looking to the right or left, in the indelible footprints of truth;
unenticed by flowers; regardless of shade, on and on methodi-
cally till we fall into the grave and write finis on the tombstone
above our heads.”1 It is not my purpose to denounce exact chro-
nologies where every known fact is recorded without interpreta-
tion or comment.
The purpose of this book, however, is different. After review-
ing and categorizing by date and subject approximately two thou-
sand pages of research material, after culling and melting it down
to find the most telling incidents, the effort was made to discover
connections between Dorothy Baker as legend and Dorothy Baker
the striving, struggling child of God. This biography’s purpose is
to reflect not only the chronology of Dorothy Baker’s life, but

Leon Edel, The Alexandra Lectures 1955-56 (London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1957),
p. 96.

xx
also the drives, the suffering, the delights, and the peak moments
of decision that helped make her who she was.
In the endeavor to reach this end, parts of the book are written
from the vantage point of Dorothy Baker’s understanding. This
liberty was taken partly because many of the experiences that
changed her life’s course were originally told to various indivi-
duals by Dorothy herself; therefore, details of her feelings and atti-
tudes were available. Obviously, within these scenes, many of the
words attributed to Dorothy and others, the exact details of set-
ting and mood, cannot be told precisely as they were.
The merits of this approach have been discussed by biogra-
phers and critics of biography ad infinitum. Some writers have
taken extreme stances on the subject of exact replication, arguing
that only those details which can be categorically proven should
be included. This raises the question of whether the most thor-
oughly documented materials available to the researcher really
contain the most vital information on the subject or, as Dr. Leon
Edel asks in his excellent book on biography, whether “those (docu-
ments) preserved are not the trivial ones and those which have
disappeared the important ones.”1
It is left to future scholars to compile a strictly documentary
biography of Dorothy Baker and to the spiritual intuition of in-
dividuals around the world to know her in their hearts. Instead, I
have tried to combine mind and heart, basing this book on solid
source material while still following Lewis Mumford’s admoni-
tion that the biographer “must be able to restore the missing nose
in plaster, even if he does not find the original marble.”2 This
does not leave room for careless invention, but does leave the
writer freedom to find the missing pieces. Passages from the Bahá’í
sacred writings appear in their exact published form, except where
they are quoted in documents such as letters or talks.
Sons and daughters, husbands, cousins, grandchildren, and

ibid., p. 84.
John A. Garraty, The Nature of Biography (London: Jonathan Cape, 1958), p. 112.

xxi
namesakes of well-known people, of well-known Bahá’ís, are
sometimes asked, as I have been, what it is like to have that con-
nection. Halfway through the writing of this book, the question’s
answer no longer seems so troublesomely vague.
Dorothy Baker was spectacular; she was a woman who made
every effort to mirror divine attributes. She worked endlessly to
cleanse her soul from dust—from egotism, from self, from envy,
from whatever human foibles were hers. But the attributes she
mirrored forth did not belong to her; they were and are only God’s.
For each of us, burnishing the soul is a charge that cannot be
accomplished by anyone else. We each accumulate dust from the
hard road of living, and as individuals only we are responsible or
able to dispel it, as Dorothy Baker did.
Bahá’ís who have given their lives in service also serve in an-
other way. They are examples of perseverance in the task every
human being shares, of freeing the true self from the bonds of
the lower nature that mask potentially God-like qualities. They
show us how someone, sometimes weak, sometimes worldly or
lost in self, can be transformed by learning and acting on that
spiritual knowledge, regardless of his or her limitations.
With this said, I must add that not to be grateful for any rela-
tionship with an individual as magnificent as Dorothy Baker would
be absurd; to have had the feeling of her protective presence has
been a salve for many pains. But she is there, as are Martha Root,
Enoch Olinga, or Hájí Mírzá Haydar-’Alí, for all of us. In large
part our connection with them is of our own making. Not that it
is imaginary, but rather that it demands from us a desire for inspi-
ration, an acknowledgment of our helplessness, and an attraction
to the spiritual beauty of God’s creatures, whether they are in this
world or in the next.
It has been an intense pleasure to be associated with this unique
woman through exploring her spiritual transformation. The origi-

xxii
nal purpose of this book was simply to tell the story of a life, but
if readers can find new inspiration and determination for their
own lives, they, as I, have Dorothy Baker to thank for living her
life as she did.
DOROTHY FREEMAN
March, 1983
Grenada, West Indies

xxiii
Acknowledgments
First those individuals who contributed their memories of Dor-
othy Beecher Baker deserve genuine thanks, especially her fellow
Hands of the Cause, Amatu’l-Bahá Rúḥíyyih Khánum, Paul
Haney, ‘Alí-Akbar Furútan, Ugo Giachery, John Robarts, and
Raḥmatu’lláh Muhájir. I would also like to recognize the contri-
butions made by Elsie Austin, Edna Andrews, Annamarie Baker,
Dwight and Glenda Baker, William K. Baker, Shirin Boman,
Eunice Braun, Paul and May Brown, Garreta Busey, Louise
Caswell, Ivan Louis Cotman, Marguerite Firoozi, Margaret
Hildreth, Marion Hofman, Annamarie Honnold, Doris McKay,
Hazel Mori, Gene Pritchard, Isobel Sabri, Rosemary Sala, Monira
Sohaili, Edna True, Barbara Welsh, Marion Yazdi, Gayle Woolson,
and most especially Mary Lou Ewing, Edmund and Muriel
Miessler, and Margaret Ruhe. There would be no record without
these individuals and numerous others who made the effort to
record their recollections of Dorothy Baker or to forward source
material.
Very much appreciated are the materials of vital importance
sent by the Research Department of the Universal House of Jus-
tice, the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of India, and
by Roger M. Dahl for the National Bahá’í Archives of the United
States. Sincere thanks also are extended to the typists and proof-
readers who worked so diligently and patiently: V. Susan Rogers,
Margaret Postlethwaite, and their assistants in Dallas, Texas; Mary

xxiv
Smith and her staff in Bridgetown, Barbados; and for their work
on the second edition, Angela Wilson and Elaine Field. Mary
Lou Ewing, William K. Baker, Shirley Yarbrough, and James Blake
read the manuscript and contributed their thoughtful suggestions
and personal responses for which I am deeply grateful.
Goddard College created the atmosphere of courageous inves-
tigation and stable support that allows projects such as this one to
take root and begin to grow. I would most especially like to thank
Dr. Richard Herrmann for his stalwart and generous confidence
in this project from its inception, John Turner for his unique un-
derstanding, Dr. A. V. Goyne and Dr. Charles Green at the Uni-
versity of Texas at Arlington for early and valued encouragement.
Marion Hofman and May Hofman Ballerio were sources of
knowledge, inspiration, and fearlessness without which this work
would have suffered greatly. I most admiringly thank them. Lov-
ing appreciation also goes to the friends whose wisdom and en-
couragement have been like the bread of life many times, not the
least of whom are Kim Dawson and Nancy Dobbins.
I wish to thank the United States Bahá’í Publishing Trust for
bringing out this lovely second edition. And I especially extend
my appreciation to the editors Terry Cassiday, for her calm and
delicate hand, and Ladan Cockshut, for her willing and able as-
sistance throughout the whole process of this edition. Working
with them was a distinct pleasure.
My father, Dr. Hubert Matthias, is gratefully acknowledged
for the thoughtfulness of his conversation which caused those
around him to consider the patterns of our human lives. I wish to
acknowledge the vast contribution Louise Baker Matthias made
to this project. Her own written memories of her mother and her
pursuit of the stories and memories of close to two hundred oth-
ers gave the personal depth to this book that allows readers to feel
as well as know Dorothy Baker.

xxv
In closing, my husband Frank Gilstrap has been like the steadiest
of ships, strong and true. My son Chuck Freeman has taught me
a tender love I never knew that has helped me understand the
potent role motherhood took for Dorothy Baker. Also, I would
like to thank the Bahá’ís in every community where I have lived,
in Ireland, the West Indies, and the United States. I’ve learned so
much from them and hold them each in deep admiration and
affection.
DOROTHY FREEMAN GILSTRAP

xxvi
xxvii
1. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in New York, 1912.

xxviii
2. Dorothy King Beecher, circa 1911.

xxix
Prologue:
Autumn 1912
A gust of wind off Budd Lake reached the wide veranda; the empty
rocking chairs pitched back a bit, then rolled forward and back
again as if their occupants had just stood to leave. Dorothy’s chair
was still. At thirteen she was tall enough to rock herself, feet on
the plank floor, but instead she sat as she had when smaller, chair
pulled up tight to the edge of the covered veranda, her legs
stretched up to meet the railing that surrounded the porch
on three sides, as the porch surrounded the house.
It was early enough in the day for the sun to reach under the
long eaves of the Beecher summer lodge and cast the shadow of
the railing’s crossed wood on the painted gray boards beneath
Dorothy’s chair. As she sat, eyes closed, elbows resting on the
rocker’s flat arms, she felt the sun warming her legs through the
white cotton stockings.
Most mornings that summer had found Dorothy dressed in
plain muslin, barelegged, playing on the acreage that surrounded
the Budd Lake lodge. Some days she went rowing on the lake
with her older brother David, or with the Beecher cousins and
godchildren who came up for a few weeks at a time during the
warm months. Today was different.
She stared out past the lawn and through the trees to the glis-
tening lake, the wind breaking water and light on its surface like
an endlessly moving kaleidoscope. Sliding forward to lean against
the railing for an unobstructed view, she felt her face flushed by
the same sun that speckled the water and wished she could stay.
As Dorothy moved, the book she meant to be reading fell from
her lap, but with a quick motion she caught it. With its heroine
Elsie Dinsmore in mind, Dorothy reached up to retwist one of
her carefully rolled sausage curls. She wondered if they would last
the day. Elsie, who was perfect in the estimation of thirteen-year-
old Dorothy, was blessed not only with what she felt was the most
essential attribute of feminine beauty, naturally curly hair, but
also with a maturity Dorothy found remarkable for someone her
own age. She longed for both.
As Dorothy sat, looking out at the lake two hundred yards away,
she thought, as she often had before, of the fictional Elsie’s amaz-
ing strength of character, half imagining it as her own. On a Sun-
day, after dinner, Elsie’s father asked her to play the piano for
their guests. Elsie was accomplished at playing parlor music, as
she was at most proper girlish endeavors. However, being a good
Christian, she refused to play on the Lord’s day. Unwilling to
have his authority undermined, even by God, Mr. Dinsmore or-
dered her to sit at the piano until she played. Elsie sat there obe-
diently until toward dinner time she fainted.
Dorothy smiled as she thought of herself sitting at their piano,
her own family wondering in silent admiration at her tremen-
dous willpower. Then she heard wooden heels on the porch and
her grandmother’s voice.
“Don’t wait for us,” Ellen Beecher called back through the front
door. “We won’t be home for lunch. Just make sure the others go
ahead. I don’t want to hear Henry’s complaints about starving so
the women in his family can get religion.”
From inside the house came the maid’s objection to the task of

explaining their absence to Dorothy’s father, but Ellen Beecher
had already focused her attention on her granddaughter.
“Dottie, you look like you’ve melted into that chair. Anybody
would think you don’t want to go. Oh, I’ve left my papers. Run
around to the carriage and tell the driver I’ll be right there.”
She did as her grandmother asked, but then so did most people,
other than Dorothy’s father, Henry Beecher. Ellen Beecher—
“Mother Beecher” to those who knew her best and were not afraid
of her firm New England manner—felt strongly about most
things. She often stayed with her son Henry and his family when
they left the pace and grime of urban New Jersey in favor of the
family enclave at Budd Lake. There Mother Beecher spent a good
part of each morning studying the New York Times. She and Henry
had a running dinner-table discussion on everything from French
diplomacy to the best methods of education.
It was when the conversation turned to religion that Dorothy
saw most clearly the differences in the two generations. Her fa-
ther explained life in terms of man and his powers, while Mother
Beecher, though just as convinced of the importance of the intel-
lect, saw its main function as discerning the will of God and act-
ing on that knowledge. Dorothy’s mother would sometimes in-
volve herself, but generally Dorothy was their only audience. Af-
ter listening to the arguments of each side, having taken in all her
young mind could comprehend, she would go to bed sometimes
with a certitude that all was in the hands of an omnipotent and
loving God, other nights equally as sure of her father’s position:
“Man is the measure of all things.” But neither thought could be
counted on to bring her comfort as she lay upstairs in her gabled
room.
There were nights when Dorothy watched the moon through
the tall oaks and could see, as plainly as the clear blue light let her
see her two hands on the window sill, the brilliant career she, like

her father, would have. He knew the absolute power of the indi-
vidual, and on those nights Dorothy knew it too. She could al-
most accept Henry Beecher’s idea that whatever exists in the uni-
verse beyond human perception cannot be denied or proved, that
the only indispensable component in life is the power of man.
But then she would sometimes remember her parents’ life togeth-
er. They both seemed to feel in control of their future, and her
father, at least, believed that control to be absolute. But their
unhappiness together was evident, especially to Dorothy. She
wondered why, if they could control their lives so well, they were
unable to be happy.
Now and then she would dream of her parents. Like most
couples, Luella and Henry fought, but they could not seem to
resolve their differences. As Dorothy grew older and learned to
recognize the subtle but harsh words that aggravated their discon-
tent, her recurring dream would come more often. In it she walked
along between the two of them, holding their hands and concen-
trating with all her strength to pull Luella and Henry together.
No matter how she strained, by the end of the dream Dorothy
grew too weak. No longer able to hold them, her mother and
father would drift apart, from her and from each other.
The dream frightened Dorothy; her powers seemed so limited.
If Henry was right, that all strength comes from within the indi-
vidual, she knew she was right to be afraid. Neither she nor either
of her parents seemed able to mend their torn family.
Generally, Dorothy felt more at ease when she went to bed
convinced that her father was misled and her grandmother un-
derstood the truth: God is all-good and all-powerful. She found
comfort in her grandmother’s perception of reality until one night,
lying under her starched white sheets, Dorothy felt the paralyzing
fear of some tremendous, unknowable force at work in the uni-

verse and in herself. Anxiety about her family’s in-harmony,
even about her own limited power, counted as nothing in the face of
this fear. The interminable universe drew closer, surrounded her
until even her little bed was part of it. She felt suspended on the
very edge of the earth and could feel it turning, turning in an
endless void at the mercy of an all-encompassing God she could
not comprehend.
A few days after that night of paralyzing fear, Dorothy sat with
Mother Beecher in the carriage that took them toward New York.
Mother Beecher spoke of God and His Messengers, of the lumi-
nous, Christ-like man they were soon to meet. Dorothy’s last ex-
perience with God was still too vivid to allow her to listen with
anything but politeness. She saw no reason to risk recalling full
memory of that night by concerning herself again with God’s
power; better to keep a distance from ideas that might renew the
devastating awareness.
As the carriage pulled into the drive of a house Dorothy had
never seen before, that same fear, unannounced, came rushing
into her heart. The unknown was near; the weight of its power
made her neck and shoulders stiffen. She sat staring at the floor
below the leather seat, waiting for the carriage to stop, hoping it
would not. Too late. The door opened and her grandmother
stepped out. Dorothy didn’t move. “What if he looks at me?” she
thought. “If he speaks to me I will die!”

Inside there were groups of people around the room still talking
quietly among themselves, but the attention of each heart was no
doubt centered on ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. It could have done little to in-
crease the reverent attitude of the assembled Bahá’ís even if they
had known that, during the following months of His American
visit, the Man about to address them would be sought after by

leaders in every arena: J. Pierpont Morgan, Alexander Graham
Bell, and Theodore Roosevelt,1 to name a few who succeeded in
meeting with Him.
The effect of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s loving and radiant nature needed
no proof beyond the transformed feelings of the heart that was
near Him. A Christian clergyman who also met ‘Abdu’l-Bahá later
wrote, “… one could not be in His Presence more than a few mo-
ments without realizing that His every act, tone, gesture, word
was so imbued with wisdom, courage, and tranquil certitude, com-
bined with such humble consideration of His interlocutor, that
conclusive Truth was conveyed to every beholder and listener.”2
‘Abdu’l-Bahá turned His majestic head toward the door as more
people entered. He smiled at Ellen Tuller Beecher, the woman
He had addressed as “Mother Beecher” two months before, and
motioned the child with her to a footstool next to His chair. Dor-
othy, without looking up from the floor, stepped around the people
who had by now encircled Him. As ‘Abdu’l-Bahá continued to
speak she sat on the stool near Him but kept her eyes on her own
little black shoes.
‘Abdu’l-Bahá did not look at her, nor did she dare even glance
at Him. Instead, Dorothy tried to concentrate on the folds of her
leggings, hoping they would keep her from falling into the di-
mension of the unknown that seemed so close, hoping they would
remind her the world was real, she was real. But instead of feeling
transferred from fear of some immense unknown to the comfort-
able acceptance of life in the here and now, Dorothy’s fear changed
to desperate longing, a longing that felt strange but familiar. She
had known it before, but only in dreams. Now she felt again the
same intense, overpowering urge for the harmony of united love
that exhausted her young heart when she dreamed of her parents.
She felt that longing, no more for them, but for herself. Dorothy
yearned, in the presence of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, for her own soul to be

Allan L. Ward, 239 Days: ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s Journey in America (Wilmette, Ill.:
Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1979), pp. 186, 43, 44.
Howard Colby Ives, Portals to Freedom (Oxford: George Ronald, 1983), p. 96.

lost in the immensity of His love, melted into the luminous pres-
ence that surrounded her.
Anxiety gave way to this greater force. She could not be sepa-
rate another moment. In ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s loving eyes she found the
connection that unites the unknown worlds beyond, that had once
frozen her in fear, with the present reality of her life. When ‘Abdu’l-
Bahá finished speaking, Dorothy, unaware that she had even
moved, found herself turned toward Him, elbows on her knees,
chin in hands, unwilling and unable to remove her gaze from His
face.
Dorothy could never remember the subject of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s
talk that day, but for days after she could think of nothing but
that face, that voice. Finally, no longer able to suffer her love
alone, she wrote to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, begging to be allowed to serve
Him and the cause of His Father, Bahá’u’lláh. She signed her
letter, “Your little follower, Dorothy Beecher.” On the second page
of her letter she received an answer written in His own hand.
“Dearest child, Your goal is great and God is All-Bountiful. My
hope is this: that you succeed in your desire.”
Before His time in New York came to an end, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá sent a
message to Mother Beecher, asking her to visit Him. When she
entered the room where He and a number of Bahá’ís stood talk-
ing, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá turned toward her, and the room went silent. “I
have called you to say that your grandchild is My own daughter.
You must train her for me.”

Chapter 1
Fifteen years earlier, 1896
The fire-lit drawing room felt close and small. Sitting there with
her husband, Luella thought it seemed much longer than two
years since the day her life took the smooth, swift turn that ended
here, in Henry Beecher’s Newark home. Manhattan was just across
the river, but the days of medical school and residency in New
York were lost in a distance that couldn’t be measured by years or
miles. How, she wondered, after such independent beginnings
had she ended up married and now pregnant, too? Still, Luella
rejoiced at the thought that, thanks to her, the family line would
be carried on, a task in which her brother seemed to have no
interest.
There was no denying her conflicting drives. The comfortable
satisfaction of following a conventional lifestyle with a proper
husband drew Luella away from independent goals, but it did
not make her forget them. Henry’s success in law made her proud
and comforted occasional pangs of guilt or remorse at not con-
tinuing in her own career. But the underlying regret would not
dissolve. A score of years later she would explain to her only daugh-
ter, Dorothy, “Like my strengths, this particular weakness, or rather
inconsistency, is in my blood. At the time of the Boston Tea Party
half my ancestors were importing tea from England and the other

half went down and threw it in the harbor. It gives me a split
personality. I trust you’ve been saved from the same.”
After graduation from Hunter College, to her mother’s dis-
may, Luella had begun work as a teacher. Within a few years she
inherited two thousand dollars, a substantial sum for the day. In-
stead of buying whatever trinkets and clothes she had been un-
able to afford on her salary and putting the rest in savings for a
dowry or some emergency such as not finding a husband, Luella
bet the whole sum on herself. She had seen what a difference self-
sufficiency or its lack made in the lives of the women around her.
When Luella’s father, Captain Frederick Gorham, died in
Yokohama after his nineteenth trip around the Horn, Sara Gorham
was lost as to how she could provide for her children, Luella,
Susan, and William. Her mother’s strength in question, Luella
began to look more to her maternal aunt, Susan King, for guid-
ance. Susan was an active businesswoman whose tea trade
took her to Korea and the interior of China. She and her French part-
ner, Madame Demerest, produced excellent livings for themselves
and supplied jobs for their many agents, all of whom were women.
Unlike her mother, Luella’s aunt had lived without constant de-
pendence on a man. Luella decided to prepare herself to do the
same. She applied to the Women’s Homeopathic College of Medi-
cine and Surgery and, when she was accepted, used her inherit-
ance to pay for living expenses and tuition. After graduation, on
September 18, 1894, she and Henry married.

Luella sat in the too-warm drawing room staring absently at the
newspaper in her lap, contemplating instead the combination of
fate and will that had brought her to the comfortable life she now
shared with her husband. But she felt the unease that sometimes
accompanied thoughts of their union and its effects on her life.
Seeing him across the room, so steady and content in his own

concerns, she quite suddenly stood up from her chair. The rum-
blings of her mind reflected in her unease had already distracted
him from the law book he held, elbows braced on the arms of his
chair, but Luella’s quick motion brought the final break in his
concentration.

3. Luella King Gorham, Dorothy’s mother, in 1894.
A photograph taken before her marriage, showing her
in her graduation gown from Normal College in New York.

“His book, his chair, his room,” she thought as he located his
place on the page with a long, extended finger before looking up
at her. Then, as if his questioning gaze required that she explain
the sudden uncalled-for motion, or words were needed to camou-
flage her thoughts, Luella explained, “I think I’ll go out … for
a walk … down to mail my letters, perhaps.”
“Couldn’t they wait for the postman in the morning? I’m not
sure you should be walking so far.”
“Of course I should. Pregnancy takes place in the uterus, dear,
not in the legs.”
Henry made a short laughing sound, nostrils puffing out a bit
of air, his head nodding back from the slight force.
“You know what I’m saying, Luella. I just want you to take care
of yourself and my son. Dusk is coming on, so watch your step.”
The night air was cooler than Luella expected as she closed the
door behind her. The latch clicked shut, and she was instantly off
down the street, stirred by the crispness of the evening. The air
had a special quality that made her want to breathe more deeply,
to fill her lungs with the purity of its coldness. The thought of
the drawing-room fire with Henry sitting before it made her smile,
not with fondness, at the moment, but with a certain pleasure.
As Luella neared the post box, her mind still on Henry, the
pleasure turned to insecurity. She tried to assure herself, “Harvard
isn’t everything. His family may have had patriots and pilgrims,
but mine did, too. He’s not my only source of glory, after all. I
don’t even have to depend on him. Perhaps after the baby’s born
I’ll practice medicine again.”
Luella felt the letters in her coat pocket. To distract her mind
from its doubts she read over the addresses by the street lamps’
light and failed to notice another woman, a bit older than herself,
also approaching the mail drop.
Reaching the box, Luella mechanically flipped it open and

slipped her letters inside. Turning to retread her path, she found
herself face to face with a woman she did not know.
“Oh, forgive me, I didn’t know you were there.”
The woman, unperturbed, smiled at Luella. Then her look
seemed to change to one of recognition. Luella, unaccustomed to
silent meetings, graced the unknown woman with a cool smile
and moved away from the mail drop and the stranger.
“Wait.” She touched Luella’s arm.
“I’m sorry. I don’t believe I know you, and I’ve got to be getting
home.”
Ignoring Luella’s trepidation, the woman continued. “You’re
going to have a baby.”
Thinking she at last understood this less-than-graceful behav-
ior, Luella released the breath she’d been unconsciously holding
so her staccato speech sounded almost like laughter. “Why yes,
who told you?” Only a little under three months pregnant, she
was sure physical signs hadn’t given it away. Perhaps the woman
was a neighbor who had heard from someone else.
“You will have a daughter.”
Feeling her abdomen tighten, Luella forced her voice to sound
relaxed. “Henry and I are hoping for a son.”
“Yes, he will be born first, but he will always be a disappoint-
ment to you. The soul I’m speaking of has unusual perceptive-
ness; she is waiting for the proper time, for your readiness to have
a daughter. She will be remarkable; an old soul, a very old, old
soul.”
Luella wanted to pull away, but the penetration of the eyes
kept her still. A moment passed, then another. She was aware of
nothing but the pale face before her. The woman nodded and
backed away, stepping off the curb. Luella, thoughts still scat-
tered, affronted but intrigued, could only watch as the stranger
crossed the street and was gone.

No longer able to follow the now dim figure, her mind re-
turned to present surroundings and she felt again the cold air on
her cheeks. As if summoned by a loud noise, she turned her head
sharply in the direction from which she’d come and, not looking
back, followed her instincts toward home.
Two years later, on December 21, 1898, Dorothy was born,
following Chauncey Gorham Beecher, the son Luella was preg-
nant with at that evening’s strange meeting. It is revealing that in
Luella’s two-page summation of her life she wrote, “We had two
children. The first a daughter, Dorothy King Beecher.” Although
born second, Dorothy ranked first in her mother’s eyes, perhaps
because, as predicted that night, she was, in fact, remarkable.

Of all her family, it was Dorothy’s paternal grandmother, Ellen
Tuller Beecher, affectionately known as “Mother Beecher” to the
American Bahá’ís, who influenced her most. Mother Beecher in-
troduced Dorothy to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and, as He advised, served as
her granddaughter’s primary spiritual teacher.
Mother Beecher, Ellen, was born to the Tuller family on July
26, 1840. Theirs was a strictly puritanical home; Ellen’s mother,
Jeanette Eno Tuller, taught her all the questionable pleasures of
adherence to every rule of decorum known to New England. The
kitchen was the only place women were supposed to be useful.
Ellen’s reluctance to abide by the protocol set there was one of the
major tests of the mother and daughter’s harmony. Once, after
preparing her contribution to a church picnic, Ellen had cleaned
the kitchen and gone upstairs to dress for the occasion, no small
endeavor in those days of numerous underthings layered below
dresses secured by tiny buttons and hooks. When Ellen came down
again her mother waited in her domain: the kitchen. The code of
domestic conduct had been breached; the look of scorn on her
mother’s face made that obvious. Ellen looked around the room

and spotted the sugar bowl she had inadvertently left out. Apolo-
gizing that she had been in a hurry to get to the picnic, Ellen
reached for the bowl to put it away, but her mother’s hand stopped
her.
“Is it proper to do kitchen work in your dress things?”
“No, of course not, Mother. I didn’t. I’ve just been upstairs
changing.”
“Putting the sugar away is kitchen work. In order to help you
remember to thoroughly clean the kitchen every time you per-
form your duties here, it is best that you go back upstairs and put
on a plain frock. Then come down and put the sugar where it
belongs.”
There was no discussion, ever. Ellen, like most young ladies of
that particular time and place, did as she was told. It was a confining
existence. Then the Tullers moved to Clifton Springs, New York,
so that her younger brother could be treated in Dr. Foster’s sana-
torium. It was there that Ellen’s spiritual potential was first awak-
ened. Eighty years later, in the mid1930s, Dorothy quoted her
grandmother’s memories of Clifton Springs in one of five articles
she wrote for The Bahá’í Magazine on Mother Beecher:
Dr. Foster had, in connection with his sanatorium, a large
chapel in which ministers of every denomination were in-
vited to speak every Sunday. One day it was announced that
Henry Ward Beecher, his brother, Thomas K. Beecher, and
the great Dr. Horace Bushnell of Hartford, a noted writer
and preacher, were to be guest speakers the following Sun-
day. Dr. Bushnell had written, among other famous works,
two large volumes on women in the church, always oppos-
ing, in no uncertain terms, their taking part in meetings.
Needless to say, the Beechers upheld this view. I went to the
meeting with joyous anticipation, making sure to have a front

seat where I might see and hear everything. As usual, Dr.
Foster opened the meeting with a hymn, followed by scrip-
ture reading. Then closing the book, he said quite slowly
and distinctly, “We will now be led in prayer by Miss Ellen
Tuller.”
To say that I was utterly routed and completely horrified
would fail to express a tenth of my feeling. Everything
stopped. I hung suspended in a great void in which all mo-
tion had ceased. Nevertheless, I sank to my knees in answer
to the direct prompting of my heart, and opened my lips.
Immediately all fear left me and I prayed quite clearly, though
hearing my own voice as from a great distance. The die was
cast. Shame and remorse overwhelmed me to such an extent
that I heard nothing of the subsequent speeches. I could
only weep and wonder miserably what all these great men
must think of me. I thought of my dear mother, of my pas-
tor and of my church. Do you think this cowardly? Perhaps
it was, but I ask you to remember that with the exception of
the kindly doctor, I stood alone in a completely antagonistic
world.1
The head deacon of their church visited the Tullers a few days
after Ellen had dared to pray aloud at the service. Repetition of
the offense, he instructed Ellen in his most dulcet religious tone,
would result in having her name permanently crossed off the
church books. Confident of the church’s powers to damn her eter-
nally, Ellen was torn between her growing inclination to serve
God in whatever way possible, even speaking out, and the obvi-
ous sin she committed by doing so.
Later that day, when the pastor of the church visited, Ellen was
still in turmoil. All humiliation was already hers, so she spoke
freely to him, explaining everything she felt and thought. Ellen’s

Dorothy Baker, “The Evolution of a Bahá’í, Incidents from the Life of Ellen
V. Beecher: Chapter 3.—New Lamps for Old,” in The Bahá’í Magazine, Vol.
24, no. 9 (Dec. 1933), p. 284.

obvious devotion to essential loyalties regardless of man-made
doctrine seemed to relieve him of the burden of judgment. When
she finished speaking, he didn’t question her sincerity or purity of
motive. He only said that when, if ever, her name were crossed
off the church books, his would follow.
For the rest of her life, Ellen took an active role in both reli-
gious and community work. When asked how this stance could
possibly be acceptable in God’s sight when the Apostle Paul was
so clear about women’s secondary position in the church, Ellen
explained her understanding of Paul’s teaching. She said that his
interest in the silence of women, as evident from his organization
of the first Christian church in Antioch, Syria, was based on a
desire for social unity among its members, many of whom were
offended by women who spoke out and asked questions. Unlike
the eternal law that we must love our neighbor, this rule was not
spiritual in nature. It was simply a method of creating unity among
the members of an early Christian church by following the pre-
vailing social customs of the time. In this new age, when women
are considered to possess the same intelligence and spiritual po-
tential as men, she saw no reason for the arbitrary distinction
between them within the church. Consequently, Ellen felt per-
fectly at ease with her choice of an active, rather than passive,
religious life.
Ellen’s interest in the church spread to include the rest of the
community. She worked in prison reform and served on the board
of the Trenton Reform School for girls. When Mrs. Marshall O.
Roberts founded the YWCA in New York, she asked Ellen, who
was becoming known for her interest in the advancement of
women, to serve as a spiritual guide and counselor to the girls
who lived there. Another cause that attracted Ellen’s considerable
energy was the Temperance League. She gave fiery speeches to
thousands about the debilitating physical and social effects of al-

cohol and also edited a weekly magazine dedicated to the same
ideas.
In New York, while working in the slums, Ellen met a young
newspaperman, Joseph A. Beecher. He was a grandnephew of
Lyman Beecher, father of both Harriet Beecher Stowe and Henry
Ward Beecher. When Joseph and Ellen married on Christmas Day,
1866, the conflict that had begun in Clifton Springs chapel be-
tween the presiding patriarchy of the Beecher family and the in-
dependence of Ellen Tuller took full bloom. But Joseph, unlike
Henry Ward Beecher, admired and encouraged Ellen. Their
in-harmony wasn’t based on differing philosophies so much as on
similarly independent personalities. What they loved of each other
in theory—deep commitments, strongly-felt passions—didn’t
work as a basis for their marriage. Although in theory they might
have seemed well suited, their relationship was a volatile one. Ellen’s
continued zeal to do good was further fired by the pain and frus-
tration of life at home.
By her late twenties her belief that all would be well with the
world if only enough people determined to solve the most evi-
dent problems had waned. It had turned instead to a conscious-
ness of the apathy of others and of her own powerlessness to
redress the never-ending wrongs. She continued to work at the
causes she once believed in, but no longer with the conviction
that her efforts would have any real effect. Seen through the dark-
ened glass of her own limitations, resolving the problems of man-
kind, resolving even the difficulties of her own life, seemed hope-
less. Still, time with certain friends gave her some solace.
Ellen often visited a Mr. and Mrs. Thompson’s home where
they spent long evenings together talking or listening to music.
On one such evening, although thoughts still rushed in and out
of her mind, Ellen felt too tired to do anything but lie on the

divan. Finally she closed her eyes, hoping to shut down the thought
mechanisms that kept her tormented and instead lose herself in
the music Mrs. Thompson played. Ellen couldn’t help wishing
that, rather than the sweet, innocuous piano piece, her friend
would play something forceful—Bach, perhaps—music to drive
the demons of doubt from her heart. But no sound of absolution
came, no strength of tone that could meet her misery then take
her, little by little, from its depths to the relative comfort of un-
derstanding. She finally slipped into sleep and, sleeping, dreamed.
Again in the articles on Mother Beecher’s life, Dorothy quoted
Ellen’s memory of that evening:
In the corner of the room appeared a Glorious Man, robed
in white and wearing a white turban. I dare not attempt to
describe the majesty of that Presence. The moment I saw
him, he extended his hands to me. “I know that you long to
die,” he said with exceeding gentleness. “You may go with
me now if you wish.” The room seemed suddenly flooded
with light. How I longed to arise and go with him! Then he
spoke again, telling me that although I might make my choice
as I willed, a great blessing lay in my remaining here of my
own volition, and that all things would be made plain to
me. My soul cried out to go, yet immediately my desire to
be obedient to this Shining Person obliterated all other de-
sires. Joy filled my being as I acquiesced to the things he had
spoken. Thereupon I began to be aware once more of physi-
cal sensation, and found myself being vigorously rubbed back
to consciousness by Mr. and Mrs. Thompson who had be-
come greatly alarmed about me. Even after I had opened my
eyes, I saw the dim outline of that luminous Presence for a
brief moment. Then all too soon the vision faded, leaving

me transfigured by a strange joy while at the same time deso-
late because of its passing; so desolate indeed that I could
not forbear crying out in the grievous pain of that parting.1
During those moments, timeless for Ellen, Mr. and Mrs. Thomp-
son were unable to find any pulse for a full five minutes. Awake,
but still too weak to tell of her experience, Ellen lay silent on the
divan. She didn’t know who the white-robed man was, but his
promise that all things would be made plain gave her the faith to
go on living.
During the coming months and years, Ellen investigated every
path that might lead to truth: New Thought, Christian Science,
Theosophy, Spiritualism. Each supplied her with some new un-
derstanding, but after complete immersion in the various beliefs,
Ellen had to recognize and admit that “all things,” at least for her,
were still far from plain.
Almost forty years had passed since her dream. Ellen began to
wonder if it really meant what she thought or if perhaps the dream
was only a product of her own subconscious desires, of her fad-
ing hope that life was worth living. Experiences with various spiri-
tual groups made her a master at distinguishing sincerity from
sham. She became callous to beautiful words that too often con-
cealed beliefs she did not share.
Ellen first heard a fragment of the story of Bahá’u’lláh from a
Persian rug dealer around the turn of the century. She was di-
rected to an American Bahá’í woman in New York who gave her
a copy of a prayer written by Bahá’u’lláh. With the prayer in her
purse, Ellen left the woman’s house, wondering, deep in thought,
and stepped in front of a train. She seriously injured her leg and
had to be hospitalized for several weeks.
Immobilized in her hospital bed, with little else to do, Ellen
read and reread the prayer. By the time she was able to leave,

Dorothy Baker, “The Evolution of a Bahá’í, Incidents from the Life of
Ellen V. Beecher: Chapter 5 (Conclusion—The Vision of Reality),” in
The Bahá’í Magazine, Vol. 24, no. 12 (Mar. 1934), pp. 375-76.

Ellen felt fired with the hope that she had found her Beloved and
that all things, as promised, would be made plain to her. Each
day brought her closer to the certainty that His promise to her,
forty years before, was real.
Ellen Beecher’s obedience at the time of her near-death finally

4. Mother Beecher, circa 1925.

did bring the promised understanding, first through the meetings
she attended at several Bahá’í homes, then through translated
writings of Bahá’u’lláh and His son ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. She received
her first Tablet from ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in 1897 and at least ten more.
In a Tablet He wrote to her in 1903, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá said, “Be ye not
grieved at the censure of the multitude, at the evil of the igno-
rant, at the derision of the deniers nor at the ridicule of those
who are heedless of the appearance of the Kingdom of God.” For
her whole long life Ellen Beecher remained steadfastly sure that
this was indeed the day foretold in the Lord’s Prayer, that the
Bahá’í Faith would bring the promised Kingdom of God to earth,
the goal Ellen Beecher had worked for, consciously or uncon-
sciously, all her life. Even before the shock of seeing a picture
of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and recognizing His countenance from her vision,
Ellen knew she had found her long-awaited truth.
But in her dream there was another promise, the prediction of
a “great blessing” if Ellen would choose to remain alive and wait
to find her Beloved here on earth. After discovering the Bahá’í
Faith, she spent the last thirty years of her life traveling on lecture
tours, organizing the administrative activities of local Bahá’í com-
munities, and teaching Bahá’u’lláh’s message of world unity and
spiritual regeneration to numerous people. Perhaps the blessing
He spoke of was her service in the broad sense, or perhaps some
particular of it.
Two things are obvious: First, Ellen Beecher took action, and
her action had direct results; and second, her example served to
inspire and edify others. It is in both aspects of this service that
her “great blessing” may well be found. Through her training, as
‘Abdu’l-Bahá instructed in 1912, and through her example, she
raised her granddaughter, Dorothy Beecher Baker, to be a stead-
fast Bahá’í. Eventually, Dorothy served as the first woman to chair
the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States

and was appointed by Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian of the Bahá’í
Faith, as a Hand of the Cause of God, an honor and responsibil-
ity conferred on only eight women in history. In giving spiritual
life to her granddaughter, Mother Beecher may be counted as
having supplied the original impetus for Dorothy’s “long record
of outstanding service” which, Shoghi Effendi writes, “enriched
[the] annals [of the] concluding years [of the] Heroic [and the]
opening epoch [of the] Formative Age [of the] Bahá’í Dispensa-
tion.”1

Shoghi Effendi, quoted in “Memorial Meeting for Dorothy Beecher Baker,” in
Bahá’í News, no. 277 (Mar. 1954), p. 2.

5. Dorothy, one year old, 6. Dorothy “reading” with her
December 21, 1899. doll, circa 1900.

7 Dorothy all dressed up, circa 1904.

8. Dorothy behind the carriage house at Budd Lake,
feeding the chickens, 1904.

9. Dorothy, her mother Luella, and brother David, circa 1905

Chapter 2
Final year at school, 1916–17
As a young teenager Dorothy went to high school in Maplewood,
New Jersey, where she lived with her parents and older brother.
But at sixteen she convinced her father Henry of the merits of
spending her senior year at a good girls’ school. Her choice—
Northfield Seminary for Young Ladies—emphasized, along with
scholastics, etiquette and household skills, the latter of which
Henry was very interested in having his daughter acquire. He al-
ready sensed what her years of marriage later proved. She had
little patience for centering her life around keeping house.
Even at Northfield, where the girls waited on tables periodi-
cally to learn the intricacies of “womanly service,” Dorothy’s main
interests were academic. The senior English instructor—“Lady
Mac” when she wasn’t within earshot—was a stern woman who
prided herself on never having given an “A”. Toward the middle
of the spring semester, she told all the pupils in Dorothy’s class to
line up against the front wall of the room. Pacing back and forth
in front of them, she explained the rules of the game they were all
about to play.
“Eight consecutive lines of poetry, repeated intact. I don’t care
if it is the words to a nursery rhyme, doggerel, or legitimate verse.
When you miss, you sit down.” Taking a front-row seat she si-
lently studied the twenty squirming girls before her and finally
said, “Begin.”
Standing near the start of the line, Dorothy was glad to be able

to recite something easy that hadn’t yet been used. By the time it
was her turn again, a full half of the class members were seated,
having missed a phrase or, under pressure, been unable to think
of another unrecited eight lines. Dorothy took the minutes in
between turns to reconstruct the poems she could remember,
mentally crossing off those already used as her turn came closer.
The fourth round found only a few lucky ones standing, but as
luck ran out and only quick thinking and memory could replace
it, all the girls were seated by the fifth round except for Dorothy
and one other who, on her next turn, again rose to the occasion.
Dorothy’s determination wasn’t dispelled by the confidence of
the young lady next to her. Unflustered, she said her piece. Again
to the other girl. The girls in the class hung on every word, listen-
ing for a mistake. Dorothy’s turn: She almost faltered, then caught
herself in time. The excitement of Dorothy’s near miss seemed to
swell the other girl’s hope that she was fated to win. The girl be-
gan a poem, only to be stopped by their taskmistress, Lady Mac.
“That has been recited.” Horrified by her mistake, she pushed her
mind to respond—time froze, nothing came.
Their teacher gave a short nod toward Dorothy. If she, too,
was unable to find a final verse, the game would be tied. The eyes
of the class didn’t move from Dorothy’s face. Even the devastated
contender finally looked over at her. When the squealing encour-
agement that had been constant for the last three rounds dissolved
into a quiet that matched her own, Dorothy began.
Whan that Aprille with his shoures sote,
The droghte of Marche hath perced to the rote …
Now standing by the window, their teacher’s usually erect
spine seemed to relax. Leaning on the sill, she gazed out as she swung
her pince-nez on its black ribbon, caught by the beauty of the

language and the cadence and strength of Dorothy’s young voice
as she recited the prologue to The Canterbury Tales. The ability
Dorothy would later call on to move great numbers of people
had already moved at least one heart. That year Northfield
Seminary’s senior English teacher gave her first “A.”
Henry’s hope that Dorothy would come home from Northfield

10. David and Dorothy Beecher, circa 1912.

with new direction was fulfilled. But the direction was not what
he had expected. At the start of the summer Dorothy seemed to
be more help to her mother, but Henry watched her as she qui-
etly ate dinner. Even as Dorothy helped the maid clear dishes
away night after night, it was evident her real attention was else-
where. He asked Luella if she knew what might occupy their
daughter’s mind, if she might be involved with a young man—
someone she met at a school dance, perhaps. But Dorothy hadn’t
written home about any romantic interest. Finally Henry admit-
ted that the change in Dorothy might simply be maturity, accep-
tance of her role as a woman.
A few mornings later he smiled, on coming down the stairway,
to find Dorothy waiting by the front door with his hat.
“Thank you, my dear. I am pleased to see the ladies at Northfield
succeeded in calming your spirits a bit—something your mother
and I had little hope of accomplishing.”
Dorothy smiled back, sincerely glad he was pleased. “Fath, may
I ask you something?”
“Of course, Dottie.”
“May I go to the law offices with you someday, just to see what
it’s like? I’ve never been, except for once or twice with Muvsy, and
then we only stayed for a minute.”
Henry looked at Dorothy’s almost alabaster skin, her hair softly
pulled back in loose waves. Her face no longer had the look of a
child, but the eyes gave her away. Perhaps the flicker of a little
girl’s beseeching gaze brought back images of a small one looking
to him for everything, looking to him as the supplier of all needs.
Touched, perhaps not so much by Dorothy’s request as by his
own mind’s workings, Henry said, “Would you want to do that?
The office wouldn’t provide any kind of amusement for a young
lady. I can’t imagine what you could do all day long.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that. I could help around a bit. Surely
one of the secretaries would like someone to do little things for
her. You might even need me for one thing or another. But most
of all I’d just like to see what you do.”
Time together for daughter and father had been limited, espe-
cially over the last year. Whenever Dorothy was at home all sorts
of preparations for going back to school had filled her time—
things, as he said, her mother seemed better suited to help with.
But Henry had missed Dorothy that year. Now his eyes saw a
woman standing before him, but his mind longed to see the child
he was losing.
“Dottie, we’ll spend more time together—soon. Let’s take a
long weekend and go up to Budd Lake. Your mother loves it there,
and my business won’t be able to take me away so much.”
“That would be wonderful. In the meantime, though, couldn’t
I just spend one day at your office?”
Henry laughed at her insistence to be with him. “But we’ll have
three days together at the lake, not just one!”
“There’s more to it than that.”
Henry eyed his daughter. What else could she want?
“I’ll walk you outside.” Taking his arm, Dorothy opened the
door and they stepped out onto the porch together. “Fath, I’ve
thought about this a lot. I’d never bring something up to you if it
weren’t really important to me. You know that.”
He did.
“At Northfield I did well. I knew I was fairly smart when I
made good marks here at home, but Northfield was tougher.”
“Your mother and I were both very proud of you at the gradu-
ation, Dorothy.”
“I know you were. And I want you to be even prouder when I
graduate from law school.”

Stunned, Henry sank down onto the porch swing. He had of-
ten wished that his son would take up law, but Dorothy was an-
other matter entirely.
“You’re very bright, of course. You might make a fine lawyer.”
He distractedly looked across the lawn. Sitting next to her fa-
ther, Dorothy touched his arm, ready to praise his openness to
her plan. Then the wondering quality vanished from his face and
voice as he found his way back to well-known territory.
“But I wonder, Dorothy, if you could still be a fine woman?”
Not seeing the connection, Dorothy said, “Of course I could.
You see how much better I’ve been around the house since
Northfield, but I’m better at studies now, too. They came to-
gether.”
“That may be so, but working as a lawyer is quite a different
thing from being a star pupil at boarding school.” Henry’s words
seemed to bring his own legal training to mind. As he continued,
the same pathos built in his voice that he’d so often used in court,
his initial sense of his daughter’s ability lost in the rhetoric of a
man who knows when he’s right and enjoys hearing himself make
a good case.
“I’m afraid of what will happen to you. You are so sensitive to
the pain of other people. Either you will constantly be suffering
with them or worse, you will become calloused and tough. I
couldn’t stand to see either happen to you. Your sweetness would
all but disappear.”
Now he was standing above her, looking down. Dorothy
strained to see into his face, but the morning light shone so brightly
from behind him that his face and eyes were dark. It seemed im-
possible that he meant what he said. She wanted to look into him
and know if he was only sure for the moment or if he spoke the
real truth. She raised her head to let the shadow of the porch roof
block the glaring light, but just as she saw the lines creasing to-

ward his strong, flat temples and almost focused on the keen eyes,
he leaned down and kissed her forehead.
“Have a think about what I’ve said. If you don’t already realize
I’m right, perhaps considering the consequences in your life will
convince you.”
She watched him go down the steps and stride along the brick
walk to the drive. Sitting in silence, Dorothy closed her eyes and
let the swing move her in and out of the summer sun.
That night she told Henry his decision would stand; she told
herself that whatever she wanted would have to wait for that first
objective to be fulfilled—to become the kind of woman a man
like her father could love.

Chapter 3
Teacher’s training college, 1917–19
From Mother Beecher to Dorothy:
Hamilton, Canada. Dec. 9th 1917
“Royal Connaught Hotel”
My Own Darling Grand daughter—
Have I any hold on your heart these days? Or are you so
busy that you have no time to say so? I have written you two
letters since you went to Montclair, but I too have been busy,
so thought as you knew of my goings possibly through your
mother ‘twas not worthwhile to say more. But tonight I am
reaching out to you while way off so far from you all. I guess
a beautiful long letter from dear Mrs. Carré this morning
made me think of home folks, and you constitute a large
part of them to me. So here goes once more, in the hope
that it will be a welcome message from the heart that loves
you very, very deeply.
My experiences have been wonderful of course, meeting
so many people of all grades and conditions in a strange
land—and I have been more than happy in my work. I have
met some very advanced souls from whom I gleaned many
treasures—but of course I could not tell of it all by letter.
Then I have been so wonderfully inspired in speaking that I
have drawn many people to my feet, yes, and my heart—
but this only rejoiced my heart because it gave me influence

and power to show them themselves and their needs of a
deeper spiritual insight.
In London, Ontario, I had phenomenal success—was
there nearly two weeks, and spoke nearly every night in par-
lors in all parts of the city, to different audiences—but the
charm there was that the people who listened to me were all
Church people. This opportunity to open the Scriptures to
Christians I have longed for ever since I began to teach—
but I guess I had not been ready before this to do so. …
I stopped at a delightful hotel there where I was more
than comfortable and happy—had such a nice warm room
with private bath—and such a splendid table. Had it not
been for the great expense—$4.50 per day—I should have
remained longer in L. for several other parlors had been
offered me for meetings—but Mrs. Maxwell1 is sending me
and paying all expenses so it did not seem quite fair to spend
longer time in the one city. Mrs. M. also sent me to Chicago
and Detroit—but in those two cities I was entertained. In
Chicago at the home of a very wealthy man whose family
consists of a wife and one daughter just your age. She has
finished her school life, but has decided to return to College
and prepare herself for “Social Service” life. I have met sev-
eral very advanced girls on this trip who are either making
ready to serve the world, or are actually at work already—
the girls are turning away from amusements to the useful

May Maxwell, an outstanding Bahá’í teacher and first in many things.
She was among the earliest American pilgrims to visit ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in ‘Akká,
she founded the first Bahá’í community in Europe, and she was the first Bahá’í
to settle in Montreal. At the time of her passing in Buenos Aires, Shoghi Effendi
wrote that hers was a martyr’s death. Her daughter, Mary Maxwell, now known
as Amatu’l-Bahá Rúḥíyyih Khánum, married Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian of
the Bahá’í Faith.

and practical life—and all absorbed. Of three girls in one
family all of them have entered some useful vocation, leav-
ing a fine home of wealth and many attractions. …
Oh! Dorothy it is such a joy to be conscious of the God
Presence and be able to help the blind into Light. How ev-
erything else pales before the Realities which are Eternal.
They never disappoint one, but grow upon you in power
and glory. The things of Earth seem so hollow, so fleeting as
they recede before my eyes—but you say yes, Grand Ma
but you are old and more ready to let go. That is quite true
darling. I am in a position though to see things as they are.
But you have your life to live, not to waste. You must mingle
with the people of the world, enter into its joys, and work,
and interests—but darling, always shine from within. Make
the old world better, happier and hungry to know more about
the light which shines through you. And always keep the
Eye of your Soul fixed on God. He is the only Salvation. He
only can make you great in all lines. He only can give you a
calm peace when all things else fail. So whatsoever you do in
life, do it for the Glory of God. When you enter the realm
of the world’s pleasures, do it for the sake of getting closer to
humanity, and then you will not be consumed by them. Be
happy always! Do not forget that God has appointed a Cen-
tre of His Covenant with man—and that Centre is Abdul
Baha and He has chosen you as His dear Daughter—and
that means much more than it would mean to have the great-
est earthly King adopt you as his very own. One is Eter-
nal—one makes you one with God, and the other has no
power to go with you … or to love your soul—or to make
you happy in or of yourself.

The door to Dorothy’s dorm room opened, but she was too

engrossed to notice her roommate come in. The sound of the
girl’s high voice made her start.
“Who is the letter from?”
“Carol,1 you scared me!”
“I’m sorry. You must have been really concentrating.” Carol
threw her books onto her own bed. “You’re something when you
concentrate like that. It reminds me of when you hypnotize
people.”
Dorothy felt the blood rush to her face. Since the beginning of
the semester, her first at Montclair Normal School, she and a group
of friends had been “hypnotizing” girls in the dorm. Her
roommate’s gullibility had added considerable appeal to the act.
Since the school, a two-year teachers’ college, didn’t offer much
in the way of after-hours amusements, the show became rather
popular with some of the first-year girls. At the chosen time, usu-
ally late Saturday night, after the school-organized play or dance
was over, they would all gather in Dorothy and Carol’s room.
Sitting in a circle, the girls would begin by explaining to each
other the little-known practices of astrology and palmistry. As
night slipped further from the safety of the day, they concen-
trated on the more fabulous details of the occult, conjuring up
believe-it-or-not tales of mystical powers. Ready to be scared by
anything, the more histrionic types set the mood by letting out
little yelps of fear; faces would suddenly disappear into pillows
brought along like teddy bears for comfort. Even between stories,
fits of gasps and cries came easily and often, inspiration enough
found in the scratch of a winter-dry tree branch and the move-
ment of its shadow on the wall, or the door’s sudden crack of
light letting in the face of a dubious passerby summoned by their
shrieks from her sleep-thick, bathrobed trek to the bathroom.
When panic reached a peak, Dorothy hushed the little crowd

A pseudonym.

with a whisper of something “truly unheard of” of which she, of
course, had heard. That night, as was often the case, her story
concerned hypnotism. By the end, girls were clinging to each other
like baby monkeys to their mothers. Others, the braver ones, those
who wanted more than words for proof, resisted the temptation
to wallow in fear and instead demanded a display. These were, for
the most part, friends of Dorothy’s who were in on the act; they
knew their cue and took it.
Putting herself in what she called “the proper mind,” Dorothy
closed her eyes. Then, as her audience watched in silence, she sat
very still. Just when they had begun to wonder, her eyes opened
and she stared at the candle standing in the middle of their circle.
The chosen victim cooperatively went “under” following Doro-
thy’s monotonous chant or the swaying to and fro of a borrowed
locket. Then Dorothy asked questions and elicited responses that
were far from the ordinary dormitory fare. She amazed her audi-
ence, particularly those like Carol, who didn’t know the act was
just that: an act. The girls who were in on the joke got their fun
from watching the ingénues and encouraging the atmosphere of
haunted suspense.
There was a favorite ploy to end the game. Dorothy would say,
“You are still sleeping, but when I say ‘Wake up!’ you will open
your eyes feeling refreshed and remembering nothing of this ex-
perience … now—Wake up!” Nothing. The girl stayed quiet,
eyes closed. Dorothy would pretend to make every effort, finally
pacing the floor in obvious distress. Carol and the others, almost
hysterical, begged her to “do something!” At last, when they were
at the brink of absolute frenzy, ready to call Mrs. Stiles, the house
mother, Dorothy found the magic phrase and the poor captive
was released.

But now, the unread pages of her grandmother’s letter still in
hand, those nights passed through Dorothy’s mind no longer as

nights of mischievous, harmless fun, as a display case for talents
untapped by the regular routine at Montclair Normal School.
Dorothy let her eyes fall from Carol to the sheets of notepaper
lying around her on the bed. One, two … six sheets covered
front and back with the challenging, insistent handwriting of her
grandmother. Even squinting her eyes so the words said nothing,
the marks of her grandmother’s pen demanded attention. Doro-
thy’s groan was almost inaudible.
She headed north toward the library, grateful for the solitude
the gray, uninviting cold provided. Pulling the letter from her
pocket she tried to find her place, glancing over the pages already
read as she followed the library path. Her eyes stopped at the
underlined words, “Shine from within.” The indignation of a few
minutes before found a further source. Why would her own grand-
mother, who knew her so well, feel the need to instruct her to
shine? Everyone at school thought well of her. She was part of
just about anything that happened. As Dorothy walked she re-
read the paragraph. “The things of Earth seem so hollow, so fleeting
as they recede before my eyes … you have your life to live, not
to waste.”
The wind chafed her face and bare hands, but Dorothy didn’t
shrink from its cold. Eyes burning from what she half felt was
undeserved punishment, she walked on, pushing the letter back
into her pocket. Even without rereading, Dorothy could remem-
ber the other comments. She was a disappointment. Why else
would her grandmother write of the “very advanced girls” she
had been meeting and the one just Dorothy’s age who was set on
a life of service? What of her own role? She, after all, was the one
with the spiritual heritage, if there was such a thing.
The bitter voice of her own mind made Dorothy feel sick. She
thanked God no one could hear her thoughts. What was the real

difficulty? Not her grandmother’s other favorites—she knew they
would never compare, not really, not in Mother Beecher’s heart.
Jealousy didn’t help. It only gave her a victim outside herself.
Even with the envy recognized and rejected, she was still angry.
But why? For being found out by her grandmother? For finding
herself to be nothing outside of the ordinary in her search for
friends and fun?
But that was oversimplifying, and she knew it. The problem
was no more an incident or two with hypnotism than it was the
girls her grandmother mentioned. An attitude, a purpose—some-
thing had shifted in her heart. That was the root problem. At
some point, maybe not long ago, her commitments had changed,
not changed character, but changed emphasis. The questions, the
pain, stemmed from that. She hadn’t forgotten being at the feet
of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, nor had she consciously meant to neglect the
service she once was determined to render, but still, how much
did that decision now affect her daily life? It was hard to know.
In less than a week it would be time for Christmas break. Then
she and Mother Beecher, her physical grandmother but spiritual
mother, would talk and find answers to the feelings that made her
suddenly doubt herself, feelings which only that afternoon had
seemed natural. Together they would rechart the spiritual terri-
tory Mother Beecher had played such a big part in helping her
discover.

Back at school in January, Dorothy seemed the same to her class-
mates—quick and as interested as ever, but with more of the
strength and leadership they had already sensed. An obvious
difference was that she and Winifred Baldwin became roommates
and soon proved to be the two top students. At night they would
do their homework together and then, instead of leading the sec-

ond floor of Edward Russ Dormitory in a session of palmistry or
hypnotism, Dorothy would sit and talk for hours with Winnie
about their lives and their goals, material and spiritual.

11. At Montclair Normal School, 1918. Left to right:
Dorothy Beecher, Mildred Libby Rice, Marion Hamilton,
Emmy Lou Koth, and Winifred Baldwin.

Years later Dorothy named her own daughter Winifred Louise
after the girl with whom she had shared some of the important
times of her young womanhood. Even fifty years later Winifred
Baldwin wrote of what they learned together, of how Dorothy’s
commitment to “radiant acquiescence” helped give Winifred
strength to accept the early death of her mother, pain she couldn’t
have known was ahead during those halcyon days at Montclair.

At the age of nineteen, everything matters, every moment is the
moment of truth. Like a thousand other girls on the eastern sea-
board that summer and every summer, Dorothy was ready to do
something important, but there wasn’t anything to do. June had
barely started, and the summer looked endless. Her year of teacher
training didn’t help; Montclair was out for the summer, but so
were all the public schools, so she couldn’t teach. Service, service
that mattered, that was what she wanted.
In Europe the war went on. Dorothy’s brother was in the army,
but not overseas. Most of the girls in her class had a brother or
father, fiancé or boyfriend in the war—someone whose name they
dreaded finding among the lists of war dead, whose mention in
letters from home charged them with tremors of uncertainty un-
til, scanning the pages, they found none of the trigger words:
wounded, shot, killed. Dorothy’s friend Eleanor Browning received
the news at school. Her fiancé was dead. Others waited, wonder-
ing how closely their turn would follow Eleanor’s.
The war, in spirit, was everywhere. So it had been since Dor-
othy was fifteen, but now she was an adult with time and a new
inclination to serve. Service to the Bahá’í Faith was one possibil-
ity, but it was hard to define beyond a general approach to life—
there was no clear-cut forum in which to practice it. The desire to
give to some larger whole, outside herself, appeared to be best
fulfilled by participating in the struggle that embroiled most of

the world. At the least it would give her a summer job; a muni-
tions factory in Dover, New Jersey, had openings.
Determined to do her part, Dorothy tried hard to settle into
the routine of her job as a bomb inspector. But wartime or not,
the work was dull and repetitious. The summer dragged on, one
day identical to the next. Thoughts of other times and places
occupied Dorothy’s mind while her hands stayed busy at the work-
bench. Often her eyes would drift around the room to watch the
other women perform the exact function she performed time af-
ter time.
As Dorothy stood at her position one day, she noticed that the
woman in the nearest corner station was looking around the room
as well. Glad to see someone else couldn’t keep to the tedium,
Dorothy smiled. Oblivious, the young woman returned to her
work. Dorothy reasoned that her smile hadn’t been noticed, but it
didn’t seem possible; they faced each other with only the two tables
in between. She looked again toward the woman and noticed
something else: her station was particularly messy. All of the work
tables were strewn with various tools, but hers was unusually clut-
tered.
The last break over, quitting time still two hours away, Dor-
othy walked back toward her station, her eyes everywhere but
there, where boredom waited. Almost to her place, she reconsid-
ered: why not pay a visit to the shy colleague across the work-
room? So instead of getting directly back to work, Dorothy cut
around and walked behind the barricade separating their inspec-
tion group from the rest of the plant. As she came around the
corner the woman’s back became visible, then the top half of her
torso disappeared from sight as she leaned far over her work bench.
“Very thorough,” thought Dorothy. Not wanting to interrupt in
the middle of an inspection, she stood still, just the other side of
the barricade, and waited for her coworker to finish. After a minute

or two Dorothy began to wonder if there were some problem.
Peering around the movable shelves, she saw the woman’s hand
inside the bomb. Then the other hand slipped under her work
table and pulled out something long, but she moved so quickly
Dorothy wasn’t sure what. By the flash of light reflected it looked
like a knitting needle, but whatever it was, it was now lodged
inside the bomb, and the bomb sat alongside the others that had
been inspected and approved.
Back at her own table Dorothy couldn’t decide if she had seen
anything or not. Her quiet explanation to the plant supervisor at
the end of the day was given mainly to free her mind, to pass on
the information to someone qualified to decide it was nothing.
Instead, the discovery received national attention. A knitting
needle, properly placed, could apparently make certain bombs
the plant manufactured malfunction. The President of the United
States, Woodrow Wilson, sent a letter to Dorothy in commenda-
tion for her discovery of an enemy agent.
She was not, however, sure of the merits of her action. In later
years Dorothy almost never spoke of the episode and then only
hesitantly. With the knowledge that what she did was laudable in
the sight of many of her countrymen came a sense of the pathos
of a situation in which tampering with a bomb and so averting
the taking of certain lives was considered pernicious, while the
manufacturing of the instruments for human destruction was
praiseworthy.
The immorality of civilized life bothered her. Still, instead of
closing herself off in her own pure hermetically sealed world of
ideals, Dorothy expanded her interests and her activities.
At Montclair the next year, she was editor-in-chief of the school’s
yearbook, The Palatine. She was also elected class president and
won myriad honors along with one or two others in each cat-
egory: most popular, brightest, student who did the most for the

school and class, best talker, joy of the faculty, peppiest, most
unselfish, and best leader. A classmate’s brother, Dr. Robert E.
Fuller, recalled,
As I look back on those few social events that included me,
I remember Dorothy in a special way. There was meaning of
personal interest when she greeted you, there was character
and dignity in her behavior, and when she spoke of life there
was eloquence to her words. Instead of deflating me she in-
spired me to use my mind and think along with her.
Whatever the qualities were that captivated and charmed her
classmates and friends, they were developed as a result of Dorothy’s
growing understanding of the choices life offers and of her deci-
sion to depend on an underlying purpose in order to make those
choices correctly. As she matured, the threads of her various ideas
and aspirations twisted together to form a strong cord that gave
her life direction. To one friend, Bernice Nickerson Vanderbilt,
“Dorothy gave the impression of being very sure of herself. Her
enthusiasm was enhanced by a personal magnetic quality.” A so-
rority sister and close friend in Pi Sigma, Hammie Toner, com-
mented, “For one of her age she had the rare combination of wit,
intellect and a great sense of spiritual values. One couldn’t have a
mean thought or say an unkind word in her presence. One just
didn’t, that’s all.”

As Dorothy became more and more sure of the beliefs that would
guide her life and influence the lives of people around her, her
brother was busy finding a way of his own. Early on he had been
independent. Home from his first day at elementary school, he
announced to his mother, “My name is not Chauncey anymore,

call me David.” Later he was no less determined to forge the kind
of life he chose, regardless of what his family thought.
While Dorothy was at Montclair, David went to the Univer-
sity of Miami. Technically, he studied engineering, but he be-
came most proficient at attracting members of the opposite sex.
When he visited the family at home or Dorothy at college, more
than one of his sister’s friends found him irresistible.
He combined the charm and mannerliness he had learned at
home with the reckless appeal of a marauder. Barely concealed
below his respectable Beecher attitudes was a lascivious quality
unknown before to the sheltered young ladies he met through
Dorothy.
For years to come Dorothy lived through David’s loves and
marital mishaps, suffering both with him and with the friends
whose hearts he broke. Eventually she became adept at anticipat-
ing his next attraction and its consequences. This led to some
platonic chiding on her part or, when the situation seemed hope-
less, to straightforward counseling on the moral responsibilities
of love.
Although he never acknowledged that Dorothy’s attitudes were
anything but prudish, under the veneer of patronizing good hu-
mor David, at times, listened. He often mimicked her “precious
piety,” trying to get through to the real feelings, which he sus-
pected were more like his own, only veiled under his little sister’s
pointless desire to conform.
Dorothy’s convictions troubled David, as David troubled Dor-
othy. The two formed a perfect counterbalance for each other,
too perfect to be easily shifted. At moments, in thought or con-
versation, their instincts brought them together, but they contin-
ued to live their lives with opposite goals.

Chapter 4
Grammar school teacher and suitors, 1920
David let the screen door slam closed behind him, but it couldn’t
be heard in the airy hall that served as a cafeteria for the Green
Acre Bahá’í School. Like all eating places where people enjoy be-
ing together more than they delight in the food, the noise level
didn’t allow for interruption. Looking through the familiar faces,
his eyes grew sharp as they found their mark.
Just beyond the third of the tall windows that looked out onto
the lawn sat his sister. From his position at the door he watched,
rigid, on point. Although Dorothy was apparently involved in
animated discussion, the room melted before David as his con-
centration mounted. The voices were so many and so loud that
they mixed together until he couldn’t have known, even if he had
cared, whether the sound came from humans or from a swarm of
sparrows outside.
With his dark blue eyes still focused on Dorothy, David let the
sounds of the dining hall neutralize into silence as he watched his
sister. Dorothy, perhaps aware of a difference in the mood of the
room, perhaps only letting her gaze drift to the double doors at
the end of the long, high hall, suddenly connected with his per-
sistent presence. For an immeasurably brief moment nothing
changed as they held each other in balance. Then she raised a
motioning hand and David, shooting back into the reality of noon
at Green Acre, moved toward her.
A shock of light brown hair fell across his brow, catching light,

turning to wheat as he passed by the windows between them.
Golden from the summer’s Maine sun, his face looked alive with
wry interest in life around him. David seemed in possession of all
the alertness and intelligence his mother saw in him and his fa-
ther demanded of him.
A quick grin was greeting enough before he spoke his inten-
tions. “I’m off, Dottie, up to Canaan.”
“Aren’t we both going up after the session? Aunt Susie’s expect-
ing us both.”
David watched his foot scrape at the grit between his shoe and
the oak floor. The pose—head bent down, eyes staring—didn’t
fit his self-image, but his sister’s face would only remind him of
perceptions that were harder to define. “I’m off—to marry Lila.
That’s why I’m going up now I just wanted to let you know.”
With his jaw set, he raised his head to catch the impact of the
statement on Dorothy. His eyes strong, determined, confident,
he looked into her lighter blue ones, now soft as she studied her
brother. Was it compassion that made her gaze so tender? It was
compassion he had to guard against.
“I’m glad for you, Dave-o. Lila … so you asked her.”
Dark hands on white cloth supported David’s leaning weight.
Dorothy reached over and lightly covered one of them with her
own. Unable to accept this act of nurturing which it seemed so
natural for her to provide, he shook his hand free and bent down
as if to comfort Dorothy instead.
“Don’t you start feeling lonely without your big brother.”
“We’ll still be together a lot.” Dorothy smiled but had the dis-
tressing sensation she was saying the words for him rather than
for herself.
Aware only of her brother, Dorothy’s mind fill with fear for
him. She struggled for some other feeling. Too late. Instinctively,
he must have known. He pulled himself away. As sure of his re-

sponse as he had seemed of hers, Dorothy forced her words to
break the silent connection that allowed their minds such insis-
tent understanding.
“I hope you’ll be happy, and Lila too.” He looked relieved that
she spoke as if at ease and, seeming more than ready to finish
what was to be done, David, in his own words, was “off.” Just as
he reached the door, a voice called him back. No one heard David
mutter, “Hell, what does she want now?”
A second later Dorothy looked up from the heavy porcelain to
see him walking toward her and wondered why he silently leaned
again, head cocked, waiting. For an instant they looked expect-
antly at one another. When the stillness became uncomfortable
Dorothy finally opened her mouth, hoping for words, but they
resisted.
David said, “What is it, Dot?”
“Nothing. I … I just wondered why you came back.”
“Because you called me back, of course.”
“No, I didn’t.”
David smiled at her mischief. “Come on … what is it?”
Laughing, she sputtered her same reply. Whatever the joke, it
seemed to be over. David patted her hand and, with a wink, turned
and again started out for Canaan. This time Dorothy watched
until he disappeared. She saw the screen doors spring shut and
heard their bang, audible now that the dining hall had cleared
somewhat. But she looked up a moment later and there, again,
stood David.
“Dottie, what do you want?”
Nothing. She saw the tight muscles working in his neck. As his
hands gripped the table edge, her eyes dropped, not to watch
them, but to avoid his pain.
“You called me again!”
“I didn’t call you, I swear.”

“Of course you did, I heard you from outside. You said my
name.”
He meant it. He had heard her calling out to him. Fear left her
and she stood.
“Dave, I didn’t call you, not the first time and not this time.
Maybe it was your own mind telling you … to wait, telling you
it might be a mistake to marry Lila, at least to marry her now.”
Dorothy, holding her brother’s hands, felt them go wet and
saw the stubbled skin above his sharply defined upper lip begin to
shine with perspiration. The lips parted to form the silent words
of a prayer or a curse. Again freeing himself from Dorothy’s grasp,
a grasp too cool and too sure, David stepped back.
He gave a big grin—forget it, “I’ve gotta move. Lila’s waiting.”
That summer of 1920, David married. The marriage produced
a baby girl, Susie, then ended. A memorable summer for Dorothy
too, it began a curious kind of measuring in her life. Inspired by
the opportunities Green Acre afforded for intimate contact with
outstanding Bahá’ís of the day—people she’d met as a child but
had never really known—Dorothy left summer school ill at ease
with her life and again, or still, anxious to change.
On August 18 she wrote, for the second time in her twenty-
one years, to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. Eight years after meeting Him, she
longed to see Him once more, this time in the Holy Land, where
‘Abdu’l-Bahá lived as a result of the exile of His Father, Bahá’u’-
lláh. Due to their forced residence in the prison city of ‘Akká,
the world center of the Bahá’í Faith developed on Mount Carmel,
the very place where, according to the Old Testament, the angel
Michael revealed to Elijah the mysteries of the time of the end. In
Dorothy’s copy of The Glorious Kingdom of the Father Foretold,
she marked a passage from Isaiah 35:2: “… the excellency of
Carmel and Sharon, they shall see the Glory of the Lord.” The
power of Dorothy’s attraction to this place and to the Bahá’í Faith

was deeply rooted in her belief that Bahá’u’lláh fulfilled Biblical
prophecy regarding the time of the end and the second coming.
But in 1920 Dorothy was not able to meet ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in the
Holy Land. The tragedy for her, and for the world, is that by the
end of the next year ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s earthly life was over. Pilgrims

12. Dorothy about 1919, the year she graduated from Montclair.

for the rest of eternity would be satisfied and, indeed, deeply grate-
ful, to visit the Shrine on Mount Carmel where His body was laid
to rest.

The fall of 1920 found Dorothy back in Montclair, having gradu-
ated from normal school two springs before and about to begin
her second year of grammar school teaching. She moved back
into Mr. and Mrs. Ralph’s boarding house where she had lived
since the beginning of her teaching career. In a letter written to
her mother that September, after taking care of a few drudgeries
such as how many fifteen-dollar checks Dorothy’s mother had
sent versus how many Dorothy received, she got down to the
essential in her young life: romance.

It was such fun to arrive today. Aren’t people nice to be so
cordial? The Ralphs were darling. Also everyone else in the
house. Felt just like a regular homecoming. There’s a closed-
in front porch now, and not one failed to inform me that it
was built for me. You see it used to be a joke ‘cause my call-
ers had to camp out on the piano stool. Doc Young was
awfully funny about it. They roar when I say I’m going to be
a staid old schoolmarm. Doc says, “yes—around midnight
you are a very good imitation of a school teacher. Lord, what
is this world coming to?” And then everybody mentions the
closed porch again and thinks it’s a good joke. Then they
mention the people who just happened to ask when I was
expected back—and howl with Mirth. Great life. Mr. Ralph
reminds me of Dave with his talk of scalps.
Cliff has gone to college in Pittsburg and the Ralphs were
lonesome—till I came, they said.
Last night I spent in East Orange at Win’s. We went to

Summit to a dance at the Buchwood Hotel. Bob and Win,—
Dede Holbrook (who owned the car), Louie Levinsohn—
boy from Montclair, Alston and last of all—me. Had fun.
Got lost coming home, though. Ask Anti Dove if that was
“imprudent”?
I’m going to be really awfully good and go to bed early all
the time and never have any dates. I owe it to my work.
Don’t you think so? Tell Aunt Susie that. Also, please believe
it. I mean it.
By the way, I don’t see how I ever liked B— — B— —
even a little. I think he’s slimy. He’s a cat. I told him I wouldn’t
trust him in a cell. … We quarrelled. Biff writes nice letters
but is a little conceited.
Haven’t heard from Chet since being back. Guess he
doesn’t know I’m here anyway.
Elliott—as usual.
Ken—quite steady.
Montclair friends—not yet—and besides, I’m being good.
There! Whew! You’re up on all the news. Say, do you like
it or does it all bore you? Tell me. It’s more my nature not to
talk about it all anyway, you know. I didn’t last year.

Dorothy also sent home the good news that everybody said she
looked “much fatter” and that she had been trying and trying to
get in touch with her father’s office so she could go over to
show off what was, for her usually pale skin, “quite wonderful color.”
And once again she committed herself, in writing, to her beliefs.
Perhaps Dorothy left this for the end of the letter so her parents,
who were not yet Bahá’ís, wouldn’t be upset by what was already
a deep feeling for the Bahá’í Faith. “I haven’t forgotten that I’m a
Bahá’í now and forever. Think that’s what’s making me feel so

wonderful. Told Winifred all about it. She is quite enthusiastic
and is going to help me put it over to Isabel who we think needs
it.”

Exactly a month later Dorothy’s devotion to the Faith was just
as evident in the mail home, but her determination to live a mo-
nastic life of all work and no dating was wavering.
Last night, do you know, I was one wee bit sad about some-
thing, oh just one minute, and right the next minute the
Greatest Name1 came to my lips, and oh, do you think I
wasn’t happy? Floods. Floods. And then today I whispered it
to the empty seats in my little heaven, and oh, do you think
we weren’t happy when they all came filing in? More floods.
Lots more. And every time, I think no more can come, but
it does—always.
Grandma, have you any beads for a convenience for Muvs
to say it too? And for Daddy Darlin? Pooh. Now they’ll put
their noses in the air and say they don’t want them or need
them or anything, but never mind, hand them some as you
did me, and before you know it, they’ll be seeing the idea of
them, too. …
Am dated up this weekend, but still, please feel a little
sorry for me, inasmuch as I always am crazy to see the family.
I got all dated up on purpose so as not to notice my absence
from you so much.

Refers to the Arabic phrase Alláh-u-Abhá, meaning “God is most Glori-
ous.” Its use among Bahá’ís can be compared to the Christian adoption of the
Hebrew term “Hallelujah,” meaning “praise (ye) the Lord.” Many Bahá’ís use
prayer beads to count a particular number of repetitions of the Greatest Name.

In letters home, Dorothy managed not to dwell on the fact
that at least one of the men in her life was providing a deep ro-
mantic interest. A bright young lawyer who often came down
from Boston to woo her, Elliott was everything Dorothy had ever
imagined wanting to find in a mate. He was educated and kind;
he even had a sharp wit.
To her delight, he’d asked her to marry him. She had agreed
and was sure they would be married by the next summer, but she
wanted to give herself some time before making the engagement
official.
Elliott told her he had forced himself to let her be free for the
summer, after that first year of teaching. He reasoned that Dor-
othy needed a chance to prove to herself she could make a go of
life, on her own. But by late August Elliott was anxious to pin
down the date of their wedding and begin to plan his life. One of
the earliest of Montclair’s clear fall weekends found the two of
them as sure as they had been the spring before that theirs would
be a wedding joyful enough to be worthy of the attention both
their hometowns would give it.
As he walked her up the house steps that Sunday afternoon,
Elliott seemed encouraged by Dorothy’s ebullient mood and sweet
response to his inquiries into the state of her heart. She was as
drawn to him as he was convinced of his love for her. So there, on
the very front porch the Ralphs’ enclosed especially for Dorothy’s
suitors, Elliott restated his intention to marry her and promised
to be back that evening for a final talk about setting up the par-
ticulars. It was time, he said, to begin making their plans. Though
she had been putting off setting the date, Dorothy agreed the
time to decide had come.
In her room she threw her handbag on the armchair near the
foot of the bed and pushed open the curtains to let her proud
certitude spread out to the world. There, at the end of the block,

she saw Elliott’s car, just moving around the corner. For a mo-
ment Dorothy’s spirits dimmed. Then she realized it was only his
driving away that made her sad and so before long she was able to
bring herself back, almost to the same high level of confidence in
his character, his bearing, in everything about him. But in that
instant something was lost. Now, with Elliott away from her, with
his enthusiasm and adoration no longer physically present, she
couldn’t quite relocate whatever it was that gave her such pleasure
when he was there. Still, she wanted him there. It didn’t add up.
Distraught, Dorothy sat on the bed’s edge, trying to keep her
mind from grappling with the thoughts she wanted to let find
their own order. She prayed and felt herself distanced from the
pressure of Elliott’s needs and her own hopes. Then, her eyes
open, but only her inner perceptions in focus, she let the pattern
of their relationship form. Somehow there was a flaw, a flaw in
her love. It was Elliott who provided all the joy. She was simply
the proud recipient and mirror of his energetic devotion. Now it
didn’t show too badly, but as years passed the pressure on the
fabric of their marriage would grow. What was now only a dropped
stitch would eventually begin the unraveling that nothing could
stop.
Startled by a whistle on the street, Dorothy looked at her watch.
Six P.M. It must be Elliott. How often she had felt her blood rush
at the sound of that familiar whistle and taken the steps two at a
time to see him face to face, his always silhouetted by the street
lamp. But now she sat still. Bound by feelings she wanted to tear
free of, she sat. Elliott, so beautiful and alive. Why resist him?
But still, she couldn’t let herself move. Another whistle. Pulled to
the wall by the force of his will and the power of her own long-
ing, she dared a look from behind the curtains.
He stood, as always, face expectantly turned to the front door,
his face that always, even now, made her smile. Unable to resist

his presence, she almost stepped between the open curtains, but
instead, not ready to go down, retreated farther along the wall,
farther from the light. Dorothy let the crown of her head fall back
against the flowered wallpaper. Tears drew wet lines over her cheek-
bones, finally reaching and wetting the hair behind her temples.
They weren’t burning waters of lost love, but cold—reminders
from inside that she was now alone. And when—just a moment
later—she could no longer stand his pain or her own and burst
forward to the window, he was gone.

Chapter 5
Frank Baker and proposal, 1920–21
With Elliott come and gone, meeting eligible young men was no
longer one of Dorothy’s primary concerns. If love and marriage
were dependent on finding the most gracious, impressive man
available and falling in love, Dorothy saw no point in continuing
the search. Elliott was all of that, and she had been, or perhaps
still was, in love.
Dorothy didn’t forget him. Weeks later her sense of loss was as
compelling as it had been the day she rushed to her window in
hopes of finding him still standing outside. But the union was
wrong; that much was clearly established in her mind. There was
little comfort, though, in knowing she had made a sage decision.
The reality of living without him was deadly. Life withered with-
out the intense delight of his hand touching hers, without the
promise of seeing his clean-angled face looking at her with such
devotion and rapture—without his need for her, his desire for
her, his enchantment.
The claws of the eagle of love were deeply embedded in
Dorothy’s heart. Nothing seemed able to change that. Facing the
remaining minutes and hours of life that stretched into eternity
and realizing they would each and all be lived without him nulli-
fied any hope of joy. Ahead was only pain, if she concentrated on
self. The only possibility left was to throw her burning soul into
whatever service opened and pray that its needs would devour
her own.

Dorothy’s students, for a time almost forgotten, now domi-
nated her attention. They were children of many races, but most
of them the dark-eyed offspring of Newark’s southern Italian
immigrants. She began to center her life around theirs. Second
grade protocol was pushed aside more and more as she discovered
ways of exciting their desire to learn outside the standard color-
ing books and building blocks. She sang to them “Lady Golden-
rod,” “Yama Man,” children’s songs, and the hits of the day. The
children would sit, listening in silent adoration until eventually
they began to learn the words and sing along with the light of
their lives, “Miss Beecher.”
Many of them, their own clothes sewn on for the whole win-
ter, were fascinated by Dorothy’s wardrobe. When she tried to
teach her students to identify colors on the chart set up in the
classroom, they weren’t interested. But Dorothy found they could
always identify the color she was wearing, so she taught them that
way. A hot pink skirt and orange blouse were favorites, rare colors
in the Newark slums.
The school initiated a once-a-week bath program, which meant
all the children had to take off their winter outfits at least that
often. Dorothy’s students were the most cooperative, perhaps
hoping their clothes would be replaced by colorful ones like hers.
They were not, but at least the children were cleaner and stayed
healthier through the cold months.
The steps Dorothy took with her class, deemed small in the
eyes of a school system that emphasized rote learning, led to her
recognition that spring by the Ethical Culture School in New
York. She was offered a job there, but had to turn it down. Life by
then had surprised her with exactly what she didn’t expect.
Her mind had actually cleared somewhat. The emotions that
had once threatened to destroy her were weakened by new under-
standing. In some ways marrying Elliott would have meant be-

coming Elliott. With him she would have had to make a full com-
mitment, not just to him, but to his style of life. For many women
marriage seemed to be that simple—picking a person whose po-
sition in the world was attractive and joining in. Not that Elliott’s
“position” was bad. Dorothy knew she had the potential to fit in
very well, but swallowing whole his already well-developed sense
of self and purpose, his social, moneyed, ambitious though ethi-
cal lifestyle, was too easy. There could never have been the chance
to find out what she could become without Elliott’s influence. By
joining a similar personality already moving in a given direction,
she would have given up all other options. The emotional inde-
pendence that followed these discoveries elated Dorothy. Life be-
gan to have its joys once again.
Mr. and Mrs. Ralph’s boarding house—their converted family
home—still had the feeling of family, and Dorothy relished be-
longing. In the evening, the Ralphs sat down to dinner with their
“guests” while a hired lady served them all. That September a
woman who didn’t live at the house began joining the little group
at dinner. She was always accompanied by a young girl and a
slightly older boy who were introduced as Sara and Conrad. As it
turned out, the woman was not their mother, but their nanny.
When the father, a widower, was out of town she had full charge
of Connie and Sally, as she called them. Even when he was home
and caring for the children himself, their father often brought
them to the Ralphs for dinner, so Dorothy, now a master at be-
friending youngsters, had gotten to know them both quite well.
Sara was becoming very devoted to Dorothy, who, having little
else to do besides visit with the other diners after the evening
meal, usually stayed downstairs, often playing and talking with
the little girl. One evening Sara announced that their father would
be bringing them the next night.
“Won’t you be glad to see him, Miss Beecher?”

Of course she would, Dorothy said, trying to remember him,
and she’d be especially glad to see Sara. Then Dorothy kissed her
goodnight while Sara grinned. As Dorothy walked up the stairs
she waved down at the child in the entry hall. But the smile was
gone from Sara’s face. She just watched as Dorothy walked to-
ward her room, then finally lifted her hand in a last goodnight.
Dorothy couldn’t help wondering if it might not be too hard on
Sara to become so attached. Her mother was gone, but Dorothy
could hardly substitute.
At dinner the next evening Sara sat immediately across from
Dorothy with her father and brother to her right. She talked about
her day at school, then asked Dorothy to tell about her students.
“Well, they’re a little bigger than you are. Are you six or seven?”
“Almost seven.”
“Most of my students are seven or eight, but a few of them are
very grown up, or at least they try to act that way.”
“Do they try to read hard books or what?”
“Not exactly. Today one boy was saying some things he really
shouldn’t have, out on the playground.”
“Oh, what did he say?”
The adults within earshot, including Sara’s father, turned to
hear what Dorothy would answer.
“Instead, let me tell you what he said when I called him inside.
He stood by my desk while I talked to him. I said, ‘Joey, you have
such a beautiful mouth. It makes me so sad to hear words that are
ugly come from a sweet mouth like yours.’ He has eyebrows that
look exactly like half circles. The longer I talked, the higher they
went on his forehead, until he was looking at me with this aston-
ished expression.”
Dorothy raised her own eyebrows higher. Sara laughed, then
became serious. “Did he cry?”
“No, but when I stopped, he walked right over next to my

chair so his face was almost level with mine and stared at me for a
moment. His eyebrows were still way up here. Then he put his
arms around me and hugged me so hard and said, ‘Miss Beecher,
when I grow up I’m going to build you a bi-i-ig red castle.’”
Everybody smiled, except Sara, who looked rather desperate.
“Please, Miss Beecher, don’t go live in that boy’s castle. Come live
with us. If you will, I’ll let you have my turn in Daddy’s bed!”
Because he was gone so much, Sara and Conrad’s father let the
children take turns sleeping in his big bed on nights when he was
home. Sara was offering her most cherished gift, but to the adults
present it was a good joke. As they repeated her offer around the
table, everyone laughed again with those who missed it the first
time, and Dorothy glanced at the man who sat across the table.
She blushed at the implication of Sara’s suggestion but covered it
with laughter as hearty as that of the other boarders. Still, when
the rest went on to other subjects, she again looked over at the
quiet older man who sat opposite. After explaining something to
Conrad, he was just turning back to Sara, and as he did he hap-
pened to glance at Dorothy. This time Sara’s joke couldn’t explain
the sudden surge of color in Dorothy’s white skin, nor could laugh-
ter cover her embarrassment as she lowered her eyes to her plate
and wondered, as she fumbled with her fork, if Frank Baker found
her foolish.

Frank was a large man, tall and quite heavy. His reserved nature
combined with his substantial bulk to make him seem forbid-
ding, yet there was a vulnerable quality about him. When Dor-
othy and Frank met, he was almost thirty-one years old and was
already part of the solid middle class his German father and grand-
father had worked so hard to join. Theirs had been lives of du-
rable effort marked by the small and large triumphs that tend to
give one’s self-image consistency and substance. Frank might have

seemed to be a man content with a similar role. He was an able
businessman, working as production manager of all the north-
eastern National Biscuit Company bread bakeries.
Like his forebears, he was good at the bakery business and en-
joyed it. However, there was a detached quality about Frank that
distinguished him from the rising young executive who sees will
as an absolute force, whose boisterous confidence is matched only
by the occasional sinking sense of his own inadequacy. Frank had
a steadiness not easily shaken.
Frank’s grandfather, like five of his eight brothers, had left
Germany in 1848 for America. His son, Frank’s father, married a
Miss Stolzenbach, so Frank’s heritage was German on both sides.
The family lived in a German enclave in Zanesville, Ohio. De-
spite his grandfather’s and father’s success in America, while Frank
was growing up the family spoke only the mother tongue at home
and retained many German qualities and traditions. He was taught
to be responsible and thorough, to express his thoughts but to
suffer his feelings quietly.
At seventeen Frank had almost died of typhoid. Delirious for
days, he recovered consciousness enough to wonder at his mother’s
absence from his bedside. Protecting Frank’s weakened nerves,
the doctor lied that his mother was in bed, too ill to come to him,
but recovering. It was only when Frank was well enough to leave
his bed and his room that he learned the truth: She had died of
the disease that almost took his life. The fear of unexpected loss
never left Frank.
After high school, and following a summer at his father’s bak-
ery, Frank went off to Yale like his brother Carl before him, and
Robert later. But unlike the other boys, Frank got married during
his sophomore year to a New Haven girl, Mary Quentin.
Mr. Baker gave the marriage his blessing when he found out
about it the next summer, but told his son the only responsible

action was to leave school and begin work so he could support his
wife. Frank took a job with his father’s Plezol Bakery in Zanesville.
Having Mary with him must have made the sacrifice of his edu-
cation worthwhile. She crocheted and embroidered the linens,
bore their two children, and fed them all with her devotion and
her dinners. In Mary he found again the steady sustenance that
had been missing since his mother’s death. Then, quite suddenly,
Mary died of pneumonia.
Frank left his hometown for a new life in Montclair, but there
was little joy to be found anywhere without Mary. Laconic and
disciplined as he was, perhaps no one knew the pain Frank suffered
at the repeated loss of the most beloved women in his life—his
mother, then his wife. For those who confess sadness less easily,
whose cries are silent, the inner sea of tears must evaporate slowly;
it can’t be washed away by a violent but mercifully swift storm of
anguish.
Despite his loss and his intense personal agony, Frank Baker
carried on, coming home to Conrad and Sara as often as business
allowed, comforting them on the evenings he was there, sharing
their loneliness as they took turns sleeping in his big bed. When
he met Dorothy two years after Mary’s death, Frank had that spe-
cial quality of an individual whose suffering has made him out-
wardly stern and strong, but whose heart is more open than ever
to love and tenderness.
Dorothy had never gone out with an older man, but when
Frank finally asked her to the theater a few weeks after the dinner
matchmaking by Sara, she accepted. He wasn’t that much older—
only nine years—but they were critical years. Born in 1889, Frank
spent his childhood in another era. Even after the turn of the
century, life continued to be dominated by old-world mores and
ideas in the German settlement where the Bakers had lived for
three generations. When Frank was fathering his first family,

Dorothy was still a schoolgirl. His experience, when they met,
was that of a man a generation older than she.
Whatever the two did not have in common, by the winter of
1920 both had felt the fragility of happiness. Elliott could have
supplied Dorothy with everything her background encouraged
her to seek, but she had known it would be a fatal mistake to
marry him. She saw the flaws in her conditioning and rejected
Elliott, as Frank, through tragedy, learned not to trust that the
most traditional setting was necessarily the most secure.
The romanticized hero figure did not form the basis of Doro-
thy’s attraction to Frank. Nor could Frank have considered her—
a young woman of distinctly absent household skills and a friend,
not a mother, to Sara and Conrad—as a substitute for Mary. What
Dorothy and Frank found together was something new.
Over the next seven months they became aware of their love
and the quality of that love. Neither found in the other a mate
who fit into the image of what they had once thought they wanted,
but their love went beyond that. Each cared not so much for the
outer self of the other, the self that is so easily seen and judged,
but for the true self, the inner spirit that can be recognized only
by the pure and sincere heart.
On the way home from New York one March evening, after a
trip to Broadway and dinner at a favorite Italian restaurant, Frank
Baker asked Dorothy Beecher to marry him.

June 18, 1921, the green lawns of the Budd Lake house had been
trimmed and raked, folding chairs set up to accommodate the
hundred or so guests. It was the same house where, nineteen years
before, Dorothy had waited on the porch for her grandmother to
take her to meet ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. Dorothy had explained the Bahá’í
teachings, social and spiritual, to Frank. He understood and ac-
cepted their veracity.

The ceremony would be in the large living room of the family
lodge, but the reception was supposed to be outside. Earlier in
the month there had been some rain. Dorothy worried, right up
to the day, that her garden party would be forced onto the cov-
ered porch.
But upstairs in her room, she didn’t even notice that the skies
were clear as the guests began to assemble on the lawn. It was a
quarter of two, and they were already arriving. Dorothy stared
out the window and thanked God she didn’t have to be down
there yet.
Not that she wasn’t ready. She was. Her brown hair, cupped
under just at the top of the jaw, was already encircled with a gar-
land of flowers from which a long veil fell below the hem of her
mid-calf satin dress. Dorothy had been dressed for quite a while,
but kept putting off admitting it. Instead, when her parents were
in the room, she busied her hands with final adjustments and
made sure her eyes never met theirs.
With her mother and father finally both downstairs, Dorothy
stood alone, gazing out of her childhood bedroom, her prison
and her protection. In spite of the humid warmth, Dorothy had
closed the window that faced onto the side yard where some of
the guests stood chatting. Outside she could see Frank’s daughter
running between the little groups of people, with Conrad close
behind. She couldn’t see what Sara was doing, but whatever it
was, the guests were laughing. Conrad wasn’t. He looked angry as
he charged around after his younger sister.
With one hand Dorothy touched the dropped waist of her
wedding dress, then turned to the mirror. There, next to it, stood
her bags, ready to be carried down to Frank’s car. She almost
smiled in recollection of his dry joke that by marrying him at
least she wouldn’t have to change the monograms on her luggage.
That would not change. But everything else would, and she

wondered why she had ever wanted it to. Her affection for Frank
was deep and fond, but what did marrying him really accom-
plish? Then she would be able to take care of Sara and Conrad,
but their nanny was probably better at it. Dorothy remembered
how she and Frank seemed to offer each other comfort and sup-
port, but suddenly she didn’t feel she needed it anymore.
Tall and lean, her father stepped into the room. “It’s a bit warm
in here, isn’t it, Dottie?” Without waiting for an answer he strode
over to the window and opened it. “That’s better.” Even this small
act of wisdom seemed to please him. He stood facing the win-
dow, breathing in the moist air that blew off Budd Lake.
“Well, downstairs the state of affairs is just as Luella planned.
Everyone is ready and waiting for what she promised will be the
prettiest bride, the best cake, and the strongest punch of the pair-
ing season.” Henry liked his own jokes and had a good chuckle
over this one, his nervousness adding to his normal ebullience.
Dorothy pretended to make use of the mirror’s image, straight-
ening the sleeves of her dress. But in its reflection she watched
Henry, behind her, looking out at the lawn and talking about the
progress of the party. She knew he was trying to encourage her
with his plenitude of words, but it wasn’t working, and there
seemed no reason to go on pretending. She was too tired. Dor-
othy turned to her bed and, oblivious of the yards of white net-
ting that followed, folded herself up on the end farthest from the
door.
“What is it, my dear? Are you ill?” Henry, his long hands more
accustomed to aggressive motion than to the soothing that now
seemed required, nonetheless reached toward the back of his
daughter’s head, hesitated, then smoothed the dark hair. “Please,
Dottie, don’t leave me here wondering. What’s the matter?”
Dorothy sat up and pushed herself into his arms. “I don’t want
this. I was wrong to say I would marry him.”

“You’re just afraid now. You’ll feel better.”
“No, I won’t. I never want to marry him.”
Henry was quiet as he held his daughter close.
“Then perhaps you shouldn’t.”
“How can I? I was wrong to say I would. I don’t even know,
anymore, if I love Frank. Maybe I don’t.”
Dorothy’s new confidence in her father’s compassion let the
fear that had been building stream out in her tears. Between jerk-
ing sobs she said, “But I have to, I have to marry him now.”
“No you don’t, not if you don’t want to.”
The sobs increased and Dorothy held him tighter. Henry leaned
down so Dorothy was lying on the bed. He sat next to her. “You’re
not sure you love the man. You feel under pressure to marry. Well,
you needn’t feel pressure. There should be no rush to marry him,
feeling as you do.”
“But everyone’s here. Frank’s waiting.”
“Don’t base your decision on that. A few disappointed guests is
nothing compared to years of remorse. I’ll say you’re ill and ev-
eryone will go home. That simple. Frank and I will talk it over in
private.” He started for the door.
“No … no, wait a minute.” Closing her eyes, Dorothy turned
her heart away from the immediacy of herself, and of her fears, to
God. She tried to isolate what it was she really wanted, but in her
distress, she couldn’t. The wind on her face made her open her
eyes again, only to see a piece of stationery lifted from the desk
by the same breeze. The gentle presence of a force so indifferent
to life’s great decisions distanced Dorothy from her choice as well.
The real fear wasn’t of not loving, but of losing something. In
the past, life could have gone any way at all, but marriage would
bring definitions of herself and her existence that despite Frank’s
openness, would be confining. It was marriage that made her afraid;
the restrictions, the roles brought on by any marriage. Dorothy

was quiet as she followed her thoughts, letting them lead. But
marriage to Frank didn’t mean joining some standardized institu-
tion. It meant she would live with a man she loved, with a man
whose love for her wasn’t based on her personality, but her per-
son. The outer self can find relationships that thrill but don’t sus-
tain. Frank’s love went beyond that to love for her true self, not
for some concocted image of Dorothy Beecher as a beautiful
woman or perfect wife. And the roots of her love for him—they
were growing, grounding her more deeply in the values she and
Frank shared.
As she sat, her ringless hand upon the bedpost, these thoughts
formed not as an argument for marriage, but as a distillation of
fear from fact. The heavy stone of her anxiety had almost
effortlessly been turned over, and there truth lay, plain and real.
In an instant she gave in, not to the pressure of the moment,
but to the knowledge that whatever came with Frank would be
good.
Calmed, this time by her own hand rather than Henry Beecher’s,
Dorothy descended the stairs with her father, and nothing was
spoken of her moment of doubt.

Chapter 6
Marriage, birth of Louise, and the psychic, 1921–23
With her luggage stowed in the trunk of Frank’s dark blue Packard,
Dorothy was surprised at how secure she felt sitting in the front
seat next to her husband, when only hours before she had been
ready to continue life without him. The children didn’t share her
satisfaction. Frank’s description of summer camp in New Hamp-
shire had done nothing to relieve their indignation at not being
included on the honeymoon.
Both Conrad and Sara stood in the cluster of older ladies that
had formed in front of the car. Conrad was more or less waving
along with everybody else. Sara had at least stopped crying, but
she stood absolutely sullen in the midst of the fluttering grand-
mothers. Hat feathers and gloved hands waved while the small
girl stood straight and still. From behind, Dorothy’s mother,
Luella, leaned down over Sara and in an effort to help her wave
lifted one short arm. The hand hung limp, but the grimly set
young face responded to Luella’s attention. Pouting lips separated
and Sara’s brow furrowed into uneven wedges, the course of lines
still unset by the myriad frowns and smiles of a lifetime. For a
blessed second there was no sound. Perhaps she was only yawn-
ing? Then cutting through farewells and whisperings of “What a
perfect couple,” and “Those two deserve happiness, if anybody
does,” came Sara’s sharp cry. Finally, wrinkled faces drew closer,
white handkerchiefs dabbed and fluttered around Sara’s eyes and

13. The wedding party at Budd Lake, June 18, 1921.
Left to right: Frank and Dorothy, Frank’s younger brother,
Robert, and Libby Rice.

then around older eyes, adding more busy motion to the already
waving, buzzing hive of ladies.
From inside the car, Dorothy wondered if she saw Conrad wince
or if it was only the wind off the lake that made him turn his
head, eyes closed, for a moment. It must have been the wind
because a second later Sara’s skirt billowed enough to show the
matching bloomers that at happier moments that day had made
her so proud.
In the front seat Dorothy and Frank had a world of their own,
but they exchanged a glance, wondering silently if they should go
or stay to again comfort Sara. Neither spoke; Frank started the
Packard. The noise was enough to send gloved hands to ears in
the little group near the car. Conrad took the moment to break
free and run to his father’s open window, followed by Sara, de-
spite the soft hands and words that reached to stop her. The

children’s goodbyes were more intense than any when Frank went
away on bakery business. This time he was leaving because he
wanted to and leaving with someone Conrad and Sara had trusted
as their friend.
Dorothy watched from the passenger side, unsure of how to
include herself or even if she should try. She waited through tears
and kisses for any sign from Sara or her brother that they needed
comfort beyond their father’s care. None came. It was Dorothy
who winced now and turned to her own window, calling out last
thanks and goodbyes to the friends, the old and new relations
who came close to the car to give final words of advice and fare-
well.
The Packard began to roll backward down the drive, and Dor-
othy felt her breath release. Sara and Conrad, at least for now,
must be all right. But her relief was mixed with a new anxiety
that made her talkative and giddy: For the first time she was alone
with her husband. “Sara with those bloomers! Wasn’t she funny
showing them off?”
Frank turned the car into the street, backing farther away from
the gathering on the lawn. “To everybody but Connie. Keeping
Sara modest kept him busy.”
“Really, busy doing what?”
“Didn’t you see him running after her, pulling her skirts down?”
“Oh, that’s what he was up to. I did see him following her …
from up in my room.” Dorothy forced her mind to retreat from a
replay of her feelings just before the wedding, of the doubts she
suffered looking down at the wedding party that almost didn’t
include her.
Heading the right way now, Frank put the Packard in first.
Moments before, the two of them had formed such a close unit,
watching everything from inside the car. Now, as it moved slowly
past the house and lawn, Dorothy’s entire concentration locked

into the little group that moved with them down the gravel road
toward the lake. In her mind she was still there on the grass with
her parents and grandparents. But the car kept rolling, past her
family and onto Lake Shore Road. No doubt now, she was alone
with Frank, and the honeymoon she had longed for, yet feared,
was underway. That night she wrote home.

Waterbury, Conn.
“The Baltimore”
June 18, 1921
Will keep you posted along the way.
Darling Muvs and Daddy and Grandma!
We’re here, happy as clams at high tide.
Wasn’t everything wonderful? I was so proud of every-
thing and everybody, especially Daddy, who marched beau-
tifully. Frank and I agreed that the whole affair was perfect
in every way.
How I do adore you all. You are all so perfect a family.
Love—
Dottie

And a few days later Dorothy wrote,

Ritz-Carlton Hotel
Montreal
Dear Muvs,
What a wonderful life we are living! First beautiful hotels
with spacious rooms and baths, and then, thru’ the day, white
clouds, blue sky and green trees—mountains, valleys, mead-

ows. Marvelous weather, campfires for red tenderloin steaks
and chicken, ham, potatoes, yes even frogs’ hind legs. One
night we caught seventeen frogs in the sweetest little brook—
over in Vermont.
We are loafing in Montreal for a day or two. Tomorrow—
Thousand Islands.
Frank is an Angel. All I do is look a wish and behold—it
is here.
I have not taken out the little box at all. That is one of my
wishes, and that is enough. Isn’t it marv?
I love you as always—and dear Grandma and Daddy too.
Dottie
PS.—Later After dinner
… Frank drank a whole quart of Burgundy and two dry
Martinis. I had a Martini and one glass of Burgundi [sic]. I’m
not as drunk as Frank.1
PPS.—Next morning
All’s well. Frank dropped a quarter out of the window last
night and spilled ice water while I had a bad case of the
giggles, watching him, but we pulled through all right. …
D. B.
Back in Montclair after the honeymoon, married life was com-
fortable and normal. The Bakers received a young visitor, Edris

It wasn’t until 1938 that Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian of the Bahá’í Faith,
asked the Bahá’ís of the West to begin observing Bahá’u’lláh’s law forbidding
the consumption of alcohol.

Rice-Wray, Mabel Rice-Wray Ives’s daughter.1 She visited Dor-
othy and Frank from Vassar College, where she was a student.
Afterwards Edris wrote of Dorothy Baker, “She had become a
young wife, marrying a man somewhat older than herself, with
two children. At that time I could not understand her choice, but
she seemed the typical housewife and mother, content to be just
that.”
If Dorothy’s marriage seemed smooth and unruffled to friends
and observers, it was because she and Frank were determined to
solve any marital problems or else, individually, learn to accept
the difficulties marriage presented. During the first year, when
they lived in Montclair, Dorothy was afraid to talk about money.
Although Frank had a substantial income and included in the
monthly budget a forty-dollar clothing allowance for each of the
children, Dorothy felt it was impossible to ask for anything extra
for herself. It may have been her strict, puritanical upbringing
that kept Dorothy from mentioning that the budget, which was
initially meant only for keeping the house and children (the house-
keeper had received a separate salary for her personal needs), was
not sufficient. When single, as a teacher, Dorothy had been able
to buy a new dress when she wanted one, but on the housekeeper’s
budget there wasn’t even money left for a scarf.
Though her wedding gifts were elaborate and beautiful, Dor-
othy didn’t receive many practical things. The house was ill-
stocked, with only leftover and worn linens and household items
from Frank’s first marriage. It was in real need of refurbishing,
but again Dorothy wouldn’t ask for the necessary funds. The
inflation of the 1920s made matters even worse.

Edris Rice-Wray later became a physician and moved to Puerto Rico
and Mexico to follow her career in gynecology and obstetrics and to teach
the Bahá’í Faith.

Perhaps Frank’s generosity in other areas made Dorothy hesi-
tate to mention mundane necessities. He prided himself on giv-
ing her her own car, but because she was so silent about her smaller,
more immediate needs, extra money went to buy her the things
Frank thought she wanted: new golf clubs or dinner at posh res-
taurants. One day Sara brought home twenty-five dollars’ worth
of red roses, bought with money she had saved from her allow-
ance. Dorothy broke into tears, which thrilled Sara, who assumed
she was overcome with joy, but in fact she cried because the funds
could have been used so readily for essentials.
There were also problems raising her two stepchildren. During
Dorothy’s first year of marriage Sara and Conrad sometimes treated
her as an intruder, someone who was trying, unsuccessfully, to
steal the affection they reserved for their real mother. The adjust-
ment was particularly traumatic for Sara, who was used to having
the complete attention of both her father and her brother. An-
other female in their house other than hired help—particularly
following Sara’s exclusion from the honeymoon—made her
moody.
Gradually, however, the problems of the budget and the
difficulties of being a stepmother were largely resolved, though
not without tremendous strain on Dorothy. For months she woke
every morning to find her pillow wet and cold from the tears she’d
cried in her dreams.
Dorothy felt the pressure to succeed in her marriage even more
strongly because every other marital relationship in her immedi-
ate family had failed or was faltering. Her beloved grandmother,
Mother Beecher, and her husband Joseph had been separated for
almost twenty years before his death in 1917. The tension be-
tween Luella and Henry was building, and her brother David’s
marriage to Lila, like most aspects of his business undertakings
and personal life, was torn apart by stress and misgivings.

So Dorothy kept her own life safe and close. The family came
before all else. Her primary interest became raising Conrad and
Sara and, after May 24, 1922, her own little daughter as well,
Winifred Louise, also known as “Babette.”

1088 Elmwood Ave.
Buffalo, N. Y.
Nov. 7, 1922
Dear Muvsie Wuvs,
Your letter with the Sedatole suggestion came and was
read while in the drug store! All I had to do was to read that
word out loud and now we have the awful stuff in the house.
Thanks very much. It took away the last suggestion of a
cough that little Sara Jane had.
Frankie caught no deer but Curlie Oaks gave him one of
his—a young, tender one. It tastes wonderful. Nothing like
last year’s at all. Wish you bunch were here to try it. …
Won’t it be fun to see you and Fath tho’? I can hardly
wait. Now don’t let Fath get something else to have to do.
Especially after paying Dave a visit he will have to come up
here. Can’t let Dave get ahead of us like that. What’s the
new news about Dave? Is everything going to be all right
anyway, partner or no partner? What got into the partner’s
head? Poor old Davo! He will deserve success when he gets it
all right. Can I be of any assistance to him? He never an-
swers my letters so there won’t be any use in my asking him.
Babette is on a pillow on the floor; feet standing on an
angle of 359 99/100 degrees no longer straight up, but pok-
ing in mouth, eye, ear, or only digging pillow about head.
She can’t see any sense in the straight and narrow way. Her
idea is to resemble a crochet wicket or one of the balls.

Golf! Oh Boy! Why didn’t I start when Larry Korsher
begged to teach me? Heavens! I can see Fath with a golf club
in his hand. He ought to take it up. It would just suit him.
Tell him to book a professional for three lessons and then go
ahead.
Tell him also that Connie won the tennis championship
in the lower school at Nichols. Next year he will be in the
higher school, so this was his last chance to do it. Ask Dad
to write Connie a little short note if he has time. It would
tickle Connie so if he thought “Uncle Harry” knew and was
pleased.
Babette wins the finger-chewing contest but never sucks
her thumb. Therefore she will never have buck teeth.
Lovingly,
D.
For Dorothy, every day brought some new fascination: what
Babette ate, how long she slept, along with the details of what
Dorothy found to be her amazingly well-developed potty abili-
ties. While Connie and Sara were at school and Frank was at work
or out of town on business, Dorothy and Louise spent their days
together. That first winter after the family’s move from New Jer-
sey to Buffalo, New York, Dorothy rarely left Louise at home
with the maid, but if she did it was usually for something she felt
was vital for the family. When a friend asked Dorothy to visit a
fortune teller with her, it was easy to decline; her mind was at-
tuned to the guiding principle of family responsibilities first.
But after spending most of the time in Buffalo unpacking and
organizing the new apartment, Dorothy was ready for a day off.
So when her friend again begged Dorothy to accompany her to
the fortune teller, explaining all the reasons she was afraid to go

alone, Dorothy finally acquiesced, calming her own fears by re-
minding herself that she was simply going along as a favor to a
friend, not to become involved in the hocus-pocus herself.
When they reached the psychic’s house, Dorothy concentrated
on the immediate and tangible by thumbing through a magazine
in the living room that doubled as a waiting room. Rebecca1 greeted
the woman as she appeared through a doorway. Dorothy, feeling
fairly protected behind her magazine, couldn’t resist a glance at
the psychic. She was dressed in rather plain, normal-looking
clothes, although the heaviness of the wool skirt emphasized her
thickness. Its fabric looked mottled and dark next to the soft blouse
she wore. Dorothy watched as she circled her, walking distract-
edly nearer, her left hand busy pulling on a gold ring that seemed
to bind her somehow. The right hand, as if working against the
left, wouldn’t release the ring. It looked stiff and uncooperative—
alien. Then both hands dropped to the front of her rough skirt,
palms rubbing down as if to feel the nubby texture.
Dorothy looked up and found the woman’s gaze directly on
her face. “I’ll see you now … Mrs. Baker.”
Dorothy flinched at the sound of her name, but strained to
keep her tone normal, relaxed.
“It’s actually Rebecca who is here to see you, not I.”
“I know, but I’d like to see you.”
“Go ahead, Dottie. I can wait.”
Dorothy was surprised at Rebecca’s matter-of-fact attitude; she
had been so fearful before the visit. With the help of the person
Dorothy was supposedly there to comfort, the situation had
shifted, putting her in Rebecca’s place, afraid and anxious. She
realized her hesitation must seem silly, but did not want to go

A pseudonym.

with this woman who didn’t know her, but said her name. Dor-
othy tried to relax the tightening of her jaw. There was, she rea-
soned, no real cause for fear. The woman only wanted to talk.
Then again Dorothy felt a surge of resistance; she did not want to
know her, or the future. She had only recently become comfort-
able with the present.
“I haven’t any money. Perhaps another time.”
“There is no charge.”
Dorothy put down her magazine; there seemed no path to take
but the one the psychic offered. As she stood, the woman turned
and went back through the open door from which she had ap-
peared. Dorothy followed.
The psychic led her to a small oak table. Dorothy sat in un-
comfortable silence. Their first words sounded like the light chat-
ter of casual friends.
“How’s Frank?”
“He’s fine, thank you.”
Instead of relaxing her, the casual nature of the woman’s con-
versation increased the incipient unease Dorothy had felt when
Rebecca first invited her. What had seemed uncomfortable in the
waiting room was now repellent. Dorothy was again distinctly
aware that she did not want to be there.
“Frank. He is your husband?”
Dorothy nodded.
“And Conrad? Your son? No, he’s not your son. But he is. How
is that possible?”
Suddenly determined to find bottom in this woman’s well of
information on her family, Dorothy named her children, and ex-
plained that the two older ones were by Frank’s first wife. Obvi-
ously, the fortune teller had somehow found out the names of her
family; Dorothy felt sure that by listing them all, she had wiped
out her store of information and ended the display of supposedly

supernatural powers. Instead, the woman seemed inspired by the
names and began to talk about the children—Conrad, the eldest, first.
“He will be around hospitals all his life.”
Dread of harm coming to her son got the better of Dorothy’s
decision to dismiss whatever was said. “You don’t mean he will be
ill?”
“No, not that, but he will always be there. Working? … Yes,
that’s probably it.”
She was quiet, and Dorothy, watching her evident concentra-
tion, was quiet as well. “And now Louise. You must teach her to
deal with people of every culture, to be able to entertain them
and put them at ease. And train her musically. She will live on
many continents and entertain people from all parts of the world.
As for the child you are carrying now, train him carefully.”
“I’m not pregnant!”
Unimpressed, the woman went on. “Yes you are, but be care-
ful with him. He can be successful in either the spiritual or the
material realm. It is up to you, and to him. He is an old soul, but
if he’s not properly trained, all his energies may go into the world
and the material wealth that can be found there.”
The comments on Connie and Louise interested Dorothy, but
the remarks on the character of an unborn child, in fact a non-
existent child, convinced her again that this woman was a fraud,
or perhaps just deluded. There seemed no reason to expose the
poor creature, but Dorothy couldn’t resist reminding her that she
had completely overlooked Sara in her predictions.
“You’ve left out Sara.”
“Yes, her destiny is very different, but quite beautiful. You must
be happy for her. Her destiny is very special.”
Dorothy’s ambivalence about the woman’s abilities and inten-

tions now came to its illogical conclusion. Across the table she
sat, still looking down, almost through the floor. In fact for most
of their conversation the woman had looked to one side or the
other, letting her eyes drop low; her left, active hand sometimes
playing with a wisp of hair, then floating near her cheek, fingers
working against each other. But now, reflected in the longish face
Dorothy saw the look of a person humbly struggling with her
powers; missing was the pompous expression of a person impressed
with her own strange gifts. Whatever the depth of truth in her
predictions, amorphous as they were, save the idea of pregnancy,
it seemed to Dorothy the woman had an attitude of unpreten-
tious sincerity about her. Dorothy watched until the woman’s dis-
tant gaze refocused, then thanked her and stood to leave.
“Give Frank my regards, and tell him one thing. There is a
message from ‘M.’ He must know this woman, ‘M.’ I see her
looking down at her feet. She’s smiling and saying, ‘I’m all right
now. I can walk!’”

As Frank and Dorothy sat at the table after dinner that night, the
older children in their rooms with their studies and Louise long
since in bed, she began to explain the visit. Frank, to her surprise,
was fascinated. He listened to every part of the story, having her
repeat the comments about their unborn son. When she finished
they sat musing about the possibilities for their children: Sara’s
special destiny, Louise’s full future. If not believing every word,
they were at least intrigued by their own thoughts and hopes for
the children’s lives.
“Oh, and Frank, according to the psychic, someone called ‘M’
wants you to know she is all right, and she can walk. Who could
she have meant? She seemed to see this woman standing there
smiling and looking down at her feet.”

His large, square hands folded under his chin, Frank looked at
Dorothy then down toward his dessert plate, which hadn’t yet
been cleared from the table. She felt a coolness permeate the room.
“Is it someone you know?”
“My cousin Mary’s dead now; don’t know who else it could
be.” His simple logic of remembering a woman whose name started
with “M” relieved Dorothy. An instant before she’d had the feel-
ing there actually was something to the message.
“Oh, but Frank, you know a lot of women whose names start
with an ‘M.’ I can think of several.”
“Not like my cousin Mary. She had club feet.”
Again she felt the coolness that had touched her before and the
psychic’s face came back to her: the thin nose and wide lips, nei-
ther dry nor moist but with a kind of dull sheen. She saw how,
from time to time, the woman had looked over at her, as if to
check that she still sat there. Her eyes weren’t piercing or intense
particularly; the commanding quality was subtler.
For the first time Dorothy consciously connected the experi-
ence of the afternoon with truth. It was only weeks later that the
doctor told her she could expect her second child in seven months.

Chapter 7
Move to Buffalo, birth of Bill and the passing of Sara, 1923–26
328 Woodbridge Avenue
Buffalo, N.Y.
Tues. Sept. 11 [1923]
Dearest Muvsie Wuvsie,
Everything is wonderful. This morning completed the un-
packing and setting everything to rights. The children cleared
their closets, desks and drawers and fixed their own rooms in
A condition. I began marking them this morning. Sara
got 10- and Connie 10. I told them that just because I couldn’t
catch them this time didn’t mean that some fine morning I’d
walk in and not find shoes on the bureau or socks on the
back of a chair. So it’s quite a game.
We have a cute little fence wired off for Baby, and she
spends an hour or two morning and afternoon out there.
She does my errands in the car with me and is just as good as
gold. You should see her sit up beside me as proud as punch.
As Connie says, “Well Muzzie, if only little Brother is as
sweet and good as Louise, won’t we be happy?”1 Sara and a
little friend are playing with her now, and we must admit
that she is right in her element, Baby, I mean. She has got-

Dorothy and Frank’s son, William King Baker, was born two and a half
months later, November 26, 1923.

ten used to Sara’s ways again, and giggles at all her sudden
dives and dips.
The package of clothes came this morning. Thank you.
I’ll watch out for the RH White package, and in the mean-
time, Baby seems as merry and happy as a clam at high-tide.
But if we say, “Where’s Gammy?” she looks around and calls
and then looks at us so grievedly and questioningly.
Tell G. G.1 that I am remembering to read a half hour a
day and that all the world is rosy ….
I am going to call up Heinrick and have a partition put
somewhere, goodness knows where. Guess we’ll let him de-

14. Conrad and Sara, 1924.

Mother Beecher.

cide. And Frankie says I must go ahead and have new gas
logs or heaters wherever I choose, but I can’t tell yet until the
cold weather comes in. Besides, we’ll see what ready cash we
have, by Oct. 1. I do want a couch.
Sweetest curtains you ever saw arrived yesterday. Am keep-
ing them downstairs, and putting the downstairs ones up.
I fried Sunday’s chicken Grandma’s way Sunday, and Frank
and Connie were crazy about it. Poor little Sara wasn’t feel-
ing well and didn’t eat, but she is all right now. Am going to
make your kind of mayonnaise today. Must go.
Love—D.

[Spring 1924]
The Onondaga1
Syracuse, N.Y.
Dear Muvsie,
Am here over tonight with Frank but am going right back
tomorrow.
For mercy’s sake, don’t get frantic when I miss a week
writing, because goodness knows I’m busy, and days slip by
before I know it. However, it does not mean that we are all
having epileptic fits or that the babies have fallen out of third
floor windows. To begin with, we don’t run to fits, and we
have no third floor. Everyone is great.
Here are our plans for the summer. Connie and Sara will
go back to Zanesville with Father Baker after his visit in the
latter part of June. They will spend a couple of weeks. Then,
about the middle of July, they will sojourn to Budd Lake

A resort hotel

where I will have arrived, bag and baggage and babies a few
days previously—long enough ahead to get established be-
fore their arrival. They will visit Budd Lake two weeks also,
if this is O.K. with you, and then run on up to Mother
Quentin’s at New Haven for the month of August. She al-
ways banks on that. Frankie will then drive down and get
me, for little trips just make me over, and we will “do” a few
towns, and land in Buffalo for the August horse races, leav-
ing the babies with you if you are sure it won’t tire you, and
if we can get one of the Netcong girls to come up again this
year. Mary, I believe, was your favorite last year. (We run to
Marys.) I may stay in Buffalo a week or two and have the
children’s rooms papered and superintend Mary’s Spring
cleaning, besides making a few little upstairs curtains. Then
I will scoot back for a last week with you, and take the ba-
bies back to Buff.
They will not be parked with you more than three weeks
without me to make them behave. However, if you think
that you might feel the strain of that three weeks in the slight-
est degree, you must ‘fess up, for mercy me! … Anything
you say goes. I think, however, that you will find Louise much
more able to take care of herself now, and play around alone.
… Of course, she appreciates being played with once in a
while, and loves to have you play ball with her, and show her
picture books, etc., but the girl can do that rainy days with
her. Billie is good as gold. No trouble at all, yet, but of course
may be by summer. They get quite active around that age.
Begin to crawl, etc., I s’pose ….
I’ll be so excited to see the three of you. I’ll bet G. G. will
love Billie. He is so sweet and good (Grandma doesn’t mind
homely people—she goes out for the soul, and all that sort
of thing, you know) but Fath will like Louise. She is a happy-

15. The Baker family at Budd Lake, July 1923.

go-lucky little codger these days, but full of the old nick. If
she’s occupied, she is all right. You ought to see her Spring
clothes. She is the cutest thing in them. Darling! Had her
picture taken. Am having an oil painting for an anniversary
present, and a dozen little photos—4 poses—will bring them
down for you to choose. Must close. Lots of love to all—
Dot.
P.S. Haven’t told you any news. Everything is plans.
Well—I still “literate.” The literary club is more a current
events club than anything else, and I’m glad of it. Our sew-
ing club still meets—and occasionally sews. The conven-
tion [of] the “League of Woman Voters” meets in Buffalo

this week, but I can’t go to the meetings because it’s too
darn much trouble and besides, I’m busy—awfully busy.
Can’t breathe. Getting skinnier all the time. …
Got Connie and Sara each a bunny for Easter. They just
love them. Buddy1 nearly killed one. Scared the poor rabbit
almost to death, but it was noted that the next day a gold-
fish died, leaving John Kratz alone again (John was our first
goldfish, and he does seem to have a tenacious hold on life).
It might have been the psychological effect of scaring the
rabbit that killed the fish. Who knows in this mahvelous day
of vibrations and psycho-everythings?
Aren’t Dave’s poems rotten? I haven’t written him since
for fear of mentioning them. Soon, however, I shall take my
pen in hand once more. Sent him a little book on palmistry,
and will look around for more interesting things of the sort
here in town while I have nothing to do. Hug Popsie Wopsie
and G. G. for me—D.

Mrs. Frank A. Baker
328 Woodbridge Avenue
Buffalo, N.Y.
Jan. 23, ‘25
Dearest Muvsie,
Your picture keeps reminding me to write oftener, so here
goes for a line. I’m afraid the smile will turn to a frown next
time I look at it, if I don’t become more dutiful.
The wardrobe has come at last and is perfectly beautiful.
With my new spread (the N.Y. one) for which I made a blue

Conrad’s French bulldog.

underslip to match the rug, and the Italian linen covers for
the chest and bureau, we are nothing short of gorgeous. Only
I’m not going to send you the bill for the wardrobe because
it’s outrageously high, and I never dreamed it would be that
much when I promised, so the bets are off.
Your picture is the comfort of comforts. Everyone loves
it, and oh how I love it. I have never seen any picture of
anyone that I liked as well. Just a small frame, you know,
cozy and homey and not lost in big blankness, as some are
(Mother Baker’s, for instance), and just like you when I love
you best.
Louise can say forty little poems if she can say one, and
she comes out with them at the funniest times, while bus-
tling about the house, or lying in bed,—and the stories she
tells the astute Bill early mornings! “Littule fairy comed in,
Bully. Danced all awound and kissed zu. Said, ‘I love Louise!
I love Bully.’ Flied out a winna—all gone.” All this in ex-
cited staccato. The unmoved and indifferent Bill makes noises
that sound like “Go to hell” but which really mean, “your
voice is music to my ears; can’t understand a word of it, but
I’m just as well pleased,” and smiles benignly upon her, even
venturing a backward squeak and raucous giggle. The poor
little soul, by the way, is trying to get every tooth in his head
through at one and the same time, namely the present. He
gets a little fussy at times, and appreciates a little extra lov-
ing and attention. Hasn’t lost appetite, however, and is ex-
tremely well, except for a regular little series of colds which
nothing seems to permanently check. Louise is nowhere
nearly as open to them somehow.
Am going to send my picture with my new dress soon.
Billie will be in this too, but it is an entirely different mood;
more a cuddly, quizzical one than the jolly, mirthful one

which you have. I am going to send Dave one, since they are
small, and not much trouble to carry around.
Well, au revoir! Best love to Fath. Remind him that I am
expecting a few professional lessons next Spring. Frankie
sends best love to both.
Yours,
Dot

In Buffalo everything was, as Dorothy said, “good as gold.” She
had become an able mother and household administrator. Connie
and Sara were adjusting to their new family, Montclair and sad
memories no longer their only reality. Business was good for Frank.
He was satisfied with his work at National Biscuit Company. Like
so many companies in the boom years of the twenties, National
Biscuit Company was increasing production, and, consequently,
tried and true executives like Frank were sharing the benefits.
Connie went to Nichols Academy and Sara, already eleven by
the spring of 1925, was making excellent marks at the Park School.
Every morning the school limousine stopped in front of the Bak-
ers’ house and, as Louise watched from the window, Sara disap-
peared into the car and finally the car itself turned off Woodbridge
Avenue and vanished from her sight. Unhappy moments always
followed Sara’s departure. Louise, still looking out the window,
would moan softly to herself, “Wanna go ‘cool,” until Dorothy,
playing her part in the daily ritual, would come in to comfort her.
The next year, although Louise was only three, Dorothy gave in
and enrolled her at Park School, too.
While her little sister ate cookies and milk and found her place
in the playground hierarchy, Sara was taking her studies very seri-
ously. At Park, students were regularly put through a battery of

16. Dorothy and her mother holding “Winnie Lou,” 1922

“intelligence” tests. After testing Sara for two years and coming
up with the same results, the administration finally called in her
parents. Sara consistently scored so high that they were unable to
establish her level of intelligence.
Frank and Dorothy chose not to push her toward concentrat-
ing exclusively on school work, knowing there would be time for
that later in life. Instead Dorothy helped Sara develop a variety of
interests so that other potentials would not be neglected. Sara
became an active Campfire girl. She learned to sew, her favorite
creation being a brown leather-fringed dress, beaded and hand
painted with Indian designs. As older sisters often do, she en-
joyed sharing the mothering of the babies with Dorothy.

17. Mother Beecher with her son Henry and grandson David,
holding his daughter Susan, 1923.

18. At the family’s summer “cottage” at Budd Lake, New Jersey,
summer 1922 (from left to right): Louise Baker, Dorothy, her
father Henry Beecher, and grandmother Ellen Beecher.

Life at the Baker house—a large two-story red brick with five
bedrooms, two baths, and maid’s quarters—was as solid and de-
pendable as the structure itself. Frank, Dorothy, and their four
children seemed to have every kind of happiness.
Meanwhile, Mother Beecher, Dorothy’s paternal grandmother,
was still traveling over the United States and Canada, lecturing
on the Bahá’í Faith. In 1925 she attended the “Seventeenth An-
nual Convention and Bahá’í Congress” held at the Green Acre
Bahá’í School in Eliot, Maine. There she joined the program with
speakers Mírzá Ali-Kuli Khan, the renowned Frenchman Hippo-
lyte Dreyfus, Alfred E. Lunt, Mountfort Mills, and Stanwood
Cobb. Following a prayer by Miss Jessie Revell, Mother Beecher
spoke, “eloquently portraying the transforming effects of Divine
Love.”1
In the cold months Mother Beecher settled down a bit, spend-
ing most of the following two winters in Geneva, New York, with
Bahá’í friends Rex and Mary Collison and Dr. and Mrs. Heist.
Their daughter, Elizabeth Heist Patterson, later wrote, “Mother
Beecher came by train to Geneva, traveling alone. On one such
occasion she met some ladies in the station. One of them said
wearily to Mother Beecher, ‘Just think of it, I am seventy-five
years old.’ Mother Beecher replied brightly, ‘I’m eighty-five.’
For the Bahá’ís Mother Beecher had unlimited energy. She told
stories of her early religious experiences and of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s visit
to America. She drilled them in the conduct of spiritual assem-
blies and gave the young Bahá’ís public speaking lessons, at which
she insisted, for the sake of future audiences, that they speak loudly.
In fact, she was somewhat hard of hearing and didn’t want to
miss anything. Her “children” seemed easily to accept her firm
directions and her determined concentration on their develop-
ment. Many early believers took Ellen Beecher’s role as “Mother”
quite seriously. They listened to the words of the round-faced

Louis G. Gregory, “The Seventeenth Annual Convention and Bahá’í Congress,” in Bahá’í News Letter, no.
6 (July–Aug. 1925), p. 3.

little matriarch with sometimes bemused but always attentive in-
terest.
Dorothy saw Mother Beecher as a strong Bahá’í but also as the
elderly and delicate lady she was. In a letter home Dorothy begged
her mother, Luella, not to “sit on poor little Grandma too much,
even if it is exasperating. Remember she is very near the end and
is bound to show it. Sort of treat her like a pet and coddle her
along a little ….” There was some tension between Luella and
her strong-willed mother-in-law.
It must have been difficult for Mother Beecher to balance her
public persona and her private life. She did not have a real home
and may have felt she was always “in service” and therefore needed
to help her immediate family with their spiritual growth in the
same way she helped others she stayed with during the year. It was
her function, and she was, in spite of some adverse side effects
with her in-laws, absolutely devoted to it.
When Mother Beecher visited Buffalo from Geneva, New York,
in 1925, Dorothy made sure the family treated her with respect
while at the same time she managed to keep things moving along
fairly normally. Dorothy wrote to her mother,
Connie and I take turns gently guiding Grandma to the den
when Hat1 is out, or she would be out doing up the dishes or
scrubbing all the pots and pans. She’s a great old G. G., and
is sweeter than ever before. I am enjoying her visit very much.
Frank is away so much now that I really need someone with
me to pep me up more.
Frank’s business trips multiplied as his responsibilities at National
Biscuit Company grew. At times Dorothy felt isolated with only

Hattie, one of Dorothy’s favorite maids.

19. Bill and Dorothy, 1924.

20. Louise and Bill with their grandfather Henry, 1927

21. Louise and Bill with their grandmother Luella, 1927

22. Conrad takes Louise and Bill canoeing
on Budd Lake, 1927

children and the maid to talk to. The repetition of housework left
her bored and distracted.
Though she was adept at organizing her household, she couldn’t
find time for much else. Life was on schedule; everything appeared
to be as it should, but something wasn’t right. Dorothy did have a
few outside interests and activities, but they didn’t fulfill her. Bahá’í
life consisted mostly of reading the Bahá’í writings on her own.
The responsibilities and safety of the family took her hours and
years and demanded, she felt, all of her love. Consequently, she
was not very active in the small Buffalo Bahá’í community.
Dorothy considered herself a Bahá’í, though she tended to mix
Bahá’í ideas with others that had fascinated her since school days.
While in Buffalo she had Louise’s and Billy’s astrological charts,
as well as numerology readings, done.
It was Mother Beecher’s visit that inspired a more active in-
volvement in the Faith. She encouraged Dorothy to accompany
her to a Bahá’í Feast at the home of her friends Grace and Harlan
Ober, outstanding Bahá’ís who had been married at the sugges-
tion and in the presence of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá during His 1912 visit to
North America. Doris McKay, who later pioneered to Prince Ed-
ward Island, was then a fairly new Bahá’í from Geneva, New York.
She wrote of meeting Dorothy one evening in Buffalo:
Different people spoke but only one did I remember. A young
woman, tall, slim and pale with great gray eyes arose and
reminded us by a story she told that we were all “children of
God.” She was wearing a wine velvet dress that set off her
extreme pallor and delicacy. The impact of her personality
was stunning.
It is not surprising that Dorothy told a story at the Feast. Her
children loved her stories. She would read classics to herself—Les

Miserables, for one—a chapter a day, then tell them in serial form
to her little audience. Also included in her repertoire were stories
of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s visit to America, learned from Mother Beecher’s
firsthand accounts. Conrad, who turned fifteen in the summer of
1926, and Sara, now almost thirteen, were ten years older than
Louise and Billy, so they followed the stories much better, but
neither had met many Bahá’í s. When the renowned Persian dip-
lomat and scholar Dr. Ali-Kuli Khan spoke in Buffalo, Dorothy
decided to take the older children. Dr. Khan lectured on The Seven
Valleys, a mystical book dealing with the progress of the soul, a
topic often overwhelming even for adults.
The three of them sat in the audience, Conrad like an adult,
elbows on the arms of his seat, hands clasped in front of him,
head politely tilted up and to one side so he could see the speaker
without straining to make himself taller. Sara squirmed until the
program began, then grew quiet as Dr. Khan was introduced.
Relieved, Dorothy also turned her attention to the podium.
After Dr. Khan took the audience through the first several of the
mystically explained stages of spiritual growth described by Bahá’-
u’lláh, Dorothy noticed that Sara, who had been sitting very
straight, looking up at Dr. Khan, had now let her head drop low.
A sheath of straight dark hair hung almost to her lap, hiding Sara’s
face from view. Dorothy wondered if she might be asleep and
leaned over to try to see her face. Then, noiselessly, Sara lifted her
head and the dark curtain of hair fell back. She looked at her
mother through lashes clumped together like long grass after a
shower. Tears, silent as the sudden thunderless rain of the tropics,
still streamed over her high, round cheekbones.
That night Dorothy had just tucked Sara into bed and was
closing the hall door when Sara called her back.
“Muzz, I just want you to know, no matter what, that I’m a
Bahá’í.”

A few weeks later the two of them were downtown shopping for
Sara. On most of their shopping trips together Sara’s excitement
kept Dorothy moving at a quick pace toward the next store she
had in mind, but this time Dorothy noticed the warm spring
weather was making her child move more slowly. She didn’t worry
until, even after relaxing their pace a bit, Sara complained of be-
ing very tired. Since they were already downtown Dorothy de-
cided to take her to the doctor rather than make another trip the
next day.
As they waited to see him, Sara closed her eyes. When the nurse
called her name she didn’t stir. Dorothy had to wake her to go
into the examining room. After tests, the doctor asked them to
wait in the lobby again. He reappeared sometime later and said,
“All right, young lady, you stay here with the nurse. As long as
your mother’s in the office, I’ll just take a look at her, too.” Inside
his office he sat down next to Dorothy, his jovial manner gone. As
he spoke, explaining slowly, Dorothy felt her mind pull away from
the room where they sat. She imagined herself at home with Sara
and Frank, with Louise and Bill and Connie—all together—for-
ever safe.
“Sara’s white blood count is very high. Her symptoms suggest
leukemia, and that blood count supports the diagnosis. As you
know, leukemia is a very serious disease. In this case it is acute.”
Tears brought Dorothy back to the room where they sat, not a
special place, in fact ordinary—street sounds and the conversa-
tion of people in the hall, browns and deep reds marking the
room as decorated for a man, his voice going on, explaining, keep-
ing the end in limbo. Then the explanation, the medical words,
were over. Now the doctor spoke simply, his voice low before the
God of truth that science cannot battle. “This disease is fast-act-
ing. I have to tell you that Sara will not live much longer—a week
or a little more. That’s all.”

Dorothy called Frank. Their daughter was already resting in
her room when he arrived home. Sitting downstairs in the den,
she told her husband the details of what the doctor had said.
Frank was a sturdy man, physically and emotionally. But the
news of his only daughter by Mary being so close to death left
him miserably tormented. The protected hollow of the family
and home again proved hopelessly fragile before the intruders dis-
ease and death. They could follow anywhere. No distance, no
new life, no brick fortress, no happiness could deny them en-
trance.
A nurse came to live with the family. Sara was not told exactly
why, only what she already knew, that she was ill.
All spring she had begged to go to a dude ranch that summer.
Sitting on Sara’s bed, Dorothy spent hours with her, planning the
trip, looking at brochures with pictures of mountain lakes and
people sitting on horses. But by the end of the fourth day Sara no
longer asked for the pictures. She knew by then how impossible
those plans were; no one had to explain to her that she was dying.
Her last morning Sara asked the nurse to call her parents. Not
wanting to interrupt their breakfast, the nurse waited until they
came up, as always, when they were finished. By that time, twenty
minutes later, Sara had difficulty talking, but she was able to ex-
press to them her love, to explain what she wanted done with her
things—her doll house, she said, should go to Louise. Later that
day Sara died.
Without her everyone in the family suffered, but the family
unit suffered too. There was suddenly a large gap between Mary’s
child Conrad and Dorothy’s two children, making a division where
before there had been none. Frank cried in his sleep every night.
Dorothy’s pain and that of her family burdened her heart and
annihilated her previous contentment with life.
Several nights after Sara’s death, Dorothy and Frank went to

bed quite early. Both of them were exhausted, but neither had
slept well since their child’s illness. Well into the night, Dorothy
stirred and opened her eyes. A brilliant light illumined their bed.
Pushing herself up on one elbow, she looked around the room to
find the source of the light, then noticed it was shining straight in
through the window, though the sky outside was dark. About to
get up to close the curtains, Dorothy stopped. There, skipping
down the path of light, came Sara. In her hair she wore garlands
of vines and ivy and wild flowers. Over her arms were the plaited
handles of two large wicker baskets filled with more vines and
flowers, especially violets. Sara was smiling and danced toward
Dorothy. “Oh Muzz, I’m so happy! Look, I have all the wild flowers
I want!” She looked at her father, who lay sleeping beside Dor-
othy. In a voice soft with love and pity, she said, “Tell him I’m
happy, Muzz. Tell him how happy I am.” Then she turned and
danced back up the path of light.
Dorothy woke Frank; by then the light was fading. She told
him what she had seen as the light faded still more until they were
alone again in the darkness. But the incident comforted her, as it
did Frank, with the knowledge that Sara was living on some-
where—happy.
About a month later Dorothy sat reading in the living room.
The book was The Kitáb-i-Íqán, by Bahá’u’lláh. She finished one
section and began to put it down, then felt compelled to open
the book again and slowly read over the last paragraph, concen-
trating on the meaning of the words. Again she closed it, and as
she did, she clearly heard Sara’s voice: “Thanks, Muzz, that time I
got it.”
The years in Buffalo, although they had seemed safe and se-
cure at the start, led the Bakers toward a need for trust and active
belief in something other than the stability of physical life. They
began hosting the Buffalo weekly Bahá’í firesides when the regu-

lar hosts, the Obers, were out of town. For the first time, Frank
Baker’s name appeared on the Bahá’í roll. In November of 1926,
the autumn following Sara’s death, Dorothy was elected to the
Local Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Buffalo in a by-elec-
tion, her first administrative position after having been a Bahá’í
for fourteen years.

Chapter 8
Move to Lima, Ohio; health scares and deepening, 1927–30
For Frank there must have seemed little he could do to change
the pattern of death that had formed around him. His mother,
his first wife, his daughter—three of the women he loved most—
had died, exactly in the order of their appearance in his life. After
Sara’s death, hopeless of finding a cure for the constant sense of
loss, Frank set out to at least palliate his agony. He became ob-
sessed with locating another town—any place but Buffalo—some-
where his family could move and leave the pain behind. With his
marriage to Dorothy the move from Montclair had been a cathar-
sis for the sadness and fear that followed Mary’s death. In 1926 he
hoped for the same effect by leaving Buffalo. Traveling the north-
east, through New York and New England, he was often gone
from home for weeks, looking for a location for a new bakery and
a new life for his family.
Just as he and his partner found what seemed to be the perfect
location in Rochester, New York, his partner backed out. On Janu-
ary 10, 1926, Dorothy wrote to her mother, “Frank felt rather
high and dry for a while, but he has gotten to the point where a
blow from a sledgehammer wouldn’t phaze [sic] him.” He wasn’t
ready, she said, “to start with nothing but an empty building all
by himself,” so he began his search again, concentrating instead
on already established bakeries he could buy and run on his own.
Dorothy stayed at home and waited for him to decide. By Christ-
mas, nine months after Sara died, she was becoming restless, her

loneliness turning to resentment as Frank continued what she
called his endless “searching for hidden treasure.”
But when he finally did decide to build a new bakery in Lima,1
Ohio, Dorothy would have given him forever to reconsider. Four
years before, the move to Buffalo had been a move “out west” in
her mind. But the distance from Ohio to civilization was incon-
ceivable. She wondered where she would shop in Ohio and
whether, living so far from everybody she cared about, she would
have anyone to talk to.
In desperation, Dorothy even considered Frank’s idea of devel-
oping a large poultry farm in California. At least she knew where
California was. Although it was far away, it was another coast,
America’s left hand vis-à-vis New York and New England as the
right. In between was only connecting matter, the rivers and farms
and factories that made the country run. In Dorothy’s mind, Ohio
was just one squared-off piece of the stuff, dotted, as was the rest,
with smaller, smokier copies of New York and Boston. But Ohio
was, Dorothy had to admit by January of 1927, where they were
“booked for next.”
In the same letter she assured her mother and herself, “I feel
that in time we will live in California; what doing, I do not know.”
As long as she could believe they would keep moving toward some
place more habitable, a place where things might actually happen
beyond the grinding of wheat into flour and lives into dust, Dor-
othy could accept a temporary stint in what seemed to her an
outpost in the middle of rolling plains that were rolling nowhere.
Had she known Lima would be her residence until the end of
life, courage might have failed her.
Frank selected what he thought was the perfect location for his

Pronounced “līma.”

23. Bill, Dorothy, and Louise in the front yard of 615
West Elm Street, Lima, Ohio, circa 1927

24. Bill and Louise Baker at Shawnee Country Club
in Lima, 1928.

family, a sprawling home near Shawnee Country Club on the
west side of town. Dorothy was pleased with the idea of being
near golf. At least one thing about Lima was familiar. But the
house seemed isolated in its country club surroundings and a long
way from most of the children’s activities and from the bakery. So
she and Frank looked at houses that were closer to the center of
town. A large stone house, foursquare and traditional, had just
been built by a Mr. and Mrs. Barnard. They had installed, in the
center of the wide porch that ran the length of the front, a glass
door with an Old English B, perhaps nine inches tall, etched into
it.

25. Dorothy behind her new home, circa 1927.

Almost fifty years later, Mrs. Barnard was at a tailoring class in
Amesbury, Massachusetts, when her teacher, Mildred Hyde, men-
tioned the Bahá’í Faith. Mrs. Barnard said she had heard of it
before, from Dorothy Baker when she and Frank bought their
house in Lima. The B that originally stood for “Barnard” became
the B for “Baker,” and even before Mrs. Barnard heard of the
Faith again in Massachusetts, it came to stand for “Bahá’í” when
the house at 615 West Elm was officially made the Lima Bahá’í
Center.
But during the Bakers’ first years in Lima there was no Bahá’í
community and certainly no need for a center. Dorothy and Frank
were typical upper-middle-class citizens, at least it must have
seemed so to their new friends. They began meeting people by
joining the Shawnee Country Club and, as Frank had been raised
a German Lutheran, the local Lutheran church.
When Louise entered first grade in 1928, Dorothy also joined
the Parent-Teacher Association, which she initially found time-
consuming and useless, but eventually worked hard to improve.
Elected as president a few years later, Dorothy said she couldn’t
serve unless allowed to reorganize the group completely. The
members agreed, and during the following two years she played
an important part in improving the functioning of the elemen-
tary school PTA as well as the service efforts of all the PTAs in
Lima. As president, she involved the fathers as well as the moth-
ers and teachers. By the time of the 1929 stock market crash, and
during the following depression, the Lima PTAs were strong
enough to be of real assistance to the many people there who
suffered from the downward spiraling economy.
The first year the Bakers were in Lima, Mother Beecher came
for her annual visit. At eighty-eight she seemed too fragile to con-
tinue her travels. After discussing it with Frank, Dorothy asked

Mother Beecher to stay and live with them. Mother Beecher was
overjoyed at the prospect. She had traveled and taught the Bahá’í
Faith, making every effort to fulfill what ‘Abdu’l-Bahá wrote in a
tablet to her, that she and others, “deliver such utterances that
they may move and quicken all the American lands.” But it was
time to settle down. Not only was she happy to have a home,
Mother Beecher still saw Dorothy’s potential. Dorothy had been
active in the Bahá’í community during the last year in Buffalo
and Mother Beecher was anxious to keep Dorothy moving in that
direction. It was her turn. When Doris McKay visited the Bakers
in Lima, she noticed that “the Cause was at that time Dorothy’s
other life,” but Mother Beecher moved in and determined that
her granddaughter would continue to develop spiritually. She and
Ruth Moffett, another frequent visitor and zealous Bahá’í teacher
and lecturer, prayed for Dorothy to become an active Bahá’í.
Finally, it was the suffering, so incongruously familiar in her
safe middleclass life, that took Dorothy beyond her previous
understanding. Like the watchman of the Seven Valleys, it chased
her, further and further from belief in the security and joy of this
world. Her own depression after Sara’s death was eclipsed by her
fears for Frank and her dread that he might someday have to live
through yet another tragedy.
Frank made friends at the Rotary Club and elsewhere, but his
main interest, outside the family, was the “Frank Baker Bread
Company—Makers of Plezol Bread.” At the start of his new busi-
ness, he often spent fifteen to seventeen hours a day at the bakery,
but it was an improvement on the weeks away from home that
National Biscuit had demanded. Being near Dorothy and the
children comforted Frank, though he still suffered, missing Sara.
Her death not only left him without her, it also rekindled the
plaguing fear of loss that was sparked first by his mother’s death,
then brought to full flame when his wife Mary died.

Although Dorothy hadn’t suffered through those early agonies
with him, she understood the depth of his fear and sorrow. Frank
began to worry whenever someone complained of an upset stom-
ach at the dinner table or when, at night, on his own weary way to
bed, he heard a late-night cough through a child’s bedroom door.
Any sign of illness in the family called for immediate attention.
Dorothy made sure that everyone had regular physical examina-
tions. Early in 1929 she went in for her own physical, tired from
the emotional strain of recent years, but fully expecting a good
report. Instead the doctor detected a spot on her lung, which he
immediately diagnosed as tuberculosis. Dorothy was stunned. She
didn’t tell Frank or anyone else. And only days later, when she
found a lump in one of her breasts, she didn’t even tell the doctor.
Sure that the coming spring would be her last, Dorothy told
her husband she would like to go to Chicago for the Annual Bahá’í
Convention. To him she reasoned that, since they lived so close
now, it would be an easy, safe trip. But to herself, Dorothy admit-
ted that her intense longing was that of one whose time is short.
During those three days in Wilmette she sat with the other
Bahá’ís in Foundation Hall, the only part of the House of Wor-
ship then complete. Above them lay the flat, tarred surface that
would one day serve as the base for the main floor of the upper
auditorium, though that spring even the completion of the build-
ing’s superstructure was two years away.
No one at the convention knew about Dorothy’s illness, but
her distress over something was obvious. On the third day she,
Doris McKay, and Ruth Hawthorne, who later traveled and taught
the Bahá’í Faith in Africa for many years, all sat listening in the
first row. The convention was nearing its end, and nothing had
changed. Dorothy had attended every session and had seen friends
of her grandmother and friends of her own. She had prayed and
hoped and waited for some sign of relief, some indication that

her life was acceptable or that it might be spared, but none had
come. Without hope she would go home to the family that would
soon be without her. Sitting there, just in front of the speaker’s
stand, Dorothy began to cry. When she could control herself, she
quietly stood and left by one of the side doors as the session went
on.
Walking toward the lake, she was alone in the knowledge that
her life was at an end. Unasked, Albert Vail, then a well-known
teacher of the Bahá’í Faith, joined in her walk. Through Mother
Beecher he had been acquainted with Dorothy since her child-
hood.
Perhaps her grandmother had told him of Dorothy’s recent
weakness and he decided to follow in case she grew tired; perhaps
there was no conscious reason. They walked in silence, but
Dorothy’s mind was far from still. Thoughts of her future, cut
short, mixed with even more bitter sadness for the agony her death
would bring to Frank and the children. No matter how happy she
made them in the next week or year or month, it would end.
Everything she had done in the past, every meal, every good-
night kiss that had seemed such strong potion for holding home
and family together was now only chaff blown helter-skelter by
the indifferent winds of death and destruction.
Albert spoke. Dorothy nodded. Words meant nothing. His
breath carried sound to her ears but could not invade the privacy
of her thoughts. Then he was quiet again, but kept walking with
her. More words. This time she heard. “You won’t be here next
year, will you?”
Without looking toward him, she shook her head, admitting
what she had, until then, kept secret.
Albert stopped and, as he did, Dorothy stopped as well.
Through her tears, she looked over to him, sick with sadness, yet
glad to think that someone finally shared her misery and could

comfort her. But his face was turned out, to the water. Dorothy
watched the waves with him, but alone. She felt the dark, low
water pulling in and out, charging up the shore, then sucking
itself back, never reaching beyond the beach or touching any place
it hadn’t been before.
“Dorothy, are you willing to leave this world without render-
ing some great service to the Cause?” Still turned to the waves,
she felt the heavy thud of unexpected, unwanted understanding.
Near, then far, then near again. Her commitment had been too
much like the water’s movement. Nothing had ever taken her
beyond the limits of a familiar pattern: loving God but holding
back, relying on the safety of the world she had created for her-
self. Now there was nothing in that world that could save her. No
one was left but her Creator, and she faced Him empty-handed.
When Dorothy turned, Albert Vail was no longer there beside
her. A figure bobbing dark against the bright sky took her focus
inland. She watched, unable to tell whether he was leaving or
coming back, the brightness of the day overpowering the motion
of the now small form it surrounded. But soon he was overtaken
by light, and she turned to walk on, alone, next to the low foam-
ing waves, their histrionics doing nothing to disguise what she
knew: the frantic movement brought them no closer to any desti-
nation. Only the sun’s heat could move the essence of their mois-
ture up and out of the black pool. Its burning rays could lift and
the wind carry; clouds might break and rain finally wash down
on something beyond the dark water beach.
Doris McKay, having left the meeting to find her young friend,
joined Dorothy on her walk. Dorothy’s heart was tortured by her
own failings. She said, “Doris, I’m a spiritual criminal, I have
lived uncommitted.” In a letter written later that spring to Lorna
Tasker, who was then busy with work at Green Acre Bahá’í School,
Doris described her time with Dorothy.

We walked the shore of Lake Michigan and Dorothy beat
herself with self-reproaches. I urged her to draw near to God
and forget her crimes. Sometimes she smiled and it was like
a nearly drowned person fighting her way back to life.
There was a little shrine outside of Convention Hall, a
little oasis in the structural wilderness of columns and beams,
a small table covered with a gold and black satin cloth on
which had been placed a vase of pink roses. This was near
the spot where ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had laid the cornerstone. In front
of the table was a bench covered by a Persian rug. I sat on
that bench with Dorothy, Dorothy sitting like a statue, rapt
in the spirit of worship as we listened to the prayers being
read by a young negro couple who shared our nook.
She wrote me after the Convention, “The few minutes at
the shrine will never be forgotten. How my throat ached.
What those moments taught me cannot be put into words. I
think my heart was laid at the Master’s feet there.”
Doris remembered her “like a pale little ghost” at those early con-
ventions, “withdrawn and reticent.” Dorothy was not always at
ease leading people. Although she had served her hometown com-
munity in various ways, most of the work was organizational, not
in the public eye. But following her prayers Dorothy reentered
Foundation Hall, remaining at the back of the room. Rosemary
Sala recalled that moment.
George Latimer said to the friends, “There is one present
whom I think we should hear speak, and that is the grand-
daughter of Mother Beecher.”
Dorothy arose and walked forward … the words just
flowed, but all I was conscious of was spirit. She ended ev-
ery phrase with, “Blessed be those who follow guidance.”

And when she finished she stood like a princess, and when
she walked down the aisle she seemed to float.

That was her first speech. Her preparation was hardly tradi-
tional: suffering, the promise of greater suffering still, the laying
down of her life in the hands of her Lord, and finally detachment
from this world, and a determination to serve. From these roots
sprouted her early eloquence.
She returned to Lima knowing she must, as Albert said, render
some great service to the Cause while there was still time. There
clearly wasn’t time for small offerings that might, over the years,
form a life of service. During the last day of the convention and
the two days following, Dorothy considered her abilities and her
shortcomings and decided on what she thought would be the most
useful and important contribution she could make during the
part of life that was left to her. Then she wrote, for the first time,
to Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian of the Bahá’í Faith, asking that
he advise her. Dorothy’s desire was to write children’s stories about
the history of the Faith, as she felt there was little Bahá’í reading
material appropriate for them. However, she was concerned by
her own lack of knowledge regarding details of that history and
asked about material that might supplement her understanding.

Haifa, June 6th 1929
Miss Dorothy Baker
My Dear Friend,
I am directed by the Guardian to thank you for your letter of May 1st.
He was very glad to hear from you and to learn of your
eagerness to serve the Cause in a permanent and effective
way, especially in connection with Bahá’í children, who will

have in future to shoulder perhaps far greater responsibili-
ties than any of us can now realize.
As regards your special plan, however, I will say nothing
as I am sure the Guardian will express his opinion in the few
words he is appending.
The family all join in love and good wishes to you and
“Mother Beecher.”
With warm feelings in His service,
Soheil Afnan
My dear coworker:
An authentic and comprehensive history is being com-
piled in Persia and I trust that in the not distant future the
work may be accomplished and translated.1 It will I am sure
when published serve your purpose to a very great extent. I
will pray for you at the Holy Shrines that you may be en-
abled to render distinct services to the Cause.
Your true brother,
Shoghi

Dorothy had asked for several things, one of which was the
suggestion of materials that could supply facts as well as atmo-
sphere for her children’s stories. This the Guardian answered in
his own hand; a translation of the history of the Faith was forth-
coming. Indirectly, she asked for his opinion of the enterprise she
planned. His secretary made clear how glad the Guardian was to

This was probably a reference to Nabíl-i-‘Aẓam [Muḥammad-i-Zarandí],
The Dawn-Breakers: Nabíl’s Narrative of the Early Days of the Bahá’í Revelation,
trans. and ed. Shoghi Effendi (Wilmette, Ill.: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1932).

learn of her eagerness to serve “especially in connection with Bahá’í
children.”
Lastly, Dorothy asked for Shoghi Effendi’s prayers. The Guard-
ian’s answer was more than she had dared request. Her hope was
only that if he approved her effort, he would pray for her in con-
nection with this one modest though difficult task. His answer
was generous. He would pray, he said, “at the Holy Shrines that
you may be enabled to render distinct services to the Cause.”
Dorothy’s hope of writing had to wait for material to be trans-
lated. She felt she would not have time so she set about doing
what she could. Dorothy arranged two public meetings in Lima
inviting others as speakers, of course, so that anyone who was
interested could hear the message of Bahá’u’lláh. A few lecture-
goers attended, but no one asked questions or requested further
information.
Beyond that activity, life remained uneventful except for the
ever-present dread. There was so little opportunity for service that
Dorothy, despite her new devotion, born on the shores of Lake
Michigan, felt plagued by doubt of her own ability to do any-
thing of value for the Cause; she couldn’t even find anyone to
teach. Though Dorothy didn’t recognize it, she was having great
success in teaching at least one person—herself. During the year
immediately following the 1929 Convention, she and Mother
Beecher spent an hour together every day studying the writings
of Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. They often used the Tablet of
Aḥmad consecutively for nineteen days—a habit Dorothy kept
for the rest of her life.1 By the first month of 1930 Mother Beecher
clearly understood the danger of losing Dorothy. She wrote to

See Bahá’í Prayers: A Selection of Prayers Revealed by Bahá’u’lláh, the Báb,
and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, new ed. (Wilmette, Ill.: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1991), pp
209–13.

Rex Collison1 about her granddaughter’s condition, spiritual and
physical.
… she has been going through a real siege which has robbed
her of her usual pep and ambition. She over did—and now
I am not sure that she will be able to do half of the things
which are laid upon her to do. But she is so deeply interested
in the lessons that she insists that she will go on with them
and we will pray that strength may be given her. You see the
reading takes so much time, and so many interruptions fill
her life. … I almost forgot to tell you that Frank took
Dorothy to Columbus for three days this week. While F. was
attending a business convention, D. was with dear Mrs.
Corrodi—and met the few friends there who are partially
interested—perhaps really none confirmed except Mrs. C.
From all reports, D. did a great work there. She is so on fire
in spirit—but so frail of body. If her life and health is spared
she will become a great teacher as well as writer—for she is a
chosen instrument without doubt. Give worlds of love to all
of the group—but especially in your own home. How is
your dear father? Tell him I often think of him.
Yours always in Him,
Mother B.

Even though Dorothy was still weak, contrary to the doctor’s
expectations and her own, life did not end with tuberculosis or

Rex and Mary Collison later moved to Africa to establish the Bahá’í Faith
there. Because they moved to an area where no Bahá’ís had lived before, they
were named “Knights of Bahá’u’lláh.” They were still living in Geneva, New
York, when Mother Beecher wrote this letter.

from the lump in her breast. In fact, she slowly began to regain
her health. But before Dorothy could fully recover, her life was
threatened again. In the kitchen on a September evening, she
opened a contaminated can of salmon. It looked a bit strange,
but Dorothy didn’t know why. She tasted it with the tip of her
tongue, then rinsed her mouth and threw the can away. By evening
she was violently ill from ptomaine poisoning.
The family doctor came but could only tell Frank the crisis
would reach its peak that night. There was nothing he could do
or say to change the facts. He told Frank, “I can’t let it happen
without your knowing … I don’t believe she can live through
this.”
The sheet lay cool over Dorothy’s feverish sleep. Under it, al-
though her eyes were closed, she didn’t rest, only fought to find
some piece of flotsam from her wrecked sense of reality that would
keep her afloat. Images of dreams and fears floated through the
expanded darkness of her unconscious, mixing with tangible but
familiar voices, one voice predicting her death. “Ridiculous,” she
thought, but death did hover near; it drew close and almost merged
with life, then, picking up speed, whistled by, its force pulling at
her will to live.
She held back. For her, there was no choice but life, which she
listened for, even through the glaring sounds of death, listened
for when there was no sound, when everything was slipping away.
In a chair pulled up close to the edge of the bed sat Frank
Baker—a giant who, for all his own strength, could once again
do nothing to augment another’s. The night deepened; Dorothy
seemed just on the rim of another, more impenetrable darkness.
Under the sheet, her body moved and the next moment she let
out a breath, making a sound, a rough sigh. His hands, which
seemed too big to touch a creature so slight without doing harm,

reached toward her pale face, but stopped midair. He strained
forward in his chair to see movement again, anything; Dorothy’s
eyes fluttered, then went still. In that moment, who knows the
agony Frank felt. He was a man who lived for those he most loved,
but he could not make them live. Then a glow of moisture ap-
peared on Dorothy’s upper lip. She opened her eyes, and Frank,
for once, was not left alone.

Chapter 9
Early depression years, deepening, and teaching at Louhelen,
1931–32
Dorothy’s determination to be of great service was inspired by
the threat of losing her life to tuberculosis and greeted by near
death from ptomaine poisoning. Then the depression years spread
their discouragement, blocking the way for a country full of indi-
vidual plans and aspirations. But Dorothy found her horizons lift-
ing. The spot on her lung disappeared, as did the lump in her
breast. Whatever the difficulties that arose around her, at least she
was alive to deal with them.
The summer of 1931 began with a heat wave that put the al-
ready destitute farmers even further from any hope of paying off
the bank. What the depression started, the dry heat finished. Bushel
prices dropped lower than anyone could remember.
Banks had been closing steadily since the crash—sixty or eighty
during each of the first ten months of 1930, over two hundred in
November, with the final month of the year closing another three
hundred and twenty-eight banks all over the United States.1 Bank-
ers who had loaned farmers money to buy their businesses could
no longer afford the sympathy they had once allowed themselves
as the almost omnipotent stabilizers of the U.S. economy. Dur-
ing the boom years before October 1929 the small farms hadn’t
done as well as other businesses, but the banks had been there to
supply mortgages and to help the farmers over dry spells and early
frosts. By 1931 protecting others from bankruptcy no longer mat-

See Wallace Stegner, “The Radio Priest and His Flock,” in The Aspirin Age:
1919-1941, Isabel Leighton, ed. (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1965), p. 233.

tered. Banking institutions were deferring to a bigger need than
saving farms: saving themselves.
The transition from an American economy sustained by busi-
ness and banks to one more heavily influenced by government
spending and government regulations had not yet occurred. There
was no institution, private or public, strong enough to rescue the
faltering economy as J. P. Morgan had done two decades before.
Prior to the depression, Washington, D.C. had not been an
economic center. The American government was not attuned to
solving both political and economic problems. President Hoover
made several unsuccessful attempts to influence the economy
positively. Then, like many professional economists of the day,
he put his trust in the belief that production and consumption
would regain their balance. However, as John Maynard Keynes
pointed out, the balance at the bottom is just as stable as the
balance in an actively moving economy. As government and citi-
zens waited for relief, things grew steadily worse.
In Malinto, Ohio, a banker on his way to foreclose saw a noose
hanging from the barn of the farmer whose mortgage was in ques-
tion. There was no money to pay bank loans, personal loans, or
even to pay for life’s essentials. In Deshler, a farm community
forty miles from Lima, a silent crowd watched as a $400 debt was
settled for $2.15.1
A year later, prices for farm goods were no better. The depres-
sion had dropped the total wages earned throughout the country
to sixty percent below what they had been in 1929. Many people
couldn’t afford produce, even with farmers’ prices at less than fifty
cents a bushel for wheat and only thirty-one cents for corn.2 In
some farm communities, prices were even lower. One county el-
evator dropped the price of corn to minus three cents a bushel.3
The farmer would have to pay three cents a bushel to the elevator;
corn had so little value the selling price couldn’t cover the han-
dling and transportation expenses.

See Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., “The First Hundred Days of the New Deal,” in
Aspirin Age, p. 280.
Frederick Lewis Allen, The Big Change: America Transforms Itself 1900-1950
(New York: Harper and Brothers, 1969), pp. 130-31.
See Studs Terkel, Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression (New
York: Avon, 1970), p. 252.

Living at the hub of northwestern Ohio’s farmland, Dorothy
made a point of putting part of her grocery money directly into
the hands of neighboring farmers. She did much of her shopping
by driving out into the country where she would buy cream for
ten cents a quart and corn for a penny an ear. The Bakers fre-
quented one farm where the family had a novel approach. Since
there was no market for their produce, they set up Sunday dinner.
For fifty cents per adult and twenty-five cents per child, people
with money could have a feast of fresh food served on the land
where it was grown.
The Bakers were among the lucky ones who had a cash flow.
Frank’s Plezol Bakery sold a one-pound loaf of bread for a nickel
and a two-pound loaf for nine cents. Because bread was a staple
everyone needed, Plezol stayed open during even the worst months
of the depression years, supplying jobs and food at a time when
employment was scarce. In Buffalo, where Frank and his family
would have spent the depression years if not for his driving urge
to move, a house-to-house canvass showed that more than half of
the people who were ready and able to work could not find full-
time employment, and almost a third of them could not find
even part-time jobs.1
Frank enjoyed his business. Work had always been one thing in
life he could feel sure about. During the hardest times, after Mary’s
and Sara’s deaths, he had relied on business to give life meaning
beyond the immediate suffering. His occupation provided him
with a systematic way of giving something, even when he must
have felt everything had already been taken. In the early 1930s, in
the faces of his friends and neighbors, Frank saw last hopes doused
by news of repossessed land, layoffs, and closing factories. Louise
Baker recalled:
A Christmas party was held in the bakery’s club room every
year, a night or so before Christmas Eve. It was attended by

See Allen, Big Change, p. 131.

all the men who worked at the bakery and all the members
of their families. Each child received a net bag of goodies
plus a gift—dolls for the smaller girls, a toy for the boys,
often a board game for the older children. The gifts were
always identical for all the girls or boys of each age group.
Each employee and each man’s wife were also given identi-
cal presents. One year every woman received a whistling tea
kettle. Another year the men all were given a box of Havana
cigars! Another year the ladies got a set of mixing bowls. But
this was not just catering to their roles as housewives; Dad
was an avid baker at home as well as at work and enjoyed
giving gifts to use in the kitchen.
And every year he appeared in a Santa Claus suit to give
out presents! As each employee received his gift he also got
an envelope containing his annual bonus, which I think was
computed on a combination of his length of service and his
salary. I once asked Dad why he didn’t give out a percentage
of the bakery’s profits. He told me that during the depres-
sion, when the men’s need was often greatest, the bakery
frequently showed a loss, or at best very little profit, so he
preferred to build the bonus into the expenses of running
the business. That way the men were guaranteed the extra
money at Christmas time.
Frank gained a reputation in Lima for being a man people could
depend on for the kind of help that was neither condescending
nor small.
A farmer stopped at the bakery one day and told the secretary
he was there “to talk to Frank.” As the man came into the office,
Frank stood to reach across his wide desk and shake hands.
“How’s your land treating you?”

“Not as good as it could, but not all bad either. We been keep-
ing our chickens all right.”
“That fence must be holding up.”
“I got a good number of eggs off of the hens, too. We got the
roosters thinned out for eating, but we’re letting the hens lay.”
“That’s good, eggs ought to bring something.”
“Well, you’d think so, but I been out all day with a couple of
crates in the back of my wagon. Even dropped down from a dime
to a nickel a dozen, but everybody’s selling and nobody’s buying.”
Frank studied the wall behind the man’s head. His expression
didn’t change. He knew the problem. This wasn’t the first farmer
who had come in.
“You’d be willing to let them all go, five cents a dozen?”
“Eggs is all we got right now. The wife needs money for other
goods. If I come home with these same eggs I left with and noth-
ing to show for a day away from the fields ….” His head shook
slightly as he dropped his gaze to the floor. Then he looked up
again, a tightlipped smile on his face. Raising his eyebrows until
the thick skin above them furrowed, he said with mock fear, “Let’s
just say she wouldn’t take to it. And you know about a woman’s
wrath.”
The man nodded as he spoke, agreeing with himself, but his
light attitude did little to hide his fear that the end they had been
putting off had finally come. “You know, there are folks who won’t
sell at all now, trying to make the prices go back up. Right now
corn’s so cheap they’re burning it instead of coal some places.”
Frank did know, but he listened.
“This one group stops farmers going to market and dumps
their goods. You’ve seen it like I have … eggs, cream, just dumped
in the ditches by the road, hoping that’ll force prices up. But I got
to sell mine. Nothing else I got is worth anything.”

Neither added the words they were both thinking, “except the
farm,” but Frank said, “I think those eggs will sell. Just put them
down at the end of the hall next to the back door, where the men
can see them when they leave. We’ll make up a sign ‘five cents a
dozen.”‘
By evening, when the farmer came back, the can next to the
empty crates was full of nickels and dimes along with one quar-
ter, deposited by Frank for the last five dozen.

Every day men came to the door at 615 West Elm Street looking
for food or work or both. Either Dorothy or Mother Beecher would
fix a sandwich or bowl of soup for the man waiting outside. Even
when there were no adults at home, Bill and Louise were instructed
never to let anyone leave hungry, but also never to let anyone
come inside.
Mother Beecher was at home with the children when a particu-
larly frail-looking man stopped at the house. From the far end of
the entry hall she couldn’t see anybody standing on the other side
of the glass door. Then she saw the man leaning against the door
frame, his eyes slightly glazed, dark hair combed straight back
from a gaunt face. His hat hung loosely from big, rough-nailed
hands—hands that seemed too heavy for the thin arms.
As Mother Beecher opened the door, the man pushed himself
away from the wall that had supported him, wavered for a mo-
ment, then found his balance. He spoke, but not clearly; he had
no teeth. She told him to sit on the swing and went inside. While
he sat, feet planted on the cement porch to keep the swaying
motion to a minimum, Mother Beecher beat together three eggs,
some milk, and a jigger of whiskey. Carrying a wooden tray with
the large tumbler on it, she pushed open the front door.
“This ought to agree with you.”
Apparently he didn’t hear her speak as she came out onto the

porch, nor did he hear the door slam as the wind caught it. His
eyes remained closed until she was beside the swing and said in a
louder voice, “Buzz this down and you’ll feel stronger.”
The man came to and took a drink, then, dropping his head
back, put the bottom of the perspiring glass on his thigh. Sinking
down into the swing, letting his head rest on the top slat of its
wooden back, he finally swallowed the rest of that first gulp.
Mother Beecher sat with the tray across her lap, holding its
wooden handles. Oblivious, he continued to sit in the same posi-
tion, looking up, perhaps at the eaves that tied the porch ceiling
into the rest of the house.
Beginning again she said, “I hope you like the eggnog.”
“Yes, ma’am, I like it very much.” He took another gulp, then
swallowed. “This is the first meal I’ve had I could really eat in
maybe two, three days. Most people don’t notice my teeth are
missing, so I end up with a sandwich and no way to chew it.”
The drink finished, Mother Beecher walked back across the
porch, empty tumbler balanced on the tray. The old fellow stepped
out in front of her to open the front door.
“Thank you.”
“I’m the one that should be thanking. Could I sweep your porch
for you?”
“If you feel strong enough, that would be nice. I’ll bring you a
broom.”
Frank came home to find the man sitting on his porch, broom
in hand, and the porch and sidewalk clean. He heard the story
from Mother Beecher and decided to offer the fellow some work
around the yard. There were many unemployed people who were
better qualified for manual labor, but Frank decided it would be
harder for this man to find employment than most. He was thin
and obviously not strong but, from Mother Beecher’s descrip-
tion, willing to work.

For several weeks he did odd jobs for the Bakers, finishing a
task, then sitting down to rest before starting the next. Frank got
his neighbor, a dentist, to fit him with some discarded false teeth.
Able once again to chew, his strength renewed and a little cash in
his pocket, the man set out on his own. He built a shack by the
city dump out of flattened tin cans nailed to a frame. With a
homemade wheelbarrow he went into the junk business, fixing
and selling various scrap he found.
That fall, he stopped by the Bakers’ house with his wheelbar-
row; a chicken hung upside down from one side. When everyone
had come out to say hello, he carefully untied the string that held
the chicken’s feet and set her upright on the pavement. As he
wound the scrap of hemp onto a stick, he announced that the
chicken, who was just regaining her balance, was his gift to the
family. The Bakers thanked him and watched as he wheeled his
cart down the street. That was the last they ever saw of the man,
but his life was one of many their unpretentious generosity
touched.
A Bahá’í from the Bakers’ early days in Lima, Joseph W. Stahl,
remembered those times:
One incident which I have never talked about publicly
and which I don’t think very many persons know about in-
volves Mr. Baker. I remember around fifty years ago when I
was working my way through college I needed more money.
The only way I could continue college was to borrow money,
but from whom? The only one I knew personally who I
thought might have a little extra money was Frank Baker.
Remember at that time we were still coming out of the big
depression. I remember going to see Mr. Baker at his office.
After telling him why I was there he said something like,

“Well, you know I have Louise and Bill in school and I don’t
know.” Then he asked me how much I needed. When I told
him I know he thought I was going to ask for more, but he
said, “Well, I think I can do that.” The only thing I signed
was to endorse the check. Mr. Baker did not require any
interest or repayment plan. After the birth of our first son, I
made a small payment toward my debt. Mr. Baker returned
my check and canceled the debt.
On Friday, March 3, 1933, banks across the country were locked
for a four-day “bank holiday” to halt the growing run on depos-
its. It was another time of crisis for American business. As Presi-
dent Franklin Roosevelt took his oath of office the next day, mil-
lions listened to the voice that became so familiar over the next
twelve years:
Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to
fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror
which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into ad-
vance.1
The new President’s confidence and optimism had its effect
but did not change the immediate fact: closed banks meant no
cash to pay employees, no money to buy food. It wasn’t a period
when most families had enough to stock their pantries. Working
people, those who had jobs, lived from payday to payday.
During that same time, one of Frank’s Yale classmates sat at
the Board meeting of his flour mill in Minnesota. All day and
most of the night before, they had been there, trying to find a
solution to the same problem companies all over the United States
were facing: how to help their employees through the long bank
holiday when no money could be withdrawn to pay them.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, quoted in Schlesinger, “The First Hundred Days
of the New Deal,” in Aspirin Age, p. 276.

It was late in the afternoon—no one wanted to know how
late. The Minnesota sky was darkening with the coming of night,
or perhaps just from an early spring snowstorm. Those across from
the windows gazed out at the thick, gray skies. The loud discus-
sions of earlier in the day—when righteous anger made them
sure of finding some common enemy responsible and able to make
amends—had given way to the quiet of resigned brooding. Frank
Baker’s college friend, now a middle-aged man, sat in his chair-
man’s position at the head of the table, working over his fingernails
again and again with the sharp end of a letter opener.
Almost unnoticed, an employee entered the room and walked
around the perimeter of the group, stopping at the end of the
table to hand him a small package. Inside the wrapping was a
cigar box and a note. “Hope this will help, Frank.” Reading the
note out loud to the rest of the board, he laughed, something he
wouldn’t have bet on doing that day, at any odds.
“How about a smoke? It won’t help like a drink, but it’s better
than giving up.”
The somber mood seemed to crumble as the dozen men let
their minds go free for a moment. He opened the box to pass it
around, but instead sat staring at the contents. Inside the cigar
box Frank Baker had packed twelve hundred and fifty dollars in
small bills, in payment for flour received from his friend’s mill.
In the rural grocery stores around Lima where Plezol delivered
bread, the bank’s closing made little difference. The turnover of
cash was regular, so the grocers kept their money on hand rather
than driving into the nearest large town for constant deposits and
withdrawals. On the first Friday of every month, Frank’s delivery
men always collected for the month before. The country store
owners knew the banks were closed and would stay closed for a
while, but they didn’t use them, so it hardly mattered. They paid
their February bills right on time.

After Frank’s employees received part of their wages to get
through the next few days, Frank packed up the last of the money
in the cigar box and sent it off special delivery to pay his Minne-
sota flour bill. He knew the risk he took in sending off all his
cash; not all of his customers would be paying so promptly. But
Frank was good for his bills so, like the solid, responsible man
that he was, he paid it on time.
He was honest, generous, but practical. Mary Lou Ewing wrote,
“I remember when Martha Root was there he wanted to give her
something. Of course, money I’m sure he gave frequently to ev-
eryone. But he could not think of a way to outwit Martha’s habit
of giving away everything given to her. He knew she needed things,
so he went out and bought her a bunch of stockings, thinking
that she couldn’t give those away, and might really use them.”
During the early depression years, Dorothy stayed active in
Lima community life. She and Mother Beecher still studied the
Bahá’í writings every day. Although Dorothy wasn’t successful in
teaching directly, her spiritual awareness was a source of attrac-
tion to people who met her.
Mrs. Elma Miessler heard Dorothy review E. Stanley Jones’s
book Christ of the Indian Road at a PTA meeting. She didn’t rush
out and buy the book, but did go home, wake up her husband,
and tell him about the inspiring talk Dorothy had given. Ed
Miessler had met Frank a few days before at the Rotary Club and
put the two together. He had been as impressed with Frank’s good-
natured stability as Elma was with Dorothy’s zeal, so they invited
the Bakers over for dinner and bridge. Ed and Elma Miessler also
invited the Harrods and Lenore and Dudley Bernstein. Ed never
forgot that evening.
… we had two tables for bridge, and we all seemed to click.
From then on we would have bridge parties at our various

homes, go out on picnics and weenie roasts and so forth. …
we knew Dorothy as a beautiful, charming hostess, as a won-
derful card player, as the belle of the ball at a dance, an
excellent golfer—in fact a wonderful person. In every field
she excelled. Yet we knew very little of the great spiritual
potential which was buried deep in Dorothy’s soul.
Dorothy didn’t mention the Bahá’í Faith to any of their new
friends. Ed and Elma were both children of Lutheran pastors and
members of the Missouri Synod Lutheran Church. All they knew
about Dorothy and Frank’s religious affiliation was that they were
members of the Ohio Synod Lutheran Church. Because Bahá’ís
believe in the divine foundation of the major world religions and
at that time did not, at least in Lima, have an active community
of their own, participation in Christian churches was not un-
usual at that time.
Outside Dorothy’s studies of the Faith, her Bahá’í activity re-
ally began in places other than Lima. With Elizabeth Greenleaf,
Albert Vail, and Pearl Easterbrook, she taught at a Bahá’í summer
school in August of 1931. Lou and Helen Eggleston, new Bahá’ís
in Detroit, offered their rolling farm near Davison, Michigan, for
the Bahá’ís to use. The whole Baker family went up to enjoy that
first session at “Lou-Helen.”
Dorothy at last found something she could do to serve. Her
real desire had been to write, but she accepted the service that
opened to her even though speaking wasn’t what she had imag-
ined doing.
During the next winter, Dorothy divided her time between
family, social life, community service, and her now highly moti-
vated study of the Bahá’í Faith and its history. The stone house
on Elm Street had a tiny room at the end of the second-floor hall,
just above the front porch. It was meant to be a maid’s room, and

it was really only an extension of the hall itself, but Dorothy used
it as her study. Heavy green curtains served as the only wall divid-
ing it from the rest of the wide passage off of which, on either
side, were the house’s four large bedrooms.
Dorothy usually pulled the curtains open when she studied so
she could keep better track of family as they came and went.
Early mornings when Bill and Louise left their bedrooms to wash
up for school, they could see their mother sitting on the floor of
the maid’s room, books all around her, every book bristling with
bits of paper, marking, indexing, organizing. When they were
out of the bath and heading back to their rooms, Dorothy would
get up and go downstairs to fix breakfast for everyone. But when
the children came home again in the afternoon, they always knew
where to find her—back in the room at the end of the hall.
In the summer of 1932 the whole Baker family again enjoyed
the Louhelen Bahá’í summer school. They stayed in a cabin by
the dammed stream. Bill remembered, “Dad and I had a great
time at Louhelen. We went fishing in the little stream or in Potter’s
lake. We would fry them up and the family ate them. … Mother
gave the classes and we went fishing.”
That summer Dorothy’s classes were held informally with the
youth. Annamarie and Margaret Kunz, daughters of Anna Kunz,
one of the founding members of the Urbana, Illinois, Bahá’í com-
munity, were both in attendance. Raised in an active community,
they had heard many Bahá’í speakers, but the two girls left Lou-
helen that summer with a new fire.
In 1921 Anna Kunz had made her pilgrimage to Haifa in the
Holy Land. There she received a prayer from ‘Abdu’l-Bahá for her
two daughters. Both young women grew up to render significant
service to the Faith in many areas. Annamarie Kunz Honnold
became an author and has served actively locally and nationally
in the U.S. Bahá’í community, and as the representative of the

Bahá’í International Community at the United Nations. In 1968
Margaret Kunz Ruhe moved to Haifa, where the Bahá’í World
Center is located. There she guided at the Bahá’í holy shrines and
the International Archives Building, wrote and served as a hostess
to the world as wife of Dr. David Ruhe, a member of the Univer-
sal House of Justice from 1968 until his retirement in 1993.
As a teenager, Margaret could not understand why Dorothy
hadn’t been in her life all along. “Why?” she begged her mother,
“Why have we never heard of Dorothy Baker before?” Anna Kunz
later said she felt it was in large part because of Dorothy that her
two daughters became Bahá’ís.
But what was it about this woman—Luella and Henry Beecher’s
daughter, Frank Baker’s wife, Louise and Bill’s mother, Sara and
Conrad’s stepmother—what made her so special?
In 1933 Dorothy served as counselor and advisor to the young
people’s “Discussion and Consultation Group,” which met every
day from 11:00 A.M. until noon at Louhelen. She also taught a
daily class called “Studies in Nabíl’s Narrative.” In the same di-
rect, dramatic language she had planned to use for Bahá’í children’s
stories, she was able to share the lives of the early heroes and
heroines of the Faith with the youth and adults in her classes.
Sitting outside on the grass, surrounded by her young students,
or in one of the makeshift classrooms in the old barn or farm-
house of Louhelen Ranch, Dorothy had one purpose: to ignite
her listeners. But fire must be lit with a ready instrument or with
fire itself. Dorothy’s own fascination with her subject and the bond
she felt with the early Bábís was intense, and it spread to her audi-
ence. The lives of the Dawn-Breakers were not so much recounted
as relived in her heart and in her speech.
To the resounding question, “Who do you claim to be?” Dor-
othy and her young friends witnessed the Báb’s reply, “I am, I
am, the promised One! I am the One whose name you have for a

thousand years invoked, at whose mention you have risen, whose
advent you have longed to witness, and the hour of whose Rev-
elation you have prayed to God to hasten.”1 Dorothy was not just
conveying information. She was taking the youth with her to meet
others whose calling, like hers and like theirs, was to become true
followers of the Glory and the Light.
Dorothy did not speak of issues and ideas that meant some-
thing to her only peripherally. She spoke of her most burning
passion, of her Best Beloved. How could those around her not
fall in love too? Her message to the youth was that they could,
and must, if they wished to live victoriously, throw themselves
into the shining sea of truth and the sacrifice that beckoned the
early martyrs and now beckoned them.
For twenty years Dorothy had pulled close, then drawn back
from that sea. The suffering of recent times and her desperate
yearning to serve finally broke the protective barrier that had al-
ways kept her separate from it. She at last discovered the brilliant
delight of following deep into its fathomless worlds, far removed
from the pain and passing joys offered by the shadow kingdom of
physical reality. This understanding she offered her students with
perfect confidence that they would be unable to pull themselves
away from the shores of that sea of truth until, like her, they at
last immersed themselves in its life-giving waters.

Nabíl-i-A’ẓam [Muḥammad-i-Zarandí] The Dawn-Breakers: Nabíl’s Narrative
of the Early Days of the Bahá’í Revelation, trans. and ed. Shoghi Effendi
(Wilmette, Ill.: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1932), p. 315–16.

Chapter 10
Passing of Mother Beecher, 1932
At home again, Dorothy was even more energetic in her studies
with Mother Beecher. In spite of her teaching experiences at
Louhelen and her broadened understanding, when Bahá’í friends
visited the Baker household it was never Dorothy who discussed
the Faith with them. Mother Beecher spoke; Dorothy would come
in to hear what she had to say but never to add her own com-
ments. The exception was with her own children; with them she
taught freely. Louise vividly recalled a time when she was eight
and Bill was two years younger and at a family Bahá’í children’s
class in Lima:
One winter afternoon Bill, Muzz and I sat on the floor in
the music room. Muzz had been telling us stories about
‘Abdu’l-Bahá, and ended with the one about the Master teach-
ing Howard MacNutt to pray. We talked about prayer for a
minute or so. It was one of those days when I felt like a
sponge, soaking up everything Muzz said. Bill was enough
younger that his mind began to wander. One of his bean
bags had broken, and Bill was playing with some loose beans.
… He tried to stuff one of the beans into his ear. Muzz
remonstrated with him. “Billy, don’t do that, dear. It could
get stuck in there, and we might have to take you to the
doctor’s to get it out.” She went back to her story, and Bill

went back to pouring his beans from one hand to another.
He put one in his mouth and rolled it around, pushing it
across the outside of his upper teeth and gums with his
tongue. Again Muzz stopped to tell him, “Billy, dear, when
you play with small, hard things like those beans in your
mouth, you could easily breathe one down your throat. It
could catch in your windpipe and choke you.” Bill stopped,
but finally entertained himself by trying to push one of the
beans into his nostril. Muzz decided it was time to really
impress him with the danger. “Bill, if that got stuck in your
nose you might breathe it right down into your lungs, and
choke yourself to death. Now stop it!” Bill hastily removed
the offending object and gazed down at this surprisingly and
unexpectedly dangerous item.
I was still absorbed in all that Muzz was saying, and when
she asked if we would like to “say a little prayer,” I was all for
it. Bill also agreed, although he was becoming extremely rest-
less. We were sitting cross-legged, facing each other as if we
were at three points of a small triangle. Muzz spoke of the
need to concentrate and turn our hearts toward God when
we prayed; to remember that when we prayed, we were stand-
ing in the presence of God. We closed our eyes and Muzz
recited a short prayer with the utmost devotion. In the middle
of it I opened my eyes to gaze at her, because I loved the
joyous, reverent look she often had when she prayed. I
glanced at Bill and saw him push his bean up into one of his
nostrils. He tried to dislodge it, but only managed to push it
farther in. His face twisted in panic. It was obvious that he
was convinced that at any moment he was going to “breathe
it into his lungs and choke to death,” as Muzz had proph-
esied he might. So far as he knew, he was facing imminent
death. At the same time I knew he felt that he was “standing
in the presence of God.” I could not close my eyes. I, too,

was sure that Bill might die at any moment. I watched him
carefully, ready to interrupt the prayer at the first sign that
the end was near, but hesitant to act too hastily when Bill
himself kept silent. Muzz finished the prayer, but sat silent a
moment longer, her eyes closed. Only when she opened her
eyes did Bill allow his fear to overcome his self-control. “Oh,
Muzz,” he wept, “I’m going to die!”
That really jerked Muzz back to earth in a hurry. She rolled
forward onto her knees and put her arms around her little
son, cuddling him against her breast. “Oh, Billy, what is it?
What’s wrong?”
“Mommy,” he sobbed, “I didn’t mind you. I stuck the
bean in my nose, and now it’s stuck and I’m going to die!”
Muzz sat back and asked, “Which nostril?” Bill pointed.
“Put your thumb over your other nostril, hard, and blow as
hard as you can.” Bill obeyed, and the offending bean shot
out. “Here, take my hankie,” Muzz added. Bill accepted and
used it to good effect. Muzz put her arm around Bill and
comforted him. “You’re so brave, Bill, and so reverent. You
thought you were going to die, but wouldn’t interrupt the
prayer. That is the same courage that was shown by the mar-
tyrs. I’m truly very, very proud of you.” She went on prais-
ing him, but finally ended by telling Bill, “But if you ever
find yourself in such a position again—of course it won’t be
a bean in your nose—but if something else happens, you be
sure to interrupt whatever we’re doing and tell me instantly.”
She talked about that, too, a little longer, and Bill and I
finally went off to play.

In 1930 Dorothy had hired a part-time secretary for Mother
Beecher so that, even though she was too feeble to travel to give
talks or even to write for long, she could stay in contact with her
Bahá’í “children” around the country. She dictated long letters

quoting passages from the Bahá’í writings, explaining what she
understood from them, encouraging her students to peruse the
writings themselves, and, above all, to be active.
Mother Beecher also favored catching them up on the spiritual
implications of important international situations, which she fol-
lowed closely by listening to Lowell Thomas’s news broadcast on
the radio each evening and continuing her lifelong habit of read-
ing the New York Times every morning. On Sundays, in Mother
Beecher’s opinion, Harry Emerson Fosdick’s radio sermon was
not to be missed by any thinking person. Her efforts to stay cur-
rent took a great deal of energy, but she continued regardless of
the limitations imposed by her ninety-one years.
Dorothy was home from Louhelen by early August, 1932. Sit-
ting in her room one morning, she could hear the squeak of her
grandmother’s wicker rocking chair as she sat in the next room
reading her paper. The noise was one Dorothy was used to and
enjoyed hearing through the wall that separated their rooms. Then
she heard the creak of wood as Mother Beecher rose, putting all
her weight on the rocker’s arms. A loud crack, followed by a reso-
nant thud, made Dorothy’s chair tremble. Pushing aside her pa-
pers and calling out, she ran through the hall and into the next
bedroom. Dorothy found Mother Beecher on the floor between
rocker and bureau. The simple act of standing had broken her
brittle hip bone. The doctor said recovery at her age was very
unlikely. After he had left, Dorothy asked Mother Beecher if she
would be more comfortable in the hospital, where they were sure
to take the very best care of her, or if she would prefer to be in her
own room, with family nearby and nurses around the clock.
Mother Beecher was definite, even under the influence of the
morphine the doctor gave her; she far preferred to stay at home
with her family.

During the next week Bahá’í friends and family members vis-
ited from everywhere. Dorothy arranged for some of them to stay
at the guest house half a block away, but the majority stayed with
the Bakers. When Mother Beecher was awake, she visited with
each of them, not allowing herself to lose consciousness until
after her son Henry arrived from New Jersey. Then she slipped
into a coma, and ten days after her fall she died. The funeral was
held on August 22, conducted by the family’s old and dear friend
from Buffalo, Mrs. Grace Ober.
Soon after, Dorothy corresponded with Shoghi Effendi, asking
permission, once again, to write, but this time about a subject
already well known to her. His response came relatively quickly.
Persian Colony,
Haifa, Palestine,
18–10–32
Dear Mrs. Baker,
Shoghi Effendi wishes me to acknowledge the receipt of
your letter dated August 30, 1932.
The Guardian has surely no objection to an account of
the life and experiences of Mother Beecher. In fact, he wel-
comes such an effort, because it is very interesting and very
useful to future generations to have on record the activities
of those Early Bahá’ís who broke the dawn of the New Era
in the West. But such work naturally falls under the jurisdic-
tion of the National Assembly in America, and the Guard-
ian does not wish to assume to himself duties that are theirs.
He wishes you therefore to refer the matter to them and
abide by their decision.
Shoghi Effendi is very glad to see that the friends are study-

ing Nabíl’s Narrative with great care and beginning to ap-
preciate the true significance of the Báb and His Message in
this glorious Dispensation. …
Assuring you of Shoghi Effendi’s prayers and best wishes
I beg to remain,
Yours ever sincerely,
Ruhi Afnan
May the Beloved bless, comfort and protect you, and en-
able you to follow the glorious example of our dear sister,
Mother Beecher, whose passing I deplore, for whose soul I
will continue to pray, and for whose services I shall ever cher-
ish a lively and grateful appreciation.
Shoghi
Dorothy did write an account of Mother Beecher’s life. The
articles were published in five issues of The Bahá’í Magazine be-
tween October 1933 and March 1934 and were originally entitled
“The Evolution of a Bahá’í—Incidents from the Life of Mother
Beecher.” They review Ellen Tuller Beecher’s life as a young woman
in New England and her search then and later for spiritual truth.
The articles deal almost exclusively with important incidents that
reveal her early spiritual potential or that mark moments of real-
ization leading up to her recognition of Bahá’u’lláh, before His
son ‘Abdu’l-Bahá visited America.
Mother Beecher’s death seemed to add dimension to Dorothy’s
spiritual longing and perhaps to the development of her own
potential. Ed Miessler, a friend from Lima who was not yet a
Bahá’í, wrote of Mother Beecher and the effect he sensed her
death had on Dorothy.

26. Dorothy’s father, 27 Dorothy’s grandmother,
Henry Beecher, 1933. Mother Beecher, at ninety, June
He became a Bahá’í in 1947 1930. A photograph taken while
she was speaking at a meeting in
Columbus, Ohio.

A short time later we met precious Grandmother Beecher.
This was in 1932, after befriending Frank and Dorothy. We
had the great privilege of inviting her to our home. She had
supper with us. After supper, she sat us down on the sofa,
one on either side of her, and talked to us for two hours. We
loved her. We admired her—her lucidness and brilliance.
We thought “Too bad she isn’t a Lutheran!” Within a few
days she fell and broke her hip, and within a week after that
we attended our first Bahá’í funeral. It was a revelation to us.
It was so beautiful! It was really an open door to a new life.

The mantle of Grandmother Beecher seems to have fallen
upon the shoulders of Dorothy. I want to read one of the
selections of the Báb,
“Death does not separate the soul of the believer from his
scene of previous activity, but only increases his powers. All
those who work for this Great Cause will continue to do so
whether they are in the body or out of it. If martyred, they
will attach to those who can best secure their influence, and
the power of these will be doubled or quadrupled by the
dynamic assistance of those who have already left the scenes
of outward action.”
This was copied from Amelia Collins’ prayer book by
Luella Beecher, Dorothy’s mother ….1
Perhaps, as the passage above suggested to Ed Miessler, Mother
Beecher’s death did influence her granddaughter and increase
Dorothy’s power to work for the Cause. Her metamorphosis was
certainly dramatic, but whether it was influenced by Mother
Beecher’s passing can be known only to God. Certainly, though,
Dorothy’s near death in 1929, the confirming moments with Albert
Vail and in prayer at the House of Worship, then a second close
brush with death a year later combined with Dorothy’s dedicated
study of the Faith, her teaching efforts, and Mother Beecher’s
spiritual influence to deeply affect her life and commitments. It is
clear that, for whatever reasons, when Dorothy’s day for greatness
dawned, she was not found lying on her couch, but awake and
ardently wishing to serve.

Though this passage was widely circulated at the time, it has not been authenticated.

Chapter 11
Growth of the Lima Bahá’í community, 1932–34
With Mother Beecher gone, discouragement and despair stayed
close. In her family and in her town, Dorothy felt almost alone in
her beliefs. But not quite; Frank was a Bahá’í. He was quiet about
it though. With her grandmother gone, Dorothy no longer had
someone with whom she could explore the depths of the Bahá’í
writings and the facets of her own spiritual growth.
Frank was a worker. He lived his life devoted to his straightfor-
ward yet noble purposes: providing for his family, running his
bakery, and, with his assets, helping local boys with college tu-
ition or improving conditions for the employees at Plezol. Dor-
othy felt alone with the inner weight of inherited responsibility
and the self-imposed, almost self-inflicted, resolve to be of ser-
vice to the Bahá’í Faith.
School started the month after Mother Beecher died. Frank
was always at work; now all the children were out of the house,
too. Dorothy sat down to a lonely cup of coffee in the pullman,
the little room between the kitchen and dining room just large
enough for the built-in benches and table. A double window above
the table overlooked the backyard. On the opposite wall next to
the china cabinet was the door to the basement where, Dorothy
knew, the laundry waited for attention. The kitchen clock, her
only companion, clucked like a mechanical chicken. Dorothy
opened her folder to one of the last pages of notes she had made
weeks before with her grandmother, before the accident. There

on the page was a large circle, drawn as Mother Beecher had shown
her, with smaller globes on its circumference. The uppermost and
largest of the globes was labeled “God, The Infinite Essence,
Unknowable One.” To the left of that globe, descending to the
bottom of the circle, the smaller globes were labeled “Mineral,”
“Vegetable,” “Animal,” and, at the bottom, opposite the one
marked “God,” was a circle labeled “Man.” Half was darkened
in, like the circles representing other creations of God on earth,
and half was left light like the spiraling arc that stretched up the
right side of the circle, ascending to God. Across the top of the
chart, on some happier day, Dorothy had written, “The law of
life is motion. From God we come and to Him do we return.”
Now life’s motion seemed to have stopped. She felt angry to be
stuck in that house, in that town, doing so little that mattered,
further than ever from any chance to serve.
Still, it seemed stupid to do nothing. She did have one way to
be useful; at least her family depended on her. She decided to go
grocery shopping and cook something special for Frank and the
children. Dorothy took one long drink from her now cold coffee,
closed the notebook, and, picking up her purse, went out to the
car. When she reached the garage she was surprised to find she
could even smile, just from seeing the roadster, “the banana,”
that Connie had brought home from Yale, once yellow, now
painted gray especially for her. Louise and Bill thought it had her
initials written all over it—DB for “Dodge Brothers.” All cars,
according to the children, were family members. Frank and Dor-
othy always enjoyed their anthropomorphic vision. When Louise
was three she could name all the young Bakers: Connie Baker,
Sally (Sara) Baker, Billy Baker, Weezy Baker, and Toody Baker
(for Studebaker, an American car).
That night, busy in the kitchen when Frank came home, Dor-
othy felt better. He sniffed around the oven as he caught her up
on his day at the bakery.

28. Louise, Dorothy, Frank, and Bill Baker in 1932, all dressed up
for a ride below Niagara Falls on “The Maid of the Mist.”

“Floyd Spahr came by my office.”
“How’s he doing? Still happy at Plezol, I hope, don’t know
what you’d do without him.”
“Oh, yeah, it wasn’t business—he and some others are study-
ing something called Unity and thought we might know enough
to give a class on it.”
“I’ve heard of it, but that’s all.”
“Well, I told him you were good at talking about religion and
you could probably tell him about Bahá’í since they believe in
unity, too.”
Dorothy stopped stirring; her spoon slipped into the sauce.
“What did he say?”
“He said it sounds good. They’re all coming over next Sunday
night.”

It was Monday. That gave her four full days and maybe a little
time on the weekend to get ready. Dorothy spent every free hour
she could find that week reading and indexing, preparing her talk.
She waded through material that seemed to offer no hope of form-
ing a coherent whole. Presenting the Bahá’í Faith in its entirety
was impossible. It was too vast—the history, the laws, the huge,
world-embracing concepts for a new social order, the myriad an-
swers for the desperate personal questions every thinking indi-
vidual asks about how and why he lives. She kept digging and
finding pieces that seemed to fit, losing herself in the search. Some-
times they seemed to form into a manageable whole; then anxi-
ety about the upcoming talk would make the fragments of infor-
mation seem hopelessly diffuse.
By that weekend the outline had expanded to include every-
thing her thirty-odd hours of study had touched on. Then a pat-
tern began to emerge and Dorothy followed it, planning, editing,
connecting each thought with the next. Stories, insights from time
spent with Mother Beecher tied theory into reality so that by Sun-
day night Dorothy was nervous, but prepared. The group that
met that first Sunday consisted of the Bakers, Floyd and Gertrude
Spahr, Frank and Charlene Warner, Marie Kramer, and a few others.

Dorothy was able to inform Shoghi Effendi on February 2, 1933,
of the formation of the first Bahá’í community in Lima, Ohio.
There were eighteen members, and a second study group had
been formed for other interested individuals.

Persian Colony,
Haifa, Palestine
Feb. 17th, 1933

Dear Mrs. Baker:
Shoghi Effendi wishes me to acknowledge the receipt of
your letter dated February 2nd, 1933.
The news that the Bahá’í group in Lima is increasing rap-
idly and that there are constant additions to your numbers
made the Guardian very happy. He sincerely hopes that this
progress will be accelerated and that, before long, the people
will in throngs cluster under the banner of Bahá’u’lláh.
It is, however, very important that these newcomers should
study the teachings and become thoroughly familiar with
them, otherwise their faith will be established upon shifting
sand and could be easily demolished. The words of Bahá’u’-
lláh and the Master, however, have a creative power and are
sure to awaken in the reader the undying fire of the love of
God.
Please extend to all the friends there the Guardian’s lov-
ing greetings and assure them of his prayers.
With best wishes,
Yours ever sincerely,
Ruhi Afnan
Dear co-worker:
Your letter brought much joy to my heart. The interests
of your new-born community are the object of my constant
prayers at the holy shrines. I cherish fond hopes for its ex-
tension and consolidation. May the Beloved guide your steps
and enable that centre to radiate powerfully the light of the
Abhá Revelation.
Your true brother,
Shoghi

Through the spring the classes continued, and Dorothy con-
tinued to prepare for each by spending twenty to forty hours a
week studying the Faith.
Ed and Elma Miessler became interested in the Bakers’ new
activities. Ed overheard Dorothy inviting mutual friends to a talk
by Albert Vail and asked, “Couldn’t we come along, too?” Dor-
othy answered, “Of course, but you are so happy in your church,
I didn’t think you would be interested.”
Ed wasn’t too impressed with the whole idea of a religion that
extended beyond Christianity, but Albert Vail’s talk and their dis-
cussion afterwards interested him enough to make him want to
read further. Both he and Elma became serious students of the
Bahá’í Faith. To their parents’ horror they even decided to join
the growing Bahá’í community in Lima. When their parents found
out both their fathers, clergymen who knew little but that the
Faith was not Lutheran, demanded that their children stay away
from “that Baker woman,” go to church, read the Bible, and throw
away their Bahá’í books. The Miesslers agreed to all but the last.
Despite the pressure and the forced division between the
Miesslers and their Bahá’í friends, a division they abided by for
the sake of family peace, “that Baker woman” saw to it that Ed
and Elma received all the Bahá’í newsletters, bulletins, and books
as they were published. In one issue of Bahá’í News they read
from the writings of the Guardian that it is incumbent upon
Bahá’ís to attend the Nineteen Day Feast, that only illness or ab-
sence from the city is considered an adequate excuse. After al-
most a year of isolation, they could no longer stand to live in
half-light. The Miesslers attended the next Nineteen Day Feast
and were promptly excommunicated from the Lutheran Church.
Lenore Bernstein, one of the first people Frank and Dorothy
met through Ed and Elma, was appalled at the news that the

Miesslers had been denied further contact with their church. Years
later Lenore wrote,
When Elma told me they were thrown out of their church I
asked her what was this “terrible thing they were about to
accept that would cause their minister to dismiss them from
his flock.” Then she gave me the principles of the Faith and
I said—“Well, I can’t see what’s wrong with that. I can cer-
tainly accept all that teaching.” She answered, “Well then,
you are a Bahá’í,” and I almost think it was that simple in
those early days to become part of the Bahá’í family.

Dorothy was particularly vexed during the early development
of the Lima community about another woman who seemed very
close to becoming a Bahá’í yet hesitated to become a part of the
Faith. Finally, Dorothy prayed that Bahá’u’lláh would appear to
her friend in a dream; then she would surely be convinced of the
truth of His revelation. The next morning there the woman stood
at Dorothy’s front door, full of the news that the night before she
had dreamed of Bahá’u’lláh, Who had announced that He was
the Promised One. Dorothy was ecstatic, but her friend was not.
“How,” she asked, “could He have done that? It was not good
sportsmanship. Jesus Christ would never have tried to influence
me like that. I’ll never accept Bahá’u’lláh.” Crushed, Dorothy rec-
ognized her own folly and decided never again to pray for any-
thing but God’s first choice.
On April 21, 1933, all of the Lima Bahá’ís assembled for their
annual meeting. They consulted on electing a Local Spiritual
Assembly but decided it might be better to study Bahá’í adminis-
tration during the coming year, as they had so far concerned them-
selves mainly with the spiritual teachings. Then they would be

ready to elect an assembly at Riḍván 1934. In a letter to the Bahá’í
National Center they explained their decision and post haste re-
ceived a very direct reply—in fact, in Dorothy’s recollection, “a
snippy letter, scolding us for not forming our assembly,” and ex-
plaining that wherever nine adult Bahá’ís reside they must form
their Local Spiritual Assembly on April 21.
The Lima Bahá’ís responded by holding elections at their next
Nineteen Day Feast for a “Local Spiritual Committee” that func-
tioned as if it were an assembly until the situation was remedied
in April of the following year. The month before that election, on
March 26, 1934, Dorothy wrote to the Guardian, asking on be-
half of the Lima community for his prayers. Twenty-nine Bahá’ís
were active, but Dorothy wrote that opposition from some of the
Lima clergy kept many more from participating.
On behalf of the Guardian his secretary wrote, on April 15,
… The forces of opposition which the clergy of Lima have
used and are still using in order to counteract the continued
advancement of the Faith of God will assuredly be van-
quished. Their hatred, instead of quenching the flame of
faith in the hearts of the faithful, will serve to intensify it.
The believers should, therefore, be confident, and encour-
aged by such an assurance; they should redouble their efforts
for the extension of the Cause. …
And the Guardian added,
May the Almighty assist you in your efforts to safeguard the
interests of our beloved Faith and may He enable you to
promote them with increasing effectiveness and power.
Your true brother,
Shoghi

The Lima community suffered some setbacks from the verbal
attacks, but for the most part the feeling of the time was vitality.
The Sunday night classes were becoming an attraction not only
for people from Lima but for visitors from nearby villages. In the
spring of 1935 the Bakers decided to take down the wall between
the living and dining rooms of their home so they could accom-
modate the sometimes fifty or more guests.
Many of the difficulties in Dorothy’s growing Bahá’í family
were caused by the strains of adolescence, pulling away from the
rather priggish status quo of Lima that Elsie Austin1 described as
“an insular, reactionary, small town.” The Bahá’í Faith was new;
it had to be tried on, they had to practice wearing it. In their
initial enthusiastic embrace some tended to embellish its clear,
exquisite beauty, assuming that something so good could only be
improved by their personal additions.
Even though Bahá’ís are guided not to join political parties,
during the presidential campaigns of 1936, “Daddy” Gorrell, af-
ter a heated defense of Roosevelt, announced to the other Bahá’ís
within earshot, “Even if we are supposed to stay out of party
politics, no real Bahá’í could vote anything but the straight Demo-
cratic ticket!”
On another Sunday night a Bahá’í from one of the outlying
towns brought a friend to hear about the Faith. After listening to
Dorothy speak about the earlier foundations of other religions,
she broke in to remind Dorothy, “You’re supposed to be talking
about Bahá’í. Why don’t you just get on with it?” She had never
thought of studying other religions. She considered herself a Bahá’í
without ever giving much thought to progressive revelation, a
basic tenet of Bahá’í belief that each divinely appointed Messen-

A future member of the National Spiritual Assembly, later named a Knight
of Bahá’u’lláh.

ger of God renews religion and is meant to advance the spiritual
and social state of humankind.1
But there were also Bahá’ís in Lima like Dorothy’s mother,
Luella, who were more knowledgeable. Luella came to live with
them in 1933 when she and her husband Henry divorced. Even-
tually Dorothy’s father became a Bahá’í, too, in Ft. Lauderdale,
Florida, in 1947. Other Lima Bahá’ís included the Miesslers, the
Spahrs, the Warners, Lenore Bernstein, and many others, who
were deepened and dependable. To this list, in 1935, was added
one of the brilliant lights of Dorothy’s heart: Mary Lou Ewing.
At the same time Mary Lou declared her belief in Bahá’u’lláh, her
husband, Tom, and her mother, Edna Andrews, became Bahá’ís
as well.
Years later, walking together through a snow storm, Dorothy
asked Mary Lou, “Do you realize that the friendship with you
was one of the last of which I allowed myself the luxury?” This
may seem ascetic, but with the energy Dorothy poured into the
Bahá’í communities, first locally, then nationally and internation-
ally, her resources of time and love were completely used. There
was no space left for self-indulgence, even in its most construc-
tive and acceptable form. Instead, Dorothy chose what she called
“universal love” and asked Mary Lou if she thought the Lima
Bahá’ís understood that as she grew in the ability to exercise uni-
versal love, she also grew “in the ability to feel personal love.” She
wanted them to know, later on when she was rarely in Lima, that
her personal love for them was enhanced, not reduced, by this
new and broader love for humanity.

See Appendix I (pp. 499-534) for two of Dorothy Baker’s articles on the
subject of progressive revelation, first published as the pamphlets “The Victory
of the Spirit” and “Religion Returns.”

In those first years, though, the conflict between time, respon-
sibilities, and the desires of the human heart had not yet come to
a head. There was energy for everything: the Sunday night meet-
ings, preparing her talks for them, setting up the den for the Fri-
day night Bahá’í Men’s Club led by Harry Jay, the weekly lun-
cheon Dorothy gave for the Bahá’í women and their friends, and
especially, time for study of the writings and for teaching the chil-
dren. Bill Baker was about ten in the mid-30s when Bahá’í
children’s classes were organized in Lima.
I recall the Sunday school classes we used to have at the
Miesslers, and for a while at the Bernsteins, and sometimes
at our house, and though I dutifully learned the songs and
listened to lessons, etc., I much preferred classes in which
Mother would tell stories. … When Mother was really get-
ting under way teaching in Lima I remember that she would
prepare her lessons (I think for the Tuesday night classes) on
yellow pads. Every afternoon when I came home from school
she would be writing and as she worked; I think she was
indexing her Bahá’í books. None of them were indexed then,
but she had pages and pages of index references stuck in all
her books. I often thought of that time when people said
afterwards that Mother has such a gift. She seemed to speak
so freely from the writings and always seemed to know just
where things were. …
Children played a significant part in Dorothy’s life and in her
service. In 1936, a newspaper article included the following ac-
count of Dorothy’s interests.
Mrs. Baker is … particularly interested in problems of chil-
dren and youth. In her home city of Lima she has long been

actively associated with the educational program of the Par-
ent Teachers Association. For several years she has directed
the Bahá’í Young People’s Summer Conference at Davison,
Mich.1

Years later, when her children were grown and Dorothy was
visiting Ypsilanti, Michigan, she and Junie (Katherine) Faily Perrot
talked about being an attentive parent. Junie remembered that
Dorothy “told me to take good care of my children now while
they are young. She said she didn’t go out to teach until her chil-
dren were old enough.”
Dorothy’s devotion to children and youth was further proof
that she took her Faith seriously. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá wrote, “O ye lov-
ing mothers, know ye that in God’s sight, the best of all ways to
worship Him is to educate the children and train them in all the
perfections of humankind; and no nobler deed than this can be
imagined.”2
Dorothy no longer felt remote from the joys of life. In Lima
she delighted in the closeness of her friendships, in her family,
and in her cozy community. In 1935 Frank and Dorothy were
delighted to go up to Bridgeport, Connecticut, for Conrad Baker’s
wedding. Conrad met Marjorie Wheeler through his roommate
at Yale and married her on July 23, 1935, the year after his gradu-
ation from Yale Medical School. So the Baker family that at one
time seemed so fragile was growing and expanding.
And Dorothy now had purpose in her life. Even the dull rep-

April 1936, Geneva Times, Geneva, New York.
‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Women, Extracts from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, ‘Abdu’l-
Bahá Shoghi Effendi, and the Universal House of Justice (Wilmette, Ill.: Bahá’í
Publishing Trust, 1997), p. 28.

etition of household activities became bearable and, at times,
sweet. When Mary Lou ran over to Dorothy’s one day to borrow
her iron, Dorothy said, “Oh, Mary Lou, what fun! One of the
things from my house will go to your house and I will use it even
more lovingly because it served you!” Life had been charged with
some new energy that made even the ordinary special.
Dorothy had a rather mystical communion with the picture of
‘Abdu’l-Bahá in her living room. Mary Lou would see her look at
it as if she had moved away, for a moment, into the reality of the
picture. Once Dorothy walked over to it, laid her cheek against
its glass and said, “I can go anywhere in the world. I can go through
anything in the world, as long as I have my Beloved.” Mary Lou
found her not the least bit self-conscious or theatrical. She was
speaking of a very real love.
Because of a problem that had begun at the time of Bill’s birth,
Dorothy needed surgery, so she entered a Catholic hospital near
Lima. Even there her teaching continued. The nuns became in-
tensely interested in the spiritual aura that seemed to surround
Dorothy. One nun even asked if she should leave her order to
become a Bahá’í. After prayer with the sister, Dorothy considered
the situation and answered by explaining how acceptable her ser-
vice as a nurse was in God’s sight, and that God no doubt could
also accept her belief in Bahá’u’lláh, even if she stayed on in her
nursing order.
After Dorothy’s release from the hospital, she went back to her
busy schedule. In fact the pressure increased. She had to keep the
ever-growing Bahá’í community in Lima on an even keel, deal
with the responsibility of seeing Louise and Bill into their teens,
plus cope with the beginnings of the tremendous strain on Frank
as his business headed toward rocky years that were, heartbreak-
ingly, connected with Dorothy’s Bahá’í activities. She also had to

consider responsibilities outside of Lima: membership on the Cen-
tral States Summer School Committee plus preparation to teach
summer school classes. All of it combined to shake Dorothy’s
confidence in her ability to accomplish everything with even
moderate success.
Dorothy’s upper teeth had been the cause of serious problems
for years, but she was unaware how serious. At the same time her
Bahá’í workload grew heavier, Dorothy had to have several teeth
removed and a bridge put in their place. As she went under the
anesthetic in the dentist’s office, a round chart seemed to appear
on the wall. It turned like a roulette wheel, the different-colored
spaces moving clockwise around the perimeter. Each space seemed
to fill with letters and words toward the bottom. As it reached the
twelve o’clock position, the words vanished. Dorothy heard a voice
say, “Pick a space. Watch it.” She looked more closely, focusing
on a blank space. As she watched the wheel turn, writing began to
appear in the space: “Mrs. Bernstein cannot keep her appoint-
ment.” Then the words flicked under a rubber eraser at the top of
the wheel, and the message was gone.
When Dorothy began to come out from under the anesthesia
she briefly forced open her eyes to see the chart on the wall. Noth-
ing was there. Just then the door opened. She heard the nurse’s
voice: “Mrs. Bernstein just phoned. She can’t come in today.”
Unsure of what was real and what was not, Dorothy heard an-
other voice, but it did not come from the room where she lay:
“You see there is a time for everything.”
In the first short talk Dorothy gave at the Bahá’í House of
Worship in Wilmette, she ended every point made with the deeply
felt sentiment, “Blessed are those who follow guidance.” Dorothy
saw the strange moments of watching the turning roulette wheel
as just that—guidance. Instead of dismissing that image as the

fictitious effect of exhaustion and the dentist’s anesthetic, Dor-
othy took the odd cue as a message and very determinedly fol-
lowed it—there would be time for everything.
Whatever obstacles stood in her way, from then on Dorothy
knew that the attitude that would lead to blessings was one of
fearless acceptance of her responsibilities without the anxiety that
had once accompanied them. The limitations were gone; as long
as she didn’t stand in her own way, there would be time in her life
for all that she truly wanted to do. Anxiety about finding needed
time, fear of failure, these were nets in which she no longer wished
to entangle herself.
Turning away from the battles that anxiety and discourage-
ment waged, Dorothy instead chose not to concentrate on what
sometimes seemed to be overwhelming odds against her success.
She faced the whole mirror of her heart to God and turned its
opaque back to the underworld of creeping doubts and fearful,
pointless imaginings, knowing that “vain imaginings” could be
illusions based on vanity, but that they could also be imaginings
that were in vain, having no base in reality or hope of fulfillment.
These floating fears and desires she strictly avoided, calling them
useless thoughts.
There were still moments of despair or depression, but Dor-
othy’s efforts in Lima began to balance out. At times she became
overtired, and Frank would ask her to list all her committees and
activities. Then he would suggest she consider which of these did
not vitally require her presence. Usually, Dorothy came up with
at least one activity which, on his recommendation, she would
then drop. With Frank’s help she managed to keep her Bahá’í
work in its place, as the major interest of her life, but not as a
ravenous god to which all else, including the happiness of chil-
dren and husband, had to be totally sacrificed.

In fact, Dorothy’s enthusiasms included aspects of her work at
home. On the way home from National Convention in the spring
of each year, Dorothy always stopped at roadside stands to buy
whatever fruit the farmers brought to sell. Convention began just
before strawberry time, so she usually arrived home with a crate
of berries. Dorothy would gather the whole family to help with
the jam making. She had a real interest in the whole process and
infused the operations with the same sort of intensity she gave to
other projects. Rhubarb from the back yard, well sugared, was
the base for the jam, or Dorothy used several cans of pineapple.
Then the strawberries would go in, and as summer fruits ripened
Dorothy added them to the big crock of jam in the cellar, making
“heavenly hash,” as the Bakers called it. Later in the year, when
Frank came home with a bushel or two of fresh peaches, the fam-
ily gathered again as Dorothy organized the canning. A favorite
dessert was “fried eggs,” two peach halves with the curved sides
up and each surrounded by a circle of fresh whipped cream. She
once commented that she needed these activities to keep a bal-
ance in her life.
Frank adored the thriving home life Dorothy created, but he
encouraged her to take on everything she wanted to do. With real
appreciation Dorothy often told people of Frank’s advice to her:
“We both love this Cause, and neither one of us wants you to
give only your gray hairs to it.”
Just as he encouraged her, Dorothy showed great gentleness
toward her husband. When the double living room and the wide
entry hall of their home were filled with people during the Sun-
day night meetings, Frank would settle himself on the comfort-
able blue couch in the very back of the room and would occa-
sionally fall asleep as Dorothy spoke. But her loving, indulgent
smile removed all embarrassment. When a snore or sleepy snort

made heads turn, she would laugh and suggest that if it annoyed
anyone they should wake him, but otherwise let him sleep.
Frank had his own ways of serving. He and Louis Gregory1
were very close friends, and Frank took pride in being a person
on whom Louis could rely. Louis Gregory was an African Ameri-
can attorney upon whose noble character had been left the lasting
imprint of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s influence. Louis often stopped in Lima,
as many Bahá’ís did while traveling cross country by train or car.
Louis was scheduled to speak in Lima one evening, but phoned
Frank to say he would be in early. Frank was delighted and told
him, “I’ll meet your train and we can have lunch at the Argonne
Hotel.”
The Argonne Hotel, the best hotel in Lima, also had the best
restaurant. Lima, a conservative small town and a hub for the far-
flung farming communities that surrounded it, was also, oddly
enough, a sort of off-season congregating place for members of
organized crime. Not that organized crime was active there, but
certain crime bosses were in and out of Lima from time to time,
apparently when Chicago became too dangerous. In fact, one of
the heavy, large cars Frank favored was a maroon Cadillac whose
previous owner had been, according to the salesman, Al Capone.
Louise Baker remembers that the car had a beautiful leather inte-
rior, tiny crystal bud vases in the backseat. It was a limousine.
Frank always joked that he bought it so he could carry a whole
Local Spiritual Assembly.

For more information about Louis Gregory, see Gayle Morrison, To Move
the World. Louis G. Gregory and the Advancement of Racial Unity in America,
foreword by Glenford E. Mitchell (Wilmette, Ill.: Bahá’í Publishing Trust,
1982).

Perhaps because this criminal element favored occasional re-
treats to Lima, the best hotels were actually quite elaborate. Un-
fortunately though, the Argonne did not serve blacks.
When Frank realized he had invited Louis Gregory into a situ-
ation that might be embarrassing for him, he quickly decided to
take Louis elsewhere, possibly the Kiwanis Grill. He knew Louis
would understand. But he would also be hurt. Frank couldn’t
stand that. He felt it was ridiculous, anyway, denying entrance to
a man like Louis Gregory, whose sterling character would shine
anywhere.
Louise Baker remembers, “As Dad considered the question he
became more and more incensed that such an outstanding man
as Louis Gregory could be treated as an inferior by anyone, esp-
ecially when he was head and shoulders above everybody else who
would be eating there. As he thought about Louis his admiration
for him increased still further until he finally ended with a tre-
mendous sense of pride that he, Frank Baker, had the great privi-
lege of taking Louis Gregory to lunch.”
By the time Frank picked up Louis at the station, he had made
his decision. He drove directly to the front of the Argonne Hotel
in his grand automobile and escorted Louis through the entrance
and into the lobby. At the restaurant he informed the maître d’
they had a reservation and required a window table. The maître
d’ obediently led them through the restaurant, Frank following
Louis. But at the table, Frank insisted on doing the honors of
seating Louis himself.
Dorothy was just leaving the house when the telephone rang.
She didn’t even know Louis was in town yet, so she had no idea
what the Lima News reporter was talking about. He said, “Mrs.
Baker! You’ve got to tell me, who is this African prince your hus-
band is entertaining at the Argonne Hotel?”
At home, Dorothy’s weekly luncheons were highly popular.

Mary Lou, trying to explain Dorothy’s charm, said, “She was in
such demand because of her high level of interacting with people.
I’ve never seen a woman more at ease with a variety of backgrounds.
It was total camaraderie. … ‘Born to the purple royal,’ people
said of her. She wasn’t alien anywhere.”
Because her luncheons were only for women, the guests felt
free to discuss very personal concerns. One Saturday the subject
turned to men, as it often did. With some hesitation a woman
said her husband was involved with someone else. The guests were
horrified at the man’s behavior, perhaps imagining their own an-
ger and frustration if they were in similar positions. Dorothy didn’t
mention this, but spoke of her own husband. Mary Lou Ewing
was there and listened to Dorothy with amazement as did the
others. “I would be the first person to defend Frank Baker if he
decided that he was too lonely to go without companionship when
I am away. I would defend him even for his infidelity.” There
were a few muffled gasps at her audacity, followed by an even
more surprised silence when she added, “A wife should always
look to the needs of her husband.” Certainly, she was not advo-
cating breaking the vows of marriage but emphasizing the need
for compassion, even in the most trying circumstances. But it is
also true that Dorothy and Frank had a healthy, normal relation-
ship, which she neither ignored nor saw as unimportant. She never
forgot Frank, nor felt herself somehow above the physical realm.
But it was in the spiritual realm that Dorothy gloried; it was
very real and close for her. She knew her strength was tenuous at
best without a strong connection to that other world. The Lima
community needed more than she could ever give it, so she prayed
ardently and often to be strengthened. When Mary Lou had seri-
ous difficulties, Dorothy woke up to pray for her every dawn for
nineteen days and thanked Mary Lou profusely for the opportu-
nity. She thanked her, not out of some overwhelming desire to

sacrifice her sleep, but because she knew that when she prayed
deeply for someone else, she also increased her own connection
to the power that sustained her. It was a power she believed in
totally, the effects of which she saw manifest all around her.
During the ‘30s the son of a Bahá’í couple in Lima had a ner-
vous breakdown and was hospitalized. After several weeks of un-
successful treatment, the doctors advised his parents to take him
to the state mental hospital in Toledo, Ohio. Dorothy sat in the
backseat with the young man during the drive. He talked con-
stantly, unable to stop the torrent of hysterical ideas that assaulted
his mind. Everything drove him to distraction; the stoplight ahead
spurred fears that his father would crash through it. He was posi-
tive that, if they crossed the railroad tracks, a freight train would
appear from nowhere and crush their car. The compulsive banter
did not slow down; his thin body used all the strength it had just
to withstand the unbearable strain of the eighty-mile ride to To-
ledo. When they were clear of Lima’s city limits, having exhausted
the terrifying resources outside the closed car windows, he sud-
denly realized that there, right beside him, sat another threat to
his peace of mind. He was instantly alert to the danger. For a
moment he cowered in the far corner of the backseat, staring at
his nemesis. Dorothy reached for his hand. The threat of physical
contact was too much. He began violently throwing himself against
the locked door.
Unable to force the door open, he scrambled pitifully against
it, like a bird against glass, unable to understand what hinders
flight. Vainly he groped for the handle, his head turned over his
shoulder, eyes fastened on Dorothy as if on a pursuing demon.
From the front seat his mother tried, through the tears she could
not hold back, to comfort him, to calm him, but he was oblivi-
ous to all but Dorothy.
Since his lunge for the door she had been sitting quietly, look-

ing ahead, containing herself, directing all her heart’s energy to
God. She turned and smiled into his eyes, motioning him to move
away from the door. Slowly, in sharp staccato, one jagged move-
ment at a time, he left his crouched position and hitched himself
toward her, this time quiet. Dorothy closed her eyes and to her-
self began to repeat the short healing prayer by Bahá’u’lláh:
Thy name is my healing, O my God, and remembrance of
Thee is my remedy. Nearness to Thee is my hope, and love
for Thee is my companion. Thy mercy to me is my healing
and my succor in both this world and in the world to come.
Thou, verily, art the All-Bountiful, the All-Knowing, the
All-Wise.1
She also used the Báb’s prayer, “Is there any Remover of difficulties
save God? Say: Praised be God! He is God! All are His servants,
and all abide by His bidding.”2 The grown man lay down and put
his head on her lap. For the rest of the two-and-a-half-hour trip,
they continued as they were, the man resting, Dorothy silently
praying.
When they arrived at the hospital he opened his door and got
out. His parents and Dorothy walked after him. Midway up the
white plank steps to the entrance he stopped, then turned to
Dorothy, “I can never thank you for what you have done for me.”
Thirty days later the doctors released him, having been unable to
find any sign of mental illness.
Dorothy’s ability to encourage the individual was, in the mem-
ory of many, without compare. Susie, her brother David’s daugh-
ter by his marriage to Lila, came for a visit when she was in her
teens. Her parents had divorced years before. David had already
remarried twice, leaving Susie to grow up with her mother in
Canaan, New Hampshire. Young, alone in a world where she felt

Bahá’u’lláh, Bahá’í Prayers, p. 87.
The Báb, Bahá’í Prayers, p. 28

neither acceptable nor accepted, Susie had little confidence or hope
for her life. At the Bakers’ invitation, she ended up spending a
year in their home.
During most of Susie’s various minor escapades in Lima, Dor-
othy stayed very calm. When it finally began to look as if Susie
wasn’t benefiting at all from the family’s influence, Dorothy took
her upstairs for a serious talk. She recounted, one by one, the
many outstanding people from whom Susie, like her own chil-
dren, descended: several signers of the Declaration of Indepen-
dence and two who had signed the Constitution: Nathaniel
Gorham and Rufus King. Other ancestors included John Tilley
and John Howland, who came to America on the Mayflower;
Ralph Gorham, who, along with other Puritans, arrived in America
on the good ship Phillip and settled in New England in 1635;
and Captain John Gorham, who, as a result of his service in the
King Philip’s War, was granted the area later known as the town
of Gorham, Maine. She explained that Rufus King was a U.S.
Senator and Ambassador to Great Britain, and John King, Gover-
nor of New York. She told Susie she was also a descendant of the
Beecher family which had produced such luminaries as Harriet
Beecher Stowe.1 When Susan told Mary Lou Ewing about the
impressive list, Mary Lou was surprised; Dorothy had never men-

Joseph Baker (1698–1763) was a common ancestor of Dorothy Beecher
Baker and of Harriet Beecher Stowe. Dorothy descended from his son Joseph,
who was her great, great, great grandfather. Harriet Beecher Stowe descended
from his son Nathaniel, who was her great grandfather. Harriet Beecher Stowe
died in 1896; Dorothy Beecher Baker was born two years later. They were also
related through Harriet Beecher Stowe’s mother, Roxana Foote Beecher, who
was a blood relative of Dorothy’s great grandmother, Harriet Barnes Beecher.
The following may be of interest to those who are curious about the bond
between Dorothy Beecher Baker and Harriet Beecher Stowe’s family. Dorothy’s

tioned her ancestry to any of her Lima friends. But the brief re-
counting of those outstanding lives served its purpose. Dorothy
left her niece wide-eyed with a new and vivid impression of her
heritage and potential.#
Meanwhile, Dorothy’s own potential was becoming apparent.
Recognition on a broader scale was imminent. But closely fol-
lowing that acclaim came another, less welcome spin-off of her
successful work for the Faith. The mid-thirties would make her
strong enough for what was ahead or show Dorothy the depths of
her own weakness.

#
grandfather, Joseph A. Beecher, writes of Lyman Beecher, Harriet Beecher
Stowe’s father:
Dr. Lyman Beecher was a frequent guest of [my grandfather] John
Beecher, and in the old farmhouse where [I] was born and brought up,
that great divine was generally to be found after preaching in the con-
gregational church at Wolcott [Connecticut].

Chapter 12
Expanding horizons and development of skills, 1934–36
In 1934 and 1935 Dorothy began addressing more groups out-
side of Lima. She spoke in Detroit, where her brother David was
now a portrait photographer. He had finally married Adelaide, a
girlhood friend of Dorothy’s who had loved him since childhood.
Dorothy gave a series of seven lectures in Detroit. She also spoke
in other cities including Cleveland, Milwaukee, Dayton, and Pitts-
burgh.
The desire to travel and teach didn’t come from confidence in
her own ability; Dorothy’s voice was still rather weak, and she
relied very much on notes. Although she had studied the Bahá’í
writings endlessly and tried to incorporate public speaking tech-
niques into her presentations, her lectures remained somewhat
stilted. She pushed on, unsure of her abilities, but positive that
the propagation of the Faith required the energy of every Bahá’í.
There were two basic rules she followed: strive—make the effort—
and obey.
Garreta Busey—a long-standing member of the Urbana, Illi-
nois, Bahá’í community—was a writer, editor, and a professor of
English at the University of Illinois. She and Dorothy met when
Anna Kunz invited Dorothy to come and speak in Urbana in Feb-
ruary, 1935. Dorothy’s letters of encouragement to Garreta, writ-
ten the same year, also reflected her own struggle.
Dear Garreta,
Bahá’ís often experience exhaustion, and I rather feel that

if we did not, we should never really know our own impo-
tence, and thus we would be deprived of yearning to know
and seek use of God’s all-pervading power. For a while it is
constant exhaustion and exhilaration. Then our ships steady
themselves and concentrate on the charted journey. Besides,
it is only out of a sense of impotence that we find our fullest
destinies. …
Be tired of it all. Be so tired that you will shake the bars of
your own prisons in rage and hurl yourself upon the Be-
loved and beseech Him to lift you to your best. When we do
less we are always bored.
Come to Summer School if you can, Garreta. We all need
you. Besides, I have a strong personal desire to see you and
you really ought to gratify me just once.
Lovingly always,
Dorothy
Later
I have read this letter and it sounds wrong. You have done a
thousand “bests” and hence you are very tired—Let me ex-
plain that my statement is a psychological one, and it ap-
plies to us all. I was not finding fault, but just seeing be-
yond. Your best is an inner thing, it is spiritual passion, per-
haps. Bahá’u’lláh grant you the joy of it in great abundance.
DB.
Obedience, always a matter of sincerity and selflessness and
the most potent proof of belief, was the theme of Dorothy’s next letter.

Garreta dear,
Thank you for sending the letter. That was careless of me.
How lovely that Mrs. M. can turn to you. She is such a
dear person, and your stability is exactly what she needs. I
do feel that if she makes a consistent effort in this new little
group, and refuses to let the world prevent her in one way or
another (as it tends always to do) she will have her answers
personally also. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá said to a woman in great trouble,
“Try obeying my commands completely and you will be
amazed at the results.” And it was true. Not once but many
times I have seen the friends who gathered to study in Lima
arrive at points of sincerity that seemed to sweep everything
away that had no place in their lives. “Whoso maketh an
effort, in Our Ways will We guide him.”
As to your problem, you are now set to the task of writing
that book,1 and I believe I would pour into it every drop of
inspiration, if I were you. There will be times when God
will open doors to very beautiful direct service, and you will
achieve beautiful results. The spiritual blessing of what you
have gained ought to illumine every gift you have by nature.
To me you are a truly magnificent soul just finding its wings.
Use them joyously. God is not niggardly. He wants you to
succeed in everything. You will glorify Him with those gifts.
God bless you always.
Loving Bahá’í greetings, Ever,
Dorothy

Since Mother Beecher’s death in August of 1932, the same sum-
mer when the Greatest Holy Leaf, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s beloved sister

Her novel, The Windbreak, was published in 1938.

Bahíyyih Khánum, passed on, Dorothy’s efforts had been con-
stant. Her resolution was still strong, but the exhaustion of those
intense years and her yearning to be near the Holy Shrines and
Shoghi Effendi made her decide to write to him in November of
1935, requesting permission to make a pilgrimage to Haifa. She
had received a moderate inheritance, and, so for the first time,
felt she had enough of her own money to make the expensive
trip, but the needs of the National Fund concerned her, too. The
Guardian’s reply was prompt and direct.

December 6th, 1935
Dear Mrs. Baker,
It was a great pleasure for the Guardian to receive your
warm and beautiful message of November 13th, and to learn
of the encouraging and inspiring news of the steady progress
which the Faith is making in Lima. His gratitude to you is
boundless, for your share in this great and historic achieve-
ment has been quite preponderating and truly remarkable.
The Lima friends should also feel very thankful for having
in you such a devoted and talented co-worker. It is the
Guardian’s most cherished hope that through the united and
sustained efforts of you all, your community will continue
to increase in number and in devotion and loyalty to every-
thing the Cause stands for. He is ardently supplicating Bahá’-
u’lláh to confirm and enrich your labours, and enable you to
become constantly more steadfast and effective.
With regard to your wish to visit the Holy Shrines; much
as the Guardian would like to extend to you, and to dear
Mrs. Beecher,1 a most hearty welcome he feels it, neverthe-

Dorothy’s mother, Luella Beecher.

less, his duty to advise you to defer your visit until such time
when the existing deficit in the national fund of the Cause
in America has been satisfactorily and completely met. He
would suggest that you offer part of the expenses required
for such a trip as a contribution to the said fund. Your ex-
ample will be surely highly-meritorious in the sight of God,
and will, no doubt, encourage and sustain the friends in
their collective and individual sacrifices for the Cause in
America.
In his prayers at the Holy Shrines Shoghi Effendi will con-
tinue to remember you, as well as all our dear friends of
Lima, that you may daily grow in spiritual capacity, vigour
and devotion. He will specially pray that some way be opened
enabling you to visit Haifa in the near future, and thus fulfil
your heart’s long-cherished desire.
With his warmest Bahá’í greetings to you, to Mrs. Beecher
and the rest of the believers in your centre,
Yours in His Service,
H. Rabbani
Dear and valued co-worker:
I am deeply grateful for the many and remarkable services
you have been rendering the Cause in recent years. You truly
deserve to visit Haifa and lay your head in thanksgiving on
the sacred Threshold. I feel certain, however, that it would
be meritorious in the sight of God to devote part of the
expenses of such a pilgrimage to the National Fund, so that
the deficit may be reduced and the national interests of the
Faith be thereby promoted. I will specially pray on your be-
half at the Holy Shrines. Rest assured,
Shoghi

The suggestion of giving her travel expenses to assist with the
costs of completing the Bahá’í House of Worship in Wilmette
had been Dorothy’s, but the realization that she would not be
able to go to Haifa was painful. Still, by the time of her reply of
January 6 to the Guardian, Dorothy had completely accepted the
idea of not yet making her pilgrimage. Eventually, the only regret
she felt over the incident was that her contribution to the build-
ing of the Mother Temple would be spent for interior structural
costs. In her touchingly romantic way, she wished her money could
have bought some of the exquisite exterior ornamentation so she
could look at the finished building and know she had contributed
to its beauty.

January 25th, 1936
Dear Bahá’í Friend,
On behalf of the Guardian I wish to acknowledge with
deepest thanks the receipt of your letter of the sixth instant,
and to express his profound appreciation of the spirit in which
you have accepted his suggestion regarding your visit to the
Holy Land. He is, indeed, fully aware of the sacrifice you
have made in this connection, but is confident that the ex-
ample you have set before the friends is such as to give them
courage and inspiration in their labours for the Cause.
The Guardian is fervently praying on your behalf at the
Holy Shrines, that Divine confirmations may continually
strengthen and guide you in your activities for the Faith. He
is specially entreating Bahá’u’lláh to bless your labour in the
field of teaching, and to enable you to become a leading
champion of His Cause throughout the States.
With his renewed and most loving greetings to you and
to all the friends in Lima,
Yours in His Service,
H. Rabbani

With the assurance of my loving prayers for the realization
of your highest hopes and dearest wishes in the service of our beloved Faith,
Your true brother,
Shoghi

29. Dorothy at Summer School in the mid-1930s,
with a copy of Bahá’í Scriptures on her lap.

30. Louhelen Bahá’í School in the 1930s.
In both of his postscripts the Guardian told Dorothy to be
assured. Self-doubt and fear of her own inadequacy dissolved even
more. The Guardian, “fervently praying” on her behalf—what
choice did she have but to be confident of her future service?
Again, obedience would surely bring her closer to the safety of
God’s protection and guidance, not simply keep her from the
shrines.
The next summer at Louhelen Bahá’í School, Dorothy talked
about effort and reliance on God, encouraging the youth and adults
to struggle as the Apostles did. Like Emerson, like Tennyson and
a host of other important figures of the age who allowed the spirit
of God’s day to inspire them, Dorothy asked her students “to let
the light of God flow through you.” She believed what she said:
“All men who are alive and awake in this day are geniuses.” She
felt that, in this divinely ordained time of return and rebirth, the
power is flowing and will assist anyone who is open to it.
As ever, she placed great emphasis on guidance. Outside with

31. Dorothy and Frank at Louhelen.

32. Dorothy at a class at Louhelen, 1935.
She is sitting in the middle of the front row.

the youth on a summer day, sitting next to a little cabin, Dorothy
said, “Divine guidance is so essential! If we could but seek it and
forget our own petty desires and wishes, all would be well, for
God knows your destiny and if we go contrary to what is planned
for us, what seems to us the best may plunge us into no end of
trouble and grief.” Then she told them about her long-ago ro-
mance with Elliott, the promising young lawyer whom she was
so tempted to marry. Dorothy explained how she had longed to
be with him but felt great doubts when she prayed about it and
even heard the name “Frank Baker” in her mind as she prayed,
though she didn’t understand why. She had already met Frank at
the boarding house, but, she told her young students, ‘At that
time marrying him would have been against all of my own de-
sires and hopes—yet God willed it and a most happy married life
has resulted. I let God tell me what to do. Though it was against
my former desires, it naturally turned out well.”
Even in those young years of her active Bahá’í life, Dorothy

33. Bahá’í class on the lawn at Louhelen. Dorothy is facing away
from the camera, and is wearing a dress with a “V” pattern.

often commented that by not marrying Elliott she was “divinely
protected from going the way of the strictly ‘social’ life” and that
she was grateful not to have been lured or to have stumbled into
that use of her life’s energies.
It was not yet as obvious as it would later be how absolutely
unique Frank was in his unselfish desire that Dorothy often place
Bahá’í service above his personal needs. In theory, many people
may believe they can sacrifice precious time together to an inter-
est outside the family, but how many men, particularly in pre-
World War II America, would have actually done it? In part, it
was a measure of Frank’s love.
When Dorothy spoke to her class at Louhelen about the per-
sonal attitude necessary to be of the most service, she said, “We
cannot be casual Bahá’ís. Even if we have only a crumb to give we

must not withhold it. We can keep only what we give.” If Bahá’ís
purposely do not give what they have, Dorothy felt it was often as
a result of “false humility,” which she described as “a humility
that prevents us from going victoriously ahead for God’s sake. We
are here to be used by God and we do not have a right to limit
that use.” Bahá’ís, she told them, must be confident of the Faith
and must be active. Doubt and inactivity, even when sporadic,
darken the outlook and retard progress. “Doubts of ours bring us
into tribulations. We are of the world when we have doubts. If I
were on the fence about being a Bahá’í, I would lose the happi-
ness and joy of life. … You can’t be inactive—a kind of rust can
form. The trouble is, we are inspired, lifted, and then drop back
again.
Speaking of the struggle demanded to keep on in their efforts
for the Faith, Dorothy showed the youth the depth of her under-
standing for the Guardian, whom she had never met. “Shoghi
Effendi has learned the grief of the prophets. He is, though, su-
premely happy. But he is solemn. Helen Bishop received one smile
from him and thought she would go all around the world on foot
to win another smile. He knows all about grief. On his youthful
shoulders rests this Cause.”
By taking the many opportunities to speak at Bahá’í schools,
study classes, and other gatherings, Dorothy eventually became a
magnificent speaker. Many say that Shoghi Effendi later called
her the greatest Bahá’í speaker of her time. She riveted audiences
around the world, inspiring love for the Faith even in people who
could not understand the language she spoke. But there was an
unseen barrier which threatened Dorothy’s success, a barrier not
yet recognized during the halcyon summers at Louhelen.
There she confidently discussed how to become a better speaker.
Annamarie Kunz Honnold, whose notes from Dorothy’s Louhelen
classes provided the above quotations, also had the vision to write

down Dorothy’s casual remarks, made during those early years of
her service, on how to prepare and give a talk:
In order to speak on the spur of the moment, prepare a res-
ervoir beforehand and have a supply of information. In pre-
paring a speech have about five times (or so) more material
than you will actually need. Divide talk into main and sub
points. Every good talk should have a definite thought
throughout. Have stories to explain theory and make cen-
tral theme stand out. Don’t repeat except for emphasis—
not to collect thoughts. Don’t worry about rhetoric while
speaking. Trust to God to get you out. Climax is important.
When you have clinched your talk, sit down and be through.
Don’t forget human element. (Don’t make it “a cold propo-
sition.”) Make talk living breathing reality.
At home in Lima while doing housework, Dorothy would think
of questions she might be asked after a talk and consider possible
replies. For each one she constructed various answers so that
whether the individual was calling attention to himself, seriously
interested, aggressive, or mildly curious, she would have an ap-
propriate reply. Then Dorothy would pretend someone had chal-
lenged her illustration and would improve on it until her answers
became as close to foolproof as possible.
Early in her speaking career, after researching a subject, Dor-
othy would write out her entire talk, then make an outline from
that. After studying both, she summarized the first outline into a
shorter one naming only the more important major points. By
that time she understood the flow of her own thinking and could
remember it without labored notes. She believed that too many
notes would ruin a talk, so she kept them to a minimum. When
her outline was familiar enough for her to follow it easily, Dor-

othy often practiced giving the talk in front of a mirror to train
herself to eliminate strange facial expressions.
Dorothy’s beloved friend Doris McKay once asked her how to
get over the nervousness she felt when she had to speak. Dorothy
said, “Speak to one responsive person first. Then think of them as
separate people, not a crowd. You couldn’t be nervous speaking to
one.” Almost regardless of the location or the audience, Dorothy
opened her talks by reading a prayer aloud. She kept this habit
her whole life. Even in the middle of a formal speech Dorothy
would occasionally close her eyes for a long moment to pray. Be-
fore approaching the platform she often said this prayer revealed
by Bahá’u’lláh:
Praise be to Thee, O my God! Thou hast guided me to the
horizon of Thy Manifestation and made me known through
Thy Name!
I beg of Thee, by the radiant light of Thy gifts and by the
waves of Thy beneficence, to endow my utterance with in-
spiration from the traces of Thy Supreme Pen that it may
attract the realities of all things.
Verily, Thou art the One Who is powerful in all that He
wills by His Word, the mighty, the wonderful!1

By 1936 Dorothy’s reputation had already started to spread
among the approximately two thousand American Bahá’ís. With
her health largely restored and her mission to serve underway, she
began to feel self-confident. Mother Beecher had said she was a
“chosen vessel,” that she would some day be a great teacher. It
now seemed possible.
Dorothy’s spiritual battles hadn’t been won easily, but having
overcome her fears and self-doubts, she was now threatened with
a new and subtle danger.

Bahá’u’lláh, in Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Prayers and Meditations, compiled
at the request of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United
States and Canada (New York: Bahá’í Publishing Committee, 1929), p. 54.

‘Abdu’l-Bahá wrote:
Whensoever ye behold a person whose entire attention is
directed toward the Cause of God; whose only aim is this,
to make the Word of God to take effect … know ye for a
certainty that this individual will be supported and reinforced
by heaven; that like unto the morning star, he will forever
gleam brightly out of the skies of eternal grace. But if he
show the slightest taint of selfish desires and self love, his
efforts will lead to nothing and he will be destroyed and left
hopeless at the last.1

At Louhelen, where she taught classes or met for informal disc-
ussions with the youth each summer from 1931 to 1936, Dor-
othy was totally dedicated to making “the Word of God to take
effect.” It was with a change of venue and a new and bigger audi-
ence that Dorothy’s efforts were almost doomed to “lead to noth-
ing.
In the summer of 1936, following her classes at Louhelen,
Dorothy taught for the first time at Green Acre Bahá’í School in
Eliot, Maine. After each class, the audience crowded to the front
to ask questions or just to be near the well-dressed, dignified
woman who radiated such love and was so knowledgeable. Their
adoration flowed over her as her love had washed over them when
she spoke. But, day by day, unnoticed, the praise began to sink
in. Her classes had been good; she knew that. At last she had done
something worthwhile, worthy of recognition. When Dorothy’s
listeners spoke of her beautiful analogies, her apt descriptions,
she thanked them, glad of their respect and admiration, glad to
finally count.
On the last day the meeting room was emptying after a final
round of compliments. All that week Dorothy had noticed Louis

‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Selections from the Writings of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, comp. Research
Department of the Universal House of Justice, trans. Committee at the Bahá’í
World Centre and Marzieh Gail (Wilmette, Ill.: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1997), no. 357.

Gregory in the back of the room. Louis Gregory was one of the
most outstanding speakers on the Bahá’í Faith in America. Usu-
ally he stepped out the side door of the classroom as soon as
Dorothy’s talk ended, but today Dorothy saw him walking up
toward her. She busied herself with her papers, feigning an effort
to order things, to cover the nervousness she felt.
“That was a very good course, Dorothy.”
She was ecstatic. She wondered which parts he had enjoyed
most. She wanted to ask but felt it might seem self-centered. She
tried to collect her thoughts for a proper reply, but before she
could speak, Louis Gregory continued.
“You thought so too, didn’t you?”
Dorothy was sure she misunderstood, or at least she hoped so.
“I’m sorry?”
“Remember, the moment you begin to think it is Dorothy Baker
who is accomplishing this work, that moment your service to
Bahá’u’lláh ends.”
Horrified, she wondered how he could stand there so calmly
saying those words. She wanted to deny it, to tell him he was
wrong, to believe he had some hidden motive. Louis Gregory
continued quietly looking at her, not with the authority she ex-
pected from a former member of the National Spiritual Assem-
bly, not even with an expression of superior knowledge on his
serene, dark face.
It was true—just a moment before she had felt quite content—
but was it self-satisfaction or simply joy at being of service? He
smiled; she blushed at the recognition that her self-satisfaction
was not only present, but so strongly evident. Everyone must have
seen it, all the people before whom she had been proud just mo-
ments ago.
Then her embarrassment vanished—replaced by something
worse. What difference did it make whether others knew or didn’t?
The real horror was that it was true.

Driving from Green Acre along the road toward Portsmouth,
Dorothy’s mind couldn’t leave the words of Louis Gregory. The
strength she had felt from the praise of her audience dissipated
instantly while standing there with him. The real source of
strength, as he said, is absolute reliance on God, complete aware-
ness of one’s own nothingness, which negates individual pride
but increases individual power a thousandfold. Dorothy had
worked to cleanse the mirror of her soul, but, driving through
Maine’s summer green, she knew, without a doubt, that the light
the Bahá’ís saw there was not from Dorothy Baker, but from God’s
teachings. She had only turned toward the light, not created it.
She, at her best, was a reflection, not a source. In the car, alone,
Dorothy made the decision never to give another talk without
first begging God to strike her dumb rather than let her speak
from the self. Humility, unlike the idle fancies of greatness that
rush to fill quiet moments with disquieting suggestions, was not
automatic. Louis Gregory was right; vanity had to be overcome.
It wasn’t his words that triggered Dorothy’s desire for purity of
motive. She could have ignored his comments as a reprimand she
didn’t need, had it not been for his manner, his gentleness. He
spoke to Dorothy not as one who couldn’t conceive of self, but as
an equal, as a human being who battled self every day. He once
wrote to a friend, “I know it is all the Will and Power of ‘Abdu’l-
Bahá which brought success. Every day I ask ‘Abdu’l-Bahá not to
let me forget that I am dust, and to acknowledge my absolute
nonexistence in that Court. The love of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá is the sole
magnet that renders life possible.”1

The great Bahá’í teacher, Martha Root’ came to Green Acre for
three days later that summer, but Dorothy was already gone. They

Elsie Austin, Above All Barriers: The Story of Louis G. Gregory (Wilmette, Ill.:
Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1976), p. 17.

met within a few months for the first and only time, in Geneva,
New York. “The two of them were sitting down to breakfast,”
Doris McKay later told a friend. “It was such an experience to see
Dorothy, with her wonderful radiance, and Martha with her quiet
power of faith, meet one another, like two constellations collid-
ing. It was such a wonderful experience. Dorothy was so humble
in the presence of this wonderful Martha Root.”
Humility was needed to learn what she could from the immor-
tal Martha Root. Dorothy often told people it was Louis Gregory
who kept her on course. But it was Mother Beecher who first
taught her to recognize ego. In a Tablet to Mother Beecher ‘Abdu’l-
Bahá wrote,
… when the ray returneth to the sun, it is wiped out, and
when the drop cometh to the sea, it vanisheth, and when
the true lover findeth his Beloved, he yieldeth up his soul.
Until a being setteth his foot in the plane of sacrifice, he
is bereft of every favor and grace; and this place of sacrifice
is the realm of dying to the self, that the radiance of the
living God may then shine forth.1
That week at Green Acre, Dorothy joined forces with the truly
great ones on earth—those who, regardless of their worldly sta-
tion, whether well-known to others or known only to God, wish
above all else to be of service to humanity.

‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Selections from the Writings of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, nos. 36.4–5.

Chapter 13
Local opposition encountered and countered, 1936–37
If Dorothy had left Green Acre without recognizing the need to
begin the long trek toward forgetfulness of self, an essential task
would have remained unstarted. The warm and comfortable wa-
ters of self-contentment could not have stayed pleasant much
longer. Tests were coming Dorothy’s way that would chill any
love not based on the purest motives.
Along with her work on national committees (the Central States
Summer School Committee and the Race Unity Committee),
Dorothy was still the mainstay of her home community. The
Guardian’s cousin, Ruhi Afnan, visited the United States that year
and stayed in Lima, with the Bakers, for several days. He spoke to
Dorothy about her Bahá’í workload, which he found dispropor-
tionately heavy. Casually she answered, “Oh, well, every commu-
nity needs a workhorse.” His immediate reply was, “But, Mrs.
Baker, Bahá’u’lláh does not desire emaciated horses.”
Supportive as Ruhi Afnan’s visit may have seemed, his attitudes
throughout the length of his visit were probably colored by the
flaws of character and motive that eventually led him to break the
Covenant. His gentle, if perfidious, suggestions and remarks could
have made Dorothy feel overworked and under-appreciated by
the local and national Bahá’í community. Had her self-image been
susceptible, had she allowed success at summer schools and pub-
lic meetings to blind her, Ruhi Afnan’s comments might have
added fuel to the smoldering fire of ego. Belief in self as the source

of her ability could have left Dorothy open to whatever intrigues
surrounded her. But the desire for selflessness had already been
awakened. Nothing could turn her around.
In Lima a year earlier, ugly remarks about the Faith and about
Dorothy could occasionally be heard, from jealous or simply un-
informed individuals, but the sentiments were neither strongly
felt nor widely shared. Suddenly in 1937 calumny was being freely
spread from club meeting to home, from neighbor to neighbor.
It originated with a few members of the clergy, then spread into the
community. From three pulpits on one Sunday morning in that
little town, the Faith was denounced and congregations were en-
couraged to shun the Bahá’ís, to keep their distance from “these
heathen,” even to the extent of firing any Bahá’í employees.
A prominent Lima woman who became a Bahá’í, Charlene
Warner, encountered a minister who had once said from the pul-
pit, “Well, it’s perfectly obvious that only uninformed Christians
would become Bahá’ís.” But privately he told Charlene, “Mrs.
Baker is stealing all the best people from our churches.” With an
innocent look on her face Charlene said, “You mean, Reverend,
all your best people are uninformed Christians?”
An elderly schoolteacher who had been attending Bahá’í meet-
ings was told by her superiors that if she joined, her pension would
be taken away. A speaker was invited from Chicago to explain
what was loudly proclaimed, though never recognized, by any-
one outside of Lima, as “the Protestant position” on Bahá’u’lláh’s
teachings. No reference was made in this lecture to the outstand-
ing Protestant clergymen who had joined the Bahá’í Faith, to the
beauty of its teachings, or to the fulfillment of Biblical prophe-
cies.1 Instead the visiting expert warned the large audience to avoid

For more information on this subject see Gary L. Matthews, He Cometh
With White Clouds: A Bahá’í view of Christ’s Return (Oxford: George Ronald, 1996).

and flee from the unknown, this based presumably on the soph-
ism that anything unknown to him must, axiomatically, be bad
or he would surely know of it.
From his pulpit another minister insisted that people entered
the Bahá’í Faith only because of Dorothy’s more or less “hypnotic
spell.” He accused her of using her beauty and intellectual acu-
men to pull his flock away from the fold. Because of this incident
and its repercussions, Dorothy told Mary Lou, “I thought I had
achieved detachment, but the agony this is causing me shows I
haven’t become free of self.” She was profoundly grieved that any-
one could judge the power of Bahá’u’lláh as being her power and
that, even in such a convoluted way, her name could be used to
detract from the Faith.
For the most part the Baker children escaped the anti-Bahá’í
atmosphere in Lima, though the pressure affected them. Louise
went away to Radford School for Girls in El Paso, Texas, in 1937.
The winter before, she had rested in Florida with her grandmother,
Luella. Dorothy drove them down following an unhappy period
in Louise’s adolescence when she was anxious and ill. Her half
brother Conrad had finished his internship and advised Dorothy
and Frank to send Louise to a warm, dry climate, or there would
be a good chance of further problems—pneumonia or tubercu-
losis. Radford was in the right part of the country. The next year
Bill Baker went away to Castle Heights Military Academy in Ten-
nessee. But the reason he left Lima was directly connected with
the repression of the Bahá’ís. Dorothy and Frank felt they could
take the pressure, but did not want their teenage children ex-
posed to it anymore.
To most of the Bahá’í community Frank and Dorothy pre-
sented a calm and united front of absolute assurance, despite the
attacks on themselves and on their beliefs. Elsie Austin, then a
young Bahá’í, wrote, “Since the Bakers never discussed it, none

of us ever knew what social and economic pressures they were
subjected to because of their convictions. … The public opposi-
tion in no way intimidated the Bakers.”
In mid-March 1937, Dorothy again wrote to the Guardian.
Her letter concerned, among other things, the possibility of pil-
grimage the following fall. She also asked for prayers that the
Bahá’ís in Lima be assisted to spread the teachings of the Faith in
spite of clerical opposition which created an unfriendly climate
in towns and villages nearby. On April 3, 1937, the month after
Shoghi Effendi married Mary Maxwell,1 his secretary answered,
Dear Mrs. Baker,
The Guardian has just received your very kind message
of March 13th as well as the enclosed communication ad-
dressed to him by the friends in Ohio centres, and has been
thrilled at the news of the remarkable progress of the teach-
ing work in these regions. His heart overflows with gratitude
at the realization of the unceasing and selfless services which
you and your dear co-workers are so ably rendering the Cause.
Your work is indeed historic and is destined to yield such

Mary Maxwell, given the name and title Amatu’l-Bahá Rúḥíyyih Khánum,
is the daughter of May and William Sutherland Maxwell. Her many years of
dedicated service to the Bahá’í Faith include acting as the Guard ian’s secretary,
traveling on international teaching and speaking trips, representing the Guard-
ian and the Bahá’í World Center at numerous occasions worldwide, serving as
a member of the International Bahá’í Council from 1952 to 1961, shouldering
countless other responsibilities, and writing several books, including two on
Shoghi Effendi. At the time of her father’s death, Shoghi Effendi cabled, in
part, “The mantle of Hand of Cause now falls upon the shoulders of his
distinguished daughter, Amatu’l-Bahá Rúḥíyyih ….” (The Bahá’í World: A
Biennial International Record, Volume XII, 1950-1954, comp. National Spiri-
tual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States [Wilmette, Ill.: Bahá’í Pub-
lishing Trust, 1956], p. 657).

fruits as you yourself are now unable to adequately appreci-
ate. The Beloved is surely well-pleased with you, and will
abundantly reward you for the exemplary devotion, zeal and
capacity with which you are spreading His Word.
The Guardian wishes me to assure you of his prayers on
your behalf at the Holy Shrines, and of his supplications to
Bahá’u’lláh that He may graciously assist you, in the years to
come, to render still greater services to His Faith, and to
give you a thousandfold capacity to vindicate the truth of
His message.
He also wishes me to assure you that he will remember
each and all of the Lima friends in his prayers, that they may
be strengthened and guided through Divine confirmations,
and in such wise as to be able to withstand and counteract
the opposition of the enemies of the Faith in that centre.
In closing may I again extend to you on behalf of the
Guardian a most hearty welcome to visit the Holy Land
during next fall, together with dear Mrs. McCormick, and
to express the hope that your pilgrimage may so deeply
quicken and refresh your soul as to give you renewed vision
and an added stimulus to labour for the spread of the Mes-
sage.
With warmest Bahá’í greetings to you, to Mr. Baker and
children,
Yours in His Service,
H. Rabbani
Dear and valued co-worker:
I wish to assure you in person of a warm and hearty wel-
come. The services you have rendered are worthy of the high-
est praise and can never be forgotten. Rest assured, be happy,
and persevere.
Your true and grateful brother,
Shoghi

Dorothy was greatly encouraged by the Guardian’s words of
praise and support for the community, and euphoric to realize
that at last her longing for pilgrimage was to be fulfilled. That
promised joy made the agony of the Lima attacks bearable. The
warm summer passed, every day moving her closer to Haifa, but
by August the increasingly active opposition of the clergy began
to seriously cloud the hope of pilgrimage. In churches and club
meetings, even in private homes, strangers and people she had
known for years encouraged one another to boycott Plezol Bak-
ery products because the company was owned by the Bakers. The
fanatical individuals who instigated the boycott acted on the hope
that the power and beauty of the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh could
be silenced by attacks on the believers.
“During the 1930s,” Allie Monroe Diehl commented, “Floyd
Spahr was the Plezol Bakery bookkeeper. He said that the Renz
Bakery truck drivers would mutilate the Plezol bread in the stores.
They would throw it on the floor, or put it on the back shelves, or
even tear the wrappers …. Again, during that time of persecu-
tion, the story was put around that Frank was pro-Nazi. Later on
the story was put around that the Bakers were communists.”
Like the followers of many religions, before and since, from
Rome to Persia, the Lima Bahá’ís suffered at the hands of indi-
viduals convinced that their particular brand of inhumanity, of
cruelty, gossip, and prejudice, was somehow sanctioned by God.
The efforts to shame and impoverish the Bakers by defaming their
characters and boycotting their business had the planned mate-
rial effect, if not the intended psychological one: Frank’s hard-
earned success with his Plezol Bread Company, and therefore the
family’s livelihood, was seriously threatened.
It was in 1937, in the midst of the turmoil and repercussions of
the Lima attacks, that Dorothy was elected to the National Spiri-
tual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States and Canada.

Dorothy was completely shocked and confided ingenuously to
Margaret Kunz, “Why, I never expected such a thing to happen
in my life!”
Unsure that money would be available both for travel to meet-
ings of the National Assembly, to which she had recently been
elected, as well as for pilgrimage, Dorothy again turned to the
Guardian of the Faith, to her Guardian. In her letter of August
13, 1937, she explained that her family’s financial situation was
such that she could not manage everything. She asked Shoghi
Effendi to advise whether it would be best to come on pilgrimage
and temporarily use Bahá’í general funds for teaching and admin-
istrative travel expenses, which she felt hesitant to do, or to post-
pone her pilgrimage. She received the following reply:

September 17th, 1937
Dear Mrs. Baker,
The Guardian has read your letter of the 13th August and
is indeed sorry to know that owing to Mr. Baker’s financial
difficulties your long-cherished pilgrimage to the Holy Land
will have to be postponed. He can quite realize that the pres-
sure of work and obligations upon you is now such that you
have, in the interest of the Cause and of your national Bahá’í
work at home, to give up for the present your personal wishes
and desires, even though they concern so meritorious an ac-
tivity as visiting the Holy Shrines.
The Guardian hopes, however, that later on you will find
the time and the means to fulfil this dear wish of your heart,
and will receive all the spiritual blessings and inspiration
which close contact with the Sacred Shrines invariably con-
fers.
In the meantime, he would urge you to concentrate on
your Bahá’í work in America, and to endeavour to contrib-

ute as great a share as possible to the fulfillment of the Seven
Year Plan so splendidly and vigorously launched by the
American NSA.
As a newly-elected member to his national body your re-
sponsibilities and obligations are most vital and pressing,
and you should therefore arise and with unflinching resolve
and undivided attention endeavour to carry out your task as
thoroughly and effectively as your energies and resources
permit.
The Guardian is praying ardently for the confirmation of
your efforts, and wishes me to convey to you, and to Mr.
Baker as well, his hearty greetings and sincere good wishes,
Yours ever in the Cause,
H. Rabbani
Dear and valued co-worker:
I deeply regret the recent difficulties that have prevented
you from fulfilling your long-cherished wish. Your decision
I feel is wise, and I will pray that through your services, in
both the teaching and administrative fields, you will obtain
the blessing associated with a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.
When conditions permit I wish to assure you of a most hearty
welcome to visit the spots so dear to a Bahá’í heart.
Your true brother,
Shoghi

The next spring Dorothy still was not over the pain of missing
that pilgrimage to the Holy Land. She wrote to May Maxwell on
March 7, 1938,
… Somehow I can’t bear it that I did not go to the
Guardian. It is a pretty violent realization. I wonder if I have

been marking time this year, and some of the National affairs
with me? Will you pray for me, dear Mrs. Maxwell; not that
my unhappiness will pass, for our Beloved knows best about
that, but that SOMEHOW I MAY MAKE IT UP? The loving words
of the Guardian alone save me from a kind of desolateness;
that he would supplicate that a confirmation would come
that would be the same. …
There was no more time for hoping and waiting for a resolution
in Lima; Dorothy took action. Contacting a local minister, she
boldly asked to be allowed to speak to his congregation about the
true nature of the Bahá’í Faith. Whether cowed by her courage,
charmed by her manner, or simply fair-minded in his attitude,
the minister agreed.
Harry Jay led the Friday night Bahá’í men’s classes in Lima and
was also the newscaster at the town’s first radio station. He told
Dorothy that the time slot after his noon news had not sold. Since
the news director was sympathetic to the plight of the Bahá’ís and
Plezol sponsored the noon news, Harry and Dorothy decided to
formally ask if the Bahá’ís could use that fifteen-minute period
for the spiritual edification of the listeners. The news director
agreed that, until a paying sponsor could be found, they could
use it, so on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday the Lima Bahá’í
community had its own radio program on the only local station
in Lima.
A radio committee was formed which gathered prepared scripts
from Bahá’í communities around the country. Dorothy gave script-
reading classes so that the speakers on the program could rotate.
With the first broadcast, questions about the Faith began arriving
in the station’s mail. After the committee’s carefully prepared an-
swers were read on the air, more questions poured in, usually
unsigned. In a few weeks, when the supply of prepared scripts

was exhausted, Dorothy began to write new scripts that tied to-
gether Christian understanding and Bahá’í principles. They are
fearless in their diplomatic proclamation of Bahá’u’lláh’s station
and authority, using stories and imagery yet retaining a dignified
language.
The subjects Dorothy wrote about included “Bible Prophecies
of Today,” “The Uses of Prayer,” “The Habit of Prayer,” and
“The Spiritual Life of Man.”1 The radio talks had been on the air
for some time when one of the most abusive ministers in Lima
was moved to a church in another town. His replacement was a
young clergyman who read passages from Bahá’u’lláh and the New
Era in one of his first sermons and followed that surprising dis-
play by saying, “I understand members of this congregation have
spoken against these ideas and the people who hold them. I just
want you to know the nobility of the beliefs you condemn.”
As a result of this clergyman’s honesty and courage, the radio
proclamation efforts, and the openness of the previously hostile
citizenry of Lima, the persecution slowly burned out, though not
before it caused the real suffering of many Bahá’ís, the near ruin
of Frank’s business, and the cancellation, yet again, of Dorothy’s
much longed for pilgrimage.
But the difficulties of the times also had positive effects, as
Shoghi Effendi had predicted in a letter written on his behalf
three years before, when the Lima attacks were nascent, “Their
[the Lima clergy’s] hatred, instead of quenching the flame of faith
in the hearts of the faithful, will serve to intensify it.” Those Bahá’ís
who were on the edge of steadfastness were forced to choose;
those who chose well found their faith rekindled and their lives
set firmly inside the protective walls of confidence in God regard-

See Appendix II for the text of these talks.

less of the world’s clamor. Sincere seekers surfaced and avidly pur-
sued their interest in the Faith so widely condemned among their
neighbors.
The onslaught of calumny, personal and religious, also impas-
sioned Dorothy in her defense and propagation of the Cause.
The two publications she wrote during the period, Hear, O Israel
and The Path to God,1 are both direct and fearless declarations of
the prophetic fulfillment of Bahá’u’lláh’s mission. Many of the
ideas and conclusions in The Path to God, written largely at Ruth
Moffett’s2 kitchen table, Dorothy used again in the radio pro-
grams that were so effective in challenging and awakening listen-
ers to the validity of Bahá’u’lláh’s message.
In The Path to God Dorothy asked, “What is that path …. Is
it a figment of the imagination, or has a merciful Creator given to
his creation a planned Way to Him?”3 And she concluded, “once
in about a thousand years God in His great compassion clears the
path of the accumulation of superstition and imagination that
the way may be made plain once more for the sincere seeker.”4
At the twenty-eighth Bahá’í Convention in Wilmette that same
year, Dorothy expanded on the theme of the path to God by
discussing the most necessary provisions for its traveler: “The Most
High has always apportioned law through His Prophets accord-
ing to the need of the hour …. Every individual travels in an
orbit of spiritual law as well as physical.” Dorothy believed that
spirituality required the preference of the Will of God over one’s
own will.
If a traveler chose to wander or weave into the brambles and
ditches along the roadside, though keeping more or less to the

See Appendix I.
Ruth Moffett was a close friend of Mother Beecher. In 1927 she and
Mother Beecher prayed that Dorothy would actively serve the Cause.
Dorothy Baker, The Path to God (New York: Bahá’í Publishing Committee,
1937), p. 3.
ibid., p. 9.

direction of the spiritual path, he might eventually reach his des-
tination, but only after expending a tremendous amount of en-
ergy fighting to get through the barriers he placed in his own way
by not following the laws. These spiritual and social laws, Dor-
othy believed, are a way of avoiding entanglement in activities
and thought patterns that obscure the true course. If a Bahá’í
wishes, he may amble casually, ignoring the obvious signs that he
is wandering from the path, and possibly losing sight of it. But if
he wishes to reach his spiritual destination, rather than spend days
and years fighting spiritual battles that could have been avoided,
Bahá’u’lláh makes it clear what he must do. “In all these journeys
the traveler must stray not the breadth of a hair from the ‘Law,’
for this is indeed the secret of the ‘Path’ …”1
Even a few years before, in the mid-1930s, Dorothy had longed
to know more about the laws of Bahá’u’lláh. At that time, The
Kitáb-i-Aqdas, or Most Holy Book, the primary repository of
Bahá’í laws, had not been published. She spoke with Viva Lismore
about her desire to read an unofficial translation of the book.
Viva relates:
How anxious she was in those early days to know something
about the Kitáb-i-Aqdas. She asked (Louis Gregory), I think,
a member of the National Spiritual Assembly of America,
to lend her the book for a few days which he did on the
condition that Dorothy would not comment on it with any-
one! After she had read the book, she could not raise her
head for a week, so impressed was she at the severity of the
Laws!
Her desire to mold herself according to God’s will seemed to
increase with every experience of obedience, the confirmations of
which can only be known by those who have obeyed. Time and

Bahá’u’lláh, The Seven Valleys and The Four Valleys, trans. Marzieh Gail and
Ali-Kuli Khan, new ed. (Wilmette, Ill.: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1991), pp. 39–40.

again she chose this path of loyalty: to the laws of Bahá’u’lláh, to
the Guardian’s suggestions or even his hopes, and to her own soul’s
promptings over personal will and desire. Obedience is a theme
expressed repeatedly in her life, her writings, and her talks, as she
said at Louhelen, “Liberty is to be sovereign over life with law;
one obtains power through discipline.”
And so she shared another secret, another key to the under-
standing that catapulted her efforts into the realm of true service:
obedience. Every traveler on the path to God must, Bahá’u’lláh
asserts, “cling to the robe of obedience to the commandments,
and hold fast to the cord of shunning all forbidden things, that he
may be nourished from the cup of the Law and informed of the
mysteries of Truth.”1

ibid., p. 40.

Chapter 14
NSA member and public speaker, 1937–39
Dorothy did not meet the challenges of obedience and the conse-
quent opportunities for spiritual understanding in the vacuum of
a quiet life apart. Having lived in the vortex of local turmoil, she
went on, in 1937, to serve on the National Spiritual Assembly. At
her first Assembly meeting, “the clash of differing opinions” lit
more than the spark of truth. Tempers flared; harsh words crack-
led. Still radiant, seemingly ingenuous, Dorothy said to the seven
men and one woman who sat around the table with her, “I think
we should have prayers.”1 Stony silence. The man next to her
said, “That is just like a woman!”2 But she persisted, her outward
gentleness supported by an inner conviction. Eventually Dorothy
and the man who chided her became good friends, but not until
their obvious differences had been overcome and mutual respect
established.
When Dorothy first became a member of the Assembly, meet-
ing breaks were a little like a men’s club with the jokes and chafing
that might be expected. Dorothy made a special effort to expand
her repertoire of funny stories to tell during breaks, and at the
same time keeping the spirit of “the trustees of the Merciful.”
Dorothy fought for a balance. She didn’t want to control the As-
sembly meetings, but neither did she want others to control them.
She would not sit quietly by while her comments were overrid-
den or her opinions ignored. Dorothy did not accept this injustice

Quoted in Mary Lou Ewing, “Memories of Dorothy Baker,” p. 5.
ibid.

to herself, as she would not have allowed it to happen unchecked to another.

1937 was the opening of the Guardian’s first Seven Year Plan. As
a newly elected member Dorothy took the Assembly’s obligation
to make sure the plan was put into effect very seriously. When-
ever she drove to Assembly meetings she always said the Tablet of
Aḥmad nine times as she drove, not picking up any hitchhikers
until she finished. In the late 1930s, when the National Assembly
met in Wilmette, Dorothy often stayed with Dr. Edris Rice-Wray.
Every day, no matter how long the meeting had gone on the night
before, Edris noticed that Dorothy got up early enough to say her
Long Obligatory Prayer and the Tablet of Aḥmad nine times.
Her motivation wasn’t piety, but a desperate longing for unity
and true guidance in the Assembly meeting. Dorothy was con-
vinced of the necessity of prayer and commented to Edris Rice-
Wray, “I pray them through the NSA meetings.”1
Doris McKay, often a roommate of Dorothy’s at Bahá’í gather-
ings, would sometimes wake up and see her friend rise to say her
morning prayers. Doris wrote in her diary:
The chime of an alarm clock. The silvery pre-dawn light in
the room and Dorothy rising from her bed to say the Long
Obligatory Prayer, sometimes childishly rubbing the sleep
from her eyes. Then the dignified and graceful movements
like the classic postures of a religious dance. She became the
Prayer. Every changing mood of the prayer was reflected in
her being: the awed adoration, the bowed humility, the an-
guished moments of contrition, the final meditative calm.
The next year, Dorothy was again elected to the Assembly. New
difficulties arose at the 1938 convention and it was, as Dorothy

Edris Rice-Wray, “Memories of Dorothy Beecher Baker,” p. 2, in Puebla,
Mexico, February 27, 1976 (unpublished).

wrote the Guardian, “a storm center.” He responded through his
secretary on June 17th.
Dear Mrs. Baker:
Your most welcome message of the 19th May addressed
to our beloved Guardian has duly reached him, and he has
noted with keenest interest your impressions of this year’s
Annual Convention.
Although, as you rightly describe, that meeting became
“a storm center” and was attended by certain regrettable de-
velopments, yet the culminating effect of these experiences,
he is glad to realize, has been to deepen in the delegates and
the attendants the consciousness of their unity, and of their
basic and common loyalty to the Administrative Order.
Now that the delegates have dispersed, and sufficient time
has elapsed to allow them to ponder, with care and without
prejudice, on the outstanding features of the Convention
hey will surely realize that its main significance infinitely
transcends those petty incidents and storms which have in-
evitably accompanied some of its proceedings, and should
rather be found in the spiritual forces it so powerfully awak-
ened in the hearts of the attendants.
The Guardian feels confident that the forces that have
been released are such as to provide the newly-elected NSA
with all the energy and guidance it requires for the success-
ful discharge of its manifold obligations throughout the
course of this year.
It is for the members, each and all, to prove themselves
worthy of such divine confirmations by endeavoring to carry
out their work with such unity and determination and with
such a spirit of utter consecration to the Cause as to insure
the success of all their plans, both in connection with the

Temple work and the expansion of the Teaching force
throughout Northern and Southern America.
The Guardian will specially remember you in his prayers,
that in the coming year you may be assisted in rendering the
Faith services that will even surpass, by their range and char-
acter, those which you were privileged to render during last
year as member of the NSA.
Yours in His Service,
H. Rabbani
Dear and prized co-worker:
Your welcome and illuminating report cheered and heart-
ened me. The assurances you gave, the analysis you made,
the hopes you expressed, are all deeply valued by me. I too
cherish great and bright hopes for the contributions you will
make to the deliberations, decisions and accomplishments
of the National Assembly in this coming year. The noble
qualities you possess are assets that I admire and for which I
feel thankful. Persevere and be confident.
Your true and grateful brother,
Shoghi
The National Spiritual Assembly sometimes met in different
cities in order to facilitate the holding of meetings for the Bahá’ís
there and for the public. Dorothy usually took the train, but some-
times drove as she loved driving, particularly driving fast. She
always traveled in one of the big, heavy cars Frank bought her, a
Buick or Cadillac or Oldsmobile, and stopped along the way to
give talks in various towns she passed through.
During the late thirties Dorothy spoke in New York City and
throughout New York state: in Geneva, Jamestown, Buffalo, Roch-
ester, Syracuse, Albany, and Binghamton, as well as in Canada:

Quebec, Ontario, New Brunswick and British Columbia. She also
gave lectures and firesides in Washington, Oregon, California,
New Mexico, Texas, Arizona, Missouri, Kansas, Illinois, Wiscon-
sin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, Washington
DC, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Connecticut, Maine,
and Massachusetts, and continued her regular travel teaching trips
throughout Ohio.
Her subjects were varied, among them “The Role of Prayer
and Consultation in the Regeneration of Society,” “Race Unity,”
and “The World Tomorrow.” One newspaper review commented,
“Mrs. Baker has correlated the spiritual and social needs of a new
world order and given her hearers not only faith and courage but
even joy in the future of our evolving society.” Often the newspa-
per announcements concentrated, at least briefly, on Dorothy as
a “member of the famous Beecher family” and on her approach
“as a student of life—its purpose, stages, problem and goal—
rather than as a specialist in any one branch of life.”1
It was late spring of 1939, during this very busy period of
Dorothy’s teaching activities, that she welcomed her son home
from his first year at Castle Heights Military Academy. The school
specialized in physical fitness. When Bill went there, at fourteen,
he was six feet two inches tall and rather plump. He came home
at least forty pounds lighter and in excellent shape. Over the Christ-
mas holidays his older sister had been so struck by the new Bill
she offered to get him dates with some of her friends for the Christ-
mas dances. Bill was very hesitant, but with some encouragement
from his parents finally agreed. After the first party Louise did not
need to worry about finding dates for her little brother. In his
dress uniform from Castle Heights, the tall, dark-haired young
man who had the same clean angular features as his mother was
the center of attention.
That spring he still seemed to be in excellent physical shape

Buffalo newspaper, April 19, 1936.

34. Bill and Conrad Baker, circa 1936.

though he developed a high fever shortly after coming home. He
had what was presumed to be a kidney infection. From June
through October, Bill was in bed. Often he would vomit every-
thing he ate for a week at a time and there were long periods of
intravenous feeding; his weight dropped below one hundred and
forty pounds. Dorothy and Frank were very concerned and of
course didn’t send him back to school. When Bill felt a little bet-
ter in late October he began trying to get out of bed more often,
only to find himself even sicker by November and no better at
Christmas. Finally his condition was properly diagnosed as a stric-
ture in a tube of the urinary system. An operation was performed
and Bill at last began to recover.
During this entire period Dorothy managed to be his chief
succorer and supporter.
It is true that Mother was away much and for many years,
but when I was sick, the moments with people that I re-
member most clearly were with Mother. She came in and

prayed daily when she was home …. She had healing
prayers for me and we talked about the Writings. She gave
me a bed bath every day.
In addition, on December 27, 1937, the Bakers’ first grandchild
was born to Conrad and Marjorie: Dwight Conrad Baker. Tech-
nically, Dorothy was a step-grandparent, but she adored this new
addition to family life. And the Bakers’ family life was full, with
the suffering and the joy ties of love can bring.
This balance between family and the outside world, between
spiritual concepts and practical realities, was an integral part of
who Dorothy was. A professional speaker, who lived only to be a
success at the podium, could not have brought to an audience the
depth of understanding and strength of conviction which distin-
guished her.
One weekend Dorothy was due in Chicago for a meeting of
the National Spiritual Assembly. Several weeks before, two new
Bahá’ís from Glenview, Illinois, Elizabeth and John McHenry,
wrote to ask if she could speak at a public meeting while she was
in the area. Dorothy agreed to the time and topic they suggested.
At the railroad station the McHenrys met her, excited that af-
ter their careful preparation they now had the honor of driving
Dorothy Baker to the meeting. In the car, chatting together, Dor-
othy, obviously very relaxed, suddenly asked John, “Now, what
was the subject for tonight?”
The McHenrys were dumbfounded. They had tried to make it
so clear in their letter, and had assumed Dorothy would have a
talk all planned around the subject they requested. That she had
ignored, or at least forgotten their request, and obviously not even
prepared, crushed them. A lugubrious gloom sank over their spir-
its as they drove the last few miles to the old converted barn where
the meeting was scheduled to be held.

Standing in front of the crowd Dorothy read her prayer, put
aside the book, and with no notes gave what seemed to the
McHenrys one of the finest and most appropriate talks they had
ever heard. Although Dorothy had not specifically planned her
program for that evening, she was more than prepared to give the
talk. By 1939, having given dozens of thoroughly researched pub-
lic lectures and summer school courses, she simply no longer found
it necessary to gather specific information for each individual talk.
On the way to the McHenrys’ house afterward, where Dor-
othy was spending the night, she told them about ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s
way of giving a talk, how He did not decide what to say until He
looked into the faces of His audience. They recalled her words,
“It has taken me a long time to become deepened enough and
knowledgeable enough in the Faith to be able to use His method,
even to have the confidence to try it, but now I do, without hesi-
tation or fear.”
When Dorothy spoke publicly in earlier years she often sounded
a bit hesitant and seemed rather shy, relying on thorough notes to
support her through the ordeal of speaking before an audience.
But by 1939, with her well-grounded understanding and experi-
ence, the situation was vastly altered. Still, Dorothy usually re-
viewed her main points and the stories she would tell, just before
leaving to give a talk. In that way she had a strong infrastructure
on which guidance and the needs of the audience could build.
The assurance Dorothy felt before a group went beyond any
self-image. The self melted back while the light of inspiration
shone from a source far stronger; she was opening a channel and
allowing something greater to flow through her.
“A servant is drawn unto Me in prayer until I answer him;
and when I have answered him, I become the ear wherewith
he heareth ….” For thus the Master of the house hath

appeared within His home, and all the pillars of the dwell-
ing are ashine with His light. And the action and effect of
the light are from the Light-Giver; so it is that all move
through Him and arise by His will.1

Gayle Woolson traveled with Dorothy in several countries on
Bahá’í speaking trips. She was a member of the first National
Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of South America and was named
a Knight of Bahá’u’lláh when she pioneered to the Galapagos Is-
lands. Touched by the clarity and unworldly joy of hearing a so-
prano sing at a Haifa performance of Handel’s Messiah years later,
Gayle was instantly taken back to the feelings she associated with
hearing Dorothy Baker speak. The poise, the sweetness of the
voice, the humbly assured dignity of the singer made Gayle feel
as if Dorothy were speaking. “Her talks were on a level with that
music …. It seemed like a gift from God.”
Although Dorothy developed and used the gift of eloquence,
she did not think it was by any means the contribution most
needed by the Bahá’í world. At times Dorothy said she felt almost
ashamed that so much attention was focused on her because, “I
can stand up and talk.” Going over some galley proofs of a com-
pilation of the Writings, she told Louise, “This,” touching the
sheets she had been working on, “is far more important than talks
and speeches, and will have a greater effect. People think a com-
pilation is a simple thing, but it takes weeks of effort. And no one
ever hears about who worked on it.”
The constant focus of attention on her when she was speaking
had become burdensome for Dorothy. During her talks she made
a point of looking from face to face, from one part of the room to
another, breaking the visual connection with gaze and gesture
but she was sometimes uneasy with the abundant recognition and
admiration, and suffered with the consequences, occasionally

Bahá’u’lláh, Seven Valleys, p. 22.

because of the jealousy it inspired in certain individuals, but at
times directly from the effects of that adulation.

On one trip to an Assembly meeting in the late 1930s, Dorothy,
having sent press releases ahead, got off her train to give a lecture
in one city. In the audience sat a man who, like others in the past,
became enamored with her presentation of the Cause. Pushing
against the exiting audience, he succeeded in reaching Dorothy
before she had even gathered her things and turned from the lec-
tern. The questions he asked she answered carefully, though she
had heard them many times before; they were the standard in-
quiries of a person mildly curious about spiritual truths, but in-
tensely interested in exposing his own opinions for her approval.
In his case the opinions were rather interesting so she didn’t mind
that he seemed anxious to find ways to keep her there. The one or
two others who made their way up to her seemed only to want to
listen in shy silence. His questions and comments at least gave
her opportunity to speak on until the quiet listeners gathered
confidence to ask their own questions. They never did, but finally
with smiles and handshakes were able to express their thanks,
then took their leave and Dorothy was left alone with the man.
Feeling the conversation had no further purpose, Dorothy
brought their talk to a close. Claiming a need to get back to the
train station, she excused herself. He offered a ride; she refused—
friendly, calm, but definite.
At the station Dorothy sat on one of the platform benches, her
brown overnight case next to her. The distraction of the cab ride
and the noisy line at the ticket box behind her, she let her mind
drift back to the talk, then to her questioner. Uneasy, almost guilty
for not having been more responsive to the man, Dorothy won-
dered how she could have handled the situation better, by going
out for a cup of coffee? There wasn’t time for that. Her inclina-

tion to escape his overly attentive attitude overpowered what she
now felt might have been the logical choice: to simply sit down in
the empty meeting room and finish discussing his questions. But
there was a quality about the fellow that told her not to waste her
time; so she had left. Probably for the best.
Hal Starke,1 that was the name he gave. She shifted on her
bench, settling down again, back now turned to the smoking en-
gine of the training churning slowly past. Eyes closed, Dorothy
placed thumb and middle finger on the bridge of her nose to ease
the reverberation of the aching screech—metal on metal—as the
train pulled itself to a full stop.
Opening her eyes, she watched as people tumbled down the
metal steps at the car’s exits. Her memories of that afternoon
vanished, lost in the faces and imagined lives of the people pass-
ing by. She let her head turn to watch the last group disappear
into the station, then looked back as a few stragglers descended
the small metal steps that dropped from the passenger car, the
last step hanging in mid-air above the walkway. But her attention
for no apparent reason was drawn back to the station door. What
was it she had seen? Nothing she could recall but something,
nonetheless. Just turning away, she hesitated and looked again
toward the open doorway and the glaring reflection of the plate-
glass window next to it. There, hands to the glass, peering out,
was a face that caught her. For a few seconds her eyes didn’t move
from the unknown but recognized face; it turned slightly toward
her. Before she consciously knew who it was Dorothy heard her
own voice say, “Starke.” She waited; if she stood now and looked
around for the right passenger car, he would be sure to recognize
her even if he’d missed her the first time. A plan: she would stand

A pseudonym.

up and just walk along the track toward the other end of the
train. No matter if it was the direction of the pullman cars or not.
Once inside, unseen, she would find her proper car and seat.
Reaching for the handle of her overnight case and pulling it closer
to her on the seat, Dorothy glanced down to gather up purse and
coat, careful not to turn her face again toward the station win-
dow.
Then, inside her sphere of concentrated attention, just above
her bowed head, someone spoke.
“Dorothy, I’ve caught you before you left.”
And caught she was. “Just barely, really. I’ve got to go to my
train.”
Hal Starke pulled the overnight bag from the seat and walked
beside her. She thought of running, but it seemed ridiculous to
try to escape her own valise and the perfectly civilized man who
carried it. When they were to the steps he would no doubt hand
it to her, say goodbye and she would be saved the indignity of
running away from nothing. Still, she felt herself walking faster
toward the closest passenger door. Stepping up, she started to turn,
but people pushed up from behind. Forced inside the car, Dor-
othy moved from the aisle to the small space in front of a vacant
seat. Her heels made her just a bit too tall to stand comfortably
under the luggage rack above her head. Bent slightly at the waist,
her left hand supporting her on the headrest of the seat in front,
she waited, numbly, for her bag.
A flashing smile crossed his face as he caught sight of her there.
Dorothy raised a hand and smiled, then cursed herself for her
automated good manners. Starke stopped by her seat; people
needed to get by, but he obviously wasn’t going to just hand her
the case and move on. He stood, squared toward Dorothy, half
his smile still left over. Again propriety got the best of her, thoughts

of anxious travellers stacking up behind him and she moved in
toward the window. Putting the case in the luggage rack over-
head, he sat next to her in the aisle seat.
“Excellent talk—really fine.”
“Thank you.”
“I guess this must be something of a surprise—I just couldn’t
let you get away so fast.”
“Did you have more questions?”
“Yes, a lot more.”
“I’ll be sure to mail you a book the moment I’m back in Lima,
that should clear up any gray areas.”
“Thank you, Dorothy.”
The way he said her name, the sincerity of his thanks, made
her want to change the subject. But to what? They were only
talking about a book, a Bahá’í book at that. The whistle sounded,
two sharp cries. “Good,” she thought, “he’ll leave.”
“Well, Mr. Starke, thanks for stopping off to say goodbye and
for carrying my case.”
“You are so very welcome. It’s my pleasure.”
“I think you’d better get off now. We’ll be pulling out any sec-
ond.”
“To where, Dorothy?”
“Albuquerque.”
“Sounds great.”
He pushed himself deeper into the aisle seat, the smooth knobs
of green velvet upholstery squeaking as he moved. With the slow
outlet of breath, his head leaned back against the doily-covered
seat back.
Dorothy stared at the conservative, average-looking man next
to her, a man with anything but average ideas. His eyes were closed.
The train began to rumble until finally here was a lurch and for-

ward movement. About to speak, Dorothy instead forced herself
to sit back and look out her window rather than at Starke. “Not
yet,” she thought, then quietly whispered, “Not yet.”
The book in her purse, The Art of Thinking, gave Dorothy some-
thing to concentrate on. A quarter hour later Hal Starke stretched
his arms straight out in front of him and muffled a yawn. The
conductor was standing over them, having already exchanged a
few words with Dorothy and punched her stiff manila ticket.
It had disappeared into a metal box hanging from the worn
leather belt at the man’s waist; but Starke didn’t need a cue. “One,
to Albuquerque, please.” While Dorothy stared intently at her
book, Starke paid for his ticket.
The conductor moved on to the seat in front of them, Hal
Starke turned to her.
“Do you care to smoke?”
“No thanks, but go ahead.”
Starke flicked his own ashtray open and dropped in the still
burning match.
“I should have known you wouldn’t smoke, someone so pure.”
“I just don’t happen to smoke.”
“So you’re married, and have children, too?”
“Yes, what about you, Mr. Starke?”
“I used to think I could never consider marriage again, but I’m
surprising myself.”
Dorothy couldn’t believe his intentions were what it all too
clearly seemed.
“And why is that?”
Hal Starke took a long drag on his cigarette and reached over
her to tap it lightly on the ashtray under the window. His forearm
barely brushed the folds of her skirt. Dorothy stiffened. He sat
back and stared down at the car’s aisle.

“So you know, too. I had heard of soul mates, but I never
believed it. Now I know why my marriage didn’t work out.”
Dorothy listened, but didn’t speak.
“It’s because I was supposed to meet you. Now I have.”
Resolutely he put out the cigarette in his own ashtray as Dor-
othy contemplated the now indisputable fact that this man was
way over the line and fully intended to try to pull her over it too.
“Mr. Starke, you are confusing your attraction to spiritual truth
and recognition of the Day in which you and I were fortunate
enough to be born with an ephemeral, personal attraction.”
He faced her in his seat and in his now plaintive voice said,
“Don’t assume I’m wrong until you’ve heard me out. True soul
mates meet once in a thousand years. Yes, I love the truths of the
Bahá’í Faith, but I love you, too.”
“If you do love these Teachings, you won’t allow your personal
desires to trick you into action that is not in keeping with them.
In the first place, you know I’m married.”
“Your marriage shouldn’t stop you. How could you ever stay
with him when you know I’m here? This is real, Dorothy.”
He clutched her hand. Dorothy stood up.
“I’m going to the powder room. We have nothing to talk about.
If you are not out of this seat when I come back, I’ll call the
conductor.”
She pushed by him and was gone.
When she left the powder room Dorothy walked into the back
of her car. From that vantage point she could see that the two
seats under her brown case were empty. Looking straight ahead in
case he was sitting nearby, waiting to catch her glance, Dorothy
went back to her seat, put her suitcase in the spot vacated by Hal
Starke and sat down.
The train stopped in a small town. No one in her car got off.

She didn’t raise her eyes from her book. The next stop was an-
nounced just a few minutes later. As the train slowed she heard
the voice she’d been bracing herself against.
“Dorothy, I went too fast, let me at least try again.”
Staring at her book, Dorothy was dumb in response to his plea.
“Let me sit down. If nothing else we could at least talk about
our real destiny together, even if you won’t let it come true. I
can’t just meet you and let you slide out of my life so quickly
when real joy together is so close.”
Through tightened jaws, hardly a muscle moving in her face,
Dorothy said, “You’d better leave this train.”
“I am … I will. I just came to say a real goodbye and to tell
you, to make you know, I’m sincere. I love you, you Dorothy the
person, not just the ideas and words you spoke of. I knew it from
the moment you read that prayer, before you even looked into
the audience and at me.”
Resolutely she still stared down. He couldn’t see the tears that
filled her eyes; if he had he would have mistaken them as meant
for him—for them. She did not cry for that, nor did her tears fall
out of anger at his audacity. A romantic approach by a man was
not that unusual. She cried for the mixed-up emotions, the tun-
nel vision of people who live so much inside their own desires,
they have no chance of recognizing anything greater. His search
was ended by a delusion as to its real object; the longing he felt
toward new spiritual understanding was misconstrued so easily in
his human heart as passion for an unknown woman. The entire
hope of the human race lay in the individual’s ability to perceive
the truth, and though he felt its presence, he could not identify
its source. Again he spoke.
“When you see me standing outside that window, it’s the last
time you’ll ever see me.”

He made his exit. From the edge of her view, she saw him
standing plaintively on the platform, waiting for some sign that
he should rush back onto the train, and into the arms of his “soul
mate.” She didn’t move a muscle. After an excruciatingly long
stop the train finally pulled forward and Dorothy, sick with sad-
ness for the Starkes of the world, let her tears fall freely.

From Lima to Albuquerque, from Cincinnati to Ft. Lauderdale
and later across the far side of the globe, whether in Lisbon or
New Delhi, Dorothy’s spirit and depth of knowledge were en-
hanced by her bearing, her relaxed dignity and even by her clothes
and grooming. A favorite passage, quoted often during her trav-
els, declares that “This is a matchless Day. Matchless must, like-
wise, be the tongue that celebrateth the praise of the Desire of all
nations, and matchless the deed that aspireth to be acceptable in
His sight.”1 Dorothy took this to mean that nothing, certainly
not material things, should be allowed to detract from the maj-
esty of the Day in which she lived.
Dorothy believed that in the realm of spiritual matters, Bahá’ís
should try to make themselves as perfect as possible, but that this
excellence should also be reflected, within reason, in the material
realm. Margaret Kunz Ruhe was fascinated by Dorothy’s approach.
“She was always an elegant creature and while clothing was cer-
tainly not her main preoccupation,” she wrote, “Dorothy had a
flair for dress and was very outspoken about it. She said that we,
as Bahá’ís, dress for Bahá’u’lláh so we must put our best foot for-
ward and must look elegant when the occasion requires elegance.”
Before a talk Dorothy went to a great deal of trouble to be sure
that the costume she wore was exactly right. Once in Wilmette,
before a program she was participating in, she realized the match-
ing belt to the dress she planned to wear was missing. She drove

Bahá’u’lláh, Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, trans. Shoghi Effendi,
1st ed. (Wilmette, Ill.: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1983), p. 39.

35. The National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United
States and Canada, May 1938. Back row, left to right: George
Latimer, Roy Wilhelm, Horace Holley, Leroy Ioas, Siegfried
Schopflocher. Front row, left to right: Allen McDaniel, Dorothy
Baker, Amelia Collins, Harlan Ober.

to Chicago to find a proper replacement. If her hair wasn’t clean
and curled, Dorothy would spend the morning before a talk at
the beauty salon, having her hair and fingernails done.
Later in life, when traveling and lecturing became so constant
that she couldn’t always find time to go to a salon, Dorothy sent a
sample of her hair to a hairpiece weaver and had four small combs
made, each with a cluster of curls. The first order came back a
shade too light, but the second set matched. From then on, if she
couldn’t have her hair done professionally before an important

Bahá’í gathering, Dorothy would pull it back in soft waves, slip
the combs in on either side and often wear a hat to cover the part
she hadn’t properly coiffed. It was her responsibility, she felt, not
to detract from the perfection of the Faith by letting herself look
disheveled or even a fraction less than her most attractive.
Though Dorothy was always systematic and thorough in her
personal cleanliness, sometimes to the point of exactitude, when
she wasn’t in the public eye she was relaxed about the style of her
clothes, favoring old, comfortable standbys. Still, even at home,
she always stood very straight and never slumped. Once Dorothy
told Mary Lou, who only weighed ninety-six pounds when they
met, “Now straighten up. You can’t conquer souls for Bahá’u’lláh
if your shoulders are slouched.”
Many people have said that Dorothy was an outstandingly beau-
tiful woman, others that she had a great presence that lent to her
features more than nature provided. As man has recognized for
centuries, de gustibus non est disputandum. This is as true in per-
ception of human beauty as in any other matter: there is no dis-
puting about tastes. Regardless of arguments on either side, Dor-
othy did not find herself particularly special looking, but didn’t
allow her appraisal of her shortcomings to keep her from making
every effort to be as attractive as possible. She was who she was,
with the attributes she had and without those she did not possess.
In part this is what made her so spectacularly appealing; she ac-
cepted herself as she was without pretending some higher per-
sona and also without being a living apology for her insufficiencies.
God provided her with the wherewithal to serve humanity not in
every way, but in her own way. So she calmly approached the
myriad tasks ahead with faith and confidence, fully putting to use
her best qualities.
Though God is unknowable, we have faith in Him. We are
made in His image so there is something in each of us that is

unknowable: not obvious to the eye or even to the mind, but
worthy of faith. It is this secret part of ourselves, our potential,
which cannot be held in the hand and examined or computed to
figure maximum output.
This confidence in God, and therefore in self, let Dorothy rise
to each occasion, not allowing herself to be hurried or intimi-
dated, trusting in her mind and spiritual ability, her soul turned
squarely toward her Creator. As she told her youth class at Lou-
helen, early in her speaking career, “We must all learn to walk
slowly though life; hear the undertones. You reflect the world when
you are feverish.”
In the late 1930s, at a talk at the YMCA in Toledo, Ohio, a
heckler stood up mid-sentence in Dorothy’s talk. From his spot at
the front of the meeting room, he yelled aggressively, “Madam,
just what are the tenets of your faith?” Without a second’s hesita-
tion Dorothy answered with the noon prayer, “I bear witness, O
my God, that Thou has created me to know Thee and to worship
Thee. I testify, at this moment, to my powerlessness and to Thy
might, to my poverty and to Thy wealth. There is none other
God but Thee, the Help in Peril, the Self-Subsisting.”1 She paused
a moment, eyes fixed on the questioner, then, not coldly but se-
riously challenging, she said, “And now, young man, what are the
tenets of your faith?” Not even a whimper sounded from him as
he sank into his chair: Dorothy went on to finish her talk.
After she gave a talk in Houston, a non-Bahá’í businessman
said, “I would give anything in the world to be like Mrs. Baker.”
When asked how she achieved her calm strength and radiant
confidence, Dorothy invariably answered that only prayer could
bring security. Even before entering a room for a casual talk with
friends she used the Greatest Name. Love for God and love for
her fellow creatures—not personality, charm, power, or posi-
tion—love was her sustainer and her gift to others. Her love for
Bahá’u’lláh was reflected in her love for each person.

Bahá’u’lláh, in Bahá’í Prayers: A Selection of Prayers Revealed by Bahá’u’lláh, the Báb, and ‘Abdu’l-
Bahá, new ed. (Wilmette, Ill.: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1991), p. 4.

In the spring of 1939, for the third time in the decade, the fourth
time including her 1920 request to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Dorothy wrote
for permission to make her pilgrimage. Shoghi Effendi’s secretary
replied on July 2:
Dear Bahá’í Sister,
The Guardian has received your most welcome message
dated May 31st, and noted with deepest satisfaction the very
constructive work accomplished by the Nat. Child Educa-
tion Committee during this past year. The various steps it
has taken, and which you had outlined in your letter, with
the view of providing Bahá’í children with the maximum of
Bahá’í educational and character training available are in-
deed excellent and most effective, and it is hoped that in the
faithful and thorough application of these methods and
policies your Committee will receive the wholehearted co-
operation and unremitting assistance of all Bahá’í parents,
as well as the encouragement and guidance of the NSA. The
Guardian attaches the highest value to your Committee’s
work, and will earnestly pray that each one of its members
may be guided in rendering his or her maximum of contri-
bution to the furtherance and extension of the field of its
activities. He would urge you and your dear co-workers to
persevere in your task, and wishes me to convey to you all
the expression of his abiding appreciation of your valued
services in this vital field of Bahá’í service.
Regarding your request for permission to visit the Holy
Shrines during next fall; Shoghi Effendi thoroughly appre-
ciates the desire you have expressed to undertake this pil-
grimage, and your eager wish to see him, and discuss with
him personally various important issues affecting the Cause.
He too certainly longs to meet you, but feels that in view of
the continued disturbed condition in the Holy Land, and

the possibility of further and more widespread agitations in
the near future your coming would be inadvisable. As soon
as the situation in the country returns to normal you would
be most welcome to undertake this long and deeply-cher-
ished pilgrimage.
With renewed assurances of his prayers for the steady ex-
tension of the field of your activities on behalf of the Cause,
and for your own spiritual advancement and material wel-
fare and protection.
Yours very sincerely,
H. Rabbani
Dear and valued co-worker:
I was so pleased to hear from you and to learn that you
are as ever contributing your outstanding share, in the teach-
ing and administrative spheres, to the onward march and
the steady consolidation of our beloved Faith. I deplore the
unhappy and tragic circumstances that interfere with your
projected pilgrimage to Haifa, for I too would rejoice at
meeting you and at discussing the various matters that affect
the interests of our glorious Faith. Do not feel disheartened,
however, for these clouds will lift and your dear hopes will
be realized.
Your true and grateful brother,
Shoghi

The decade of the thirties almost ended, the suffering of nu-
merous tests culminating in a final impossible plea for pilgrim-
age, Dorothy determinedly followed Shoghi Effendi’s dear guid-
ance and did not feel disheartened, but began, instead, the most
productive phase of her life.

Chapter 15
Travel teaching in North America, 1940–41
Two things about Dorothy’s life in the early 1940s stand out: what
she achieved and how she went about it. The list of cities and
towns where she spoke during these years dwarfs her previous
travel teaching efforts. On average the number and locale of her
speaking engagements would suggest a talk every few days with
miles of highway between. But the reality is even more overwhelm-
ing: Dorothy pressed her speaking engagements together into
blocks of several weeks each with much of the remaining time
spent on administrative work: the Local Spiritual Assembly of
Lima, membership on the National Spiritual Assembly of the
Bahá’ís of the United States and Canada, activity on six nation-
ally appointed committees: chairmanship of the National Child
Training Committee, the Inter-America Committee, and the Na-
tional Race Unity Committee; and, membership on the Central
States Summer School Committee, the Regional Teaching Com-
mittee for Ohio, Indiana, and Western Pennsylvania, and the Na-
tional Public Meetings Committee.
Among her travel teaching trips were several devoted solely to
college lectures. On one trip Dorothy spoke at all the outstand-
ing campuses in North and South Carolina and southern Geor-
gia, and many schools in West Virginia and Florida. Many col-
leges in Kentucky and Tennessee also received her. Sometimes
these lectures were given under the auspices of the College Foun-
dation Committee (later known as the Bahá’í College Speakers

Bureau), which she was trying to help establish, other times as a
representative of the Race Unity Committee. Among the sub-
jects were “Achievements of Minority Groups,” “The Cause and
Curse of Prejudice,” and “Sharing Civilization,” with many addi-
tional talks by Louis G. Gregory on topics including “Racial
Amity.”
In the fall of 1941, having received a letter from Shoghi Effendi
in August encouraging her to “do as much of this type of work as
possible during the present year,” Dorothy traveled to the south-
west, speaking at twenty-seven schools throughout Kansas, Okla-
homa, Texas and New Mexico, stopping at colleges in Arkansas
and Iowa on her way. In New Mexico Dorothy also visited the
Isleta Pueblo with Mary Lou Ewing and met with its leaders. At
eight of the schools in the southwest the student body was made
up entirely of minority students, four schools Indian, four others
black.
In the first two years of the new decade, Dorothy visited and
spoke at more than ninety college campuses, adding a dozen more
the next year. Through lectures given by Dorothy and other rep-
resentatives of the NSA’s committees, the second month of 1942
brought the total number of college students who had heard of
the Faith to approximately sixteen thousand. On July 31 she re-
ceived a cable, “ADVISE CONCENTRATE COLLEGES FALL. PRAYING STILL
GREATER VICTORIES. DEEPEST LOVING APPRECIATION, SHOGHI RABBANI.”

By 1943 the College Speakers Bureau was fully formed and
many more Bahá’ís volunteered to travel and lecture at schools
across the country. At the end of the year, as Dorothy wrote in
The Bahá’í World “The total number of schools and colleges to
receive Bahá’í speakers is now over two hundred and it is esti-
mated that some three hundred and fifty actual talks have been
delivered before chapels, assemblies, classrooms and student
clubs.”1

Dorothy Baker, “The Bahá’í Faith in the Colleges,” in The Bahá’í World:
A Biennial International Record, Volume IX 1940-1944, comp. National
Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States and Canada
(Wilmette, Ill.: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1945), p. 774.

Until wartime gasoline rationing went into effect, Dorothy
drove on most of her speaking tours, pressing the miles between
campuses into whatever time she had, with the result that her
driving wasn’t the safest. Though many people have commented
that Dorothy was a good driver, even when she was not in a hurry
she liked to drive fast, and with a certain amount of abandon.
On a trip together a few years before, Mary Lou Ewing sur-
prised Dorothy with a jittery response to her swinging ease in
passing other cars and her high speed on hills, highways, and
winding country roads.
Initially Dorothy’s driving somewhat amused Mary Lou, but
when they came into the hills of southern Ohio she had trouble
restraining herself even to sudden gasps and stiff-armed bracing
against the dashboard. After a particularly rousing lunge past the
car in front, the downhill side of the road precariously close,
Dorothy put the Cadillac sedan into second gear and roared up
the narrow winding highway. Mary Lou, who had been in a state
of paralyzed silence, thanked God for saving her one last time
and finally spoke up. “Dorothy, will you please drive more care-
fully? Please don’t pass cars on hills. I’m not important to Bahá’u’-
lláh, but you are, so if we go over the edge you’ll be saved, but I’ll
certainly be killed!” Unconscious that her friend’s fear had been
sincere, Dorothy was both surprised and amused. She hadn’t seri-
ously thought of danger, but laughed and agreed to be more cau-
tious.
In the late fall of 1941, about to start out on one of her college
trips, Dorothy asked Mary Lou1 to accompany her, this time

Mary Lou and Tom Ewing pioneered to Albuquerque. They were the first
Bahá’ís in the state of New Mexico. There Mary Lou became active in work
with some thirty-five Indian tribes, involving both the Bahá’í Faith and the
Indian cultures.

through the southern states. For various reasons Mary Lou had to
decline her friend’s invitation to join her on the trip, but Dorothy
persisted.
Still she couldn’t accept the invitation, even when Dorothy
offered to pay her expenses. Though Mary Lou adored Dorothy
and would have liked to spend more time together, she felt she
had to return to New Mexico. Even Dorothy’s beguiling logic and
obvious desire for her company couldn’t sway her.
Mary Lou could not believe it when two days later, on the way
out of town, Dorothy stopped by again and said, “There’s some-
thing wrong with this trip. I think it’s that you are supposed to be
with me. Put those clothes in a bag and come.”
Still firm, Mary Lou couldn’t be convinced. “There may be
something wrong with the trip, but it’s not that I’m supposed to be
with you!”
A day and a half later Dorothy was driving through the Blue
Ridge Mountains. Luckily her lane of the mountain road had
been warmed by sunlight and was free of ice, but the inner lane,
closest to the mountain, looked precarious. As Dorothy rounded
a curve and swung back toward the mountain to follow the road
deeper into the late fall woods, a massive truck made the turn
from the other direction. For a moment it looked as if the truck
were driving in her lane, on the outside of the curve. She flinched
in horrified anticipation, then realized it must only be an illusion.
But Dorothy’s eyes wouldn’t let her mind ignore the obvious; the
flat nose of the truck was still coming and was not next to the
mountain as it should have been. Instinct said to swerve, though
her mind still fought for reality as it should be. For a flashing
moment of imagined relief Dorothy knew the catastrophe would
be averted and the tension broken as quickly as she passed on the
inside of the truck. She jerked her steering wheel left, into the
inner lane where the loaded flatbed should have been. Respond-

ing faster than her mind had obeyed her vision, the car, still mov-
ing at full speed, swung over. In her own rightful lane, the truck
kept coming, its clattering roar blocking out every other sound
and perception as double wheels and veering load filled her vi-
sion, then went barreling away down the mountain road.
Disaster averted, but her car wheels unsure on the icy inner
lane, Dorothy pulled the steering wheel to the right to get back
on her own side of the road. The turn of her tires threw her car
into a skid on the smooth wet ice—the ice the departing truck
had successfully avoided by forcing her to drive on the frozen
section.
The rumble of heavy wheels on asphalt was disappearing in
the distance as Dorothy felt a new panic and struggled to keep her
car from careening toward the cliff. Free of Dorothy’s control, it
twisted wildly to the right, a foreign body spinning her farther
from the mountain toward the emptiness of open air. Options
gone, Dorothy watched the high treetops coming close, her mind
slowed to the speed of wordless motion. But the car still spun in
its frenzied circle, not yet ready to hurl itself into orbit. Now the
wet, scaly mountainside faced her, melted snow making its rough
facets glitter. The vitreous rock caught her staring gaze, coming
toward her at top speed as the treetops had a moment before. The
car lunged toward the wall of rock as the front end made a futile,
hurtling attempt to break through to the other side of the moun-
tain. Dorothy’s teeth sent a powerful vibration through mouth
and skull as they collided with the steering wheel. Then she felt
the car lift off its front wheels. It rolled completely over and landed
again.
She lay bleeding on the front seat and woke to feel detritus
enamel crumbled on her tongue, matching the fragmentary fall-
ing of granular rock that dropped from the mountainside onto
the wrinkled hood of her car. Dorothy touched her wet lips and

found warm red blood on her fingers. Right hand cupped under
her mouth, she struggled to unlock the door, finally sitting in the
car, feet on the ground outside, with bleeding face pushed be-
yond them to keep her fresh suit clean.
A motorist pulled to a stop and ran toward her, shaken and
pale at the sight of the crushed car, the bloody woman slumped
out of it. Dorothy looked up from where she let the rich, heavy
blood drip and coagulate on the dark asphalt. He saw it too.
She said, “Thank you for stopping. Can you please take me on
to the next town? It’s just over the hill and I’m due there this
afternoon.”
“You can’t travel, why don’t we just get to my car and I’ll take
you back to the doctor?”
The man reached for Dorothy’s arm and supported her by the
shoulders as they walked toward his car.
“I think it’s just my lip. If you could just take me along with
you, over the hill, I could wash up at a gas station.”
“Your car’s a total wreck and you’re in no shape to go anywhere
but the hospital.”
With no more discussion the man put her in the back seat,
turned his car around and took Dorothy to the only doctor in the
town she’d just left forty-five minutes before.
Dazed but insistent Dorothy tried again with the examining
physician.
“When you know I’m all right, I really must make arrange-
ments to go on; there are people waiting for me.”
The doctor took her home number and called Frank. Ignoring
her desire to carry on with her speaking tour, they made arrange-
ments for her to get back to Ohio and for the car to be towed
home. When Mary Lou stepped into her room in Lima, Dorothy
said, “See? I’ve come back to get you!”

Mary Lou was shocked. She said, “You’re not going out again!
This trip really may be wrong.”
Dorothy’s answer was, “No, if I weren’t supposed to finish the
trip I would have been killed.”
The next week Dorothy did go on with her scheduled tour,
this time in Frank’s car as hers was irreparably damaged.
At the following National Spiritual Assembly meeting, some
of the members were talking with Dorothy about why the wreck
might have happened, guessing at reasons why Providence would
have had it occur. Dorothy was considering the possibilities too.
Only Louis Gregory sat quietly listening. He watched them all
muse over the spiritual significance of her accident.
“Dorothy …”
She blinked, pulled herself out of her thoughts and looked up
at Louis.
“You were simply driving too fast.”
As he had at Green Acre, he saw that Dorothy’s mind was wan-
dering to vain imaginings and said just the words to pull her away
from them.
The flavor of those college trips was adventurous even when
Dorothy wasn’t spinning her car into a mountain. After catching
a ride with her, an older, dilapidated-looking hitchhiker told
Dorothy, as he got out of the car, “When you picked me up I was
going to do whatever it took to steal your money and your jew-
elry, but something stopped me.” Before taking his splay-fingered
hand from the door, the man leaned back in so his face, cross-
hatched with a life of contradicting lines, came close to her and
his cracked lips again breathed the same air.
“Whatever else you do driving around these hills, don’t you
ever pick up anybody that looks like me again, you hear? Never.”
He slammed the door and headed down the road.

36. National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States and Canada, 1940. From left to right:
Siegfried Schlopflocher, Harlan Ober, Dorothy Baker, Roy Wilhelm, Amelia Collins, Allen McDaniel,
Leroy Ioas, Louis Gregory, and Horace Holley.
In Kansas a tornado-threatening storm threw Dorothy’s car back
and forth across the road. The countryside was empty and no
other car traveled the deserted highway. Sighting a farmhouse,
Dorothy stopped and tried to open her door, but the wind blew
against it too hard. On the downwind side she was able to push
the car door open and slide to the ground. Sharp granules of
blowing dust ripped into her eyes and hair and burned her skin as
she crawled to the door of the house and banged on it with her
fist. There was no answer. She tried the handle but the door was
bolted. Still lying on her stomach, Dorothy banged again with all
her strength on the bottom of the door, hoping the people inside
simply hadn’t heard her over the roar of wind and the battering
sound of flowing debris as it slammed against the wooden walls.
Then there were voices. Dorothy shouted back so they would
know it was a human knocking there, not just the splintering
wood of their wildly dancing porch swing, pounding against the
shuttered windows.
“I’m outside. Out here!”
A high-pitched voice, muffled by the closed door, tried to scream
over the wind. “Can’t open it.”
“I’m not dangerous, I just need shelter.”
“Got to keep the door closed, the pressure change would
blow the place up.”
Dorothy lay there for a long moment, trying to find the reason
or energy that could dispute that logic. A rock the size of a bar of
soap bounced across the porch, tossed by the wind as if by a roll-
ing mass of water. It hit her ankle bone, cutting her bare skin
exposed save for the ruined pair of stockings, a pair she’d been
saving through the shortages especially for this speaking trip. Ly-
ing there being blown and battered seemed ridiculous. Though
the other option was no more tempting, she made her way back
across the yard and climbed into the front seat. Unsure whether

to go or to stay, Dorothy again chose to keep moving, this time in
the hope of escaping the tempest. Slowly she rolled down the
road, furiously pulling the wheel one way, then the other, to keep
the barely moving machine on the pavement and repeating out
loud with every breath, “Yá Bahá-u’l-Abhá!”1
Other episodes were just as exhilarating, though with less physi-
cal drama. As Dorothy left an interview with George Washington
Carver, the renowned agricultural researcher, he called out to her,
“Tell the world, Mrs. Baker, that Dr. Carver is very partial to the
Bahá’í Faith, very partial.”
With most of the Pacific Fleet destroyed by Japanese bombers
and America thoroughly entrenched in “the war effort,” peace
was a most unpopular subject. In an article on the activities of the
College Speakers Bureau Dorothy wrote,
At one college in North Carolina the president sympa-
thetically prepared the speaker for a bleak reception. “My
students,” he remarked, “all but stopped the last speaker who
mentioned peace, and he a minister wearing the cloth, mind
you!” Looking carefully, at a later time, through “The Pat-
tern for Future Society,” he said, “Oh, but I understand.
You Bahá’ís do not dwell on pacifism; you offer a program.
Every college should hear this.” In this manner school men
seem almost invariably to accept the writings of Shoghi
Effendi. The talented head of the Indian Normal College at
Pembroke, where no speaking appointment had previously
been made, said, after scanning “The Pattern,” that if nec-
essary classes could be disbanded to hear this subject.2

At a backwoods college in Kentucky Dorothy was greeted by a

Variation of the Greatest Name meaning “O Thou the Glory of Glories!”
Dorothy Baker, quoted in “Around the World with Bahá’í Youth,” in Bahá’í
World, Vol. IX, p. 530.

completely different environment and a student body that
electrified her with its simple, straightforward warmth. Wherever
she went Dorothy talked with her audiences about their interests,
not proselytizing but discussing the basic truths of Bahá’í con-
cepts. She wrote in Bahá’í News:
At Pine Buff, Ark., on the campus of the State Negro
University, the members of the faculty came forward at the
close of Chapel, and talked for almost an hour, losing en-
tirely, it afterward appeared, their lunch period. The Bahá’í
principles interested them not at all, but they were held by
the thought that a spiritual commonwealth had been born,
indivisible in its nature, and committed to a unified racial
life in its essential pattern; that it could never be rent apart
religiously and that its unique organism, under the Guard-
ian, was already an actual, living, breathing civilization,
slowly growing up. This was no hollow promise, but a tested
Reality.1

In the early 1940s many of the schools in the deep South were
riddled with racial prejudice. Undaunted, Dorothy always dis-
cussed the importance of unity among the people of the world,
regardless of race. The responses to her emphasis on racial har-
mony were generally mild. Many of her audiences were made up
of people for the most part who did not concern themselves with
non-WASPs. They could listen with interest to the progressive
teachings of Bahá’u’lláh without sacrificing the accepted pattern
of their lives. It was in a black college that the wisdom of uncom-
promising unity was most thoughtfully discussed. To these stu-
dents and professors the race issue was not something to be kept
at a distance, but neither were they ready to accept white society
as a whole. During the discussion following one of Dorothy’s

Dorothy Baker, “Among the Colleges,” in Bahá’í News, no. 161 (Mar. 1943), p. 6.

talks, a young dean spoke, a man of “unusual thoughtfulness and
charm.”
[He] seemed doubtful of the wisdom of the uncompro-
mising unity required in the Bahá’í community life. When I
assured him that Shoghi Effendi, and the Master before him,
had held up that pattern as the clearest demonstration that
we could lead the world to peace, he said, “but don’t you
think we might compromise a little because of the Ku Klux
Klan?” One of our companions replied for me: “The speaker
has said that this Faith is the Kingdom of God. If this is
true, you cannot compromise it; neither can you divide it.”
Picking up the thread we explained that if the Kingdom, in
America, should divide around the races, then we must per-
mit division in India concerning the “untouchable” and com-
promise likewise the essential unity between Arab and Jew
in the Holy Land. The dean became thoughtful and then
slowly he said, “This is a ‘world’ Faith. This Faith is different.
This Faith may be worth dying for.”1
In an article for Bahá’í World, “The Bahá’í Faith in the Colleges,”
Dorothy again wrote about reactions on campus:
One could never tell where the interest would flare most
brightly. Here an aristocratic college in the heart of the
“blueglass,” there a four-year business college of practical
turn of mind, and again one of the state colleges, colored or
white, would press the speakers to stay for a day or two, or
send others …. The head of the College of the Latter Day
Saints had heard ‘Abdu’l-Bahá speak in 1912 in Washington!
“Where have the Bahá’ís been through these years?” he asked,
“I have wondered when you would come to the colleges.”2

Dorothy Baker, quoted in “Around the World with Bahá’í Youth,” in Bahá’í
World, Vol. IX, p. 531.
Dorothy Baker, “The Bahá’í Faith in the Colleges,” in Bahá’í World, Vol. IX, p. 775.

The numerous reports sent in to the National Bahá’í Office
from colleges where Dorothy spoke give a first-hand idea of the
response her presence stimulated:
Kentucky State College
In the thirteen years of my administrative experience as the
chief executive of this college, no speaker has appeared upon
our platform with a message more comprehensive in nature,
more universal in scope and more gripping in its appeal. For
some forty-five minutes Mrs. Baker gained and held the com-
plete attention of our audience. While some of us had been
introduced to the Bahá’í movement in other institutions, as
far as I know Mrs. Baker is the first to bring the message to
Kentucky State College.
Bowling Green Business University
We are accustomed to having extraordinary speakers, but I
cannot recall that we have ever listened to a woman who so
pleased everybody as did Mrs. Baker. The best part of her
address was the high ideals she held, all undergirded by his-
torical proofs and classical illustrations with now and then a
bit of humor. Every school in America ought to hear Mrs.
Baker. She spreads the gospel of Everlasting Truth, and she
does it in an effective way.
Vanderbilt University; School of Religion
I am happy to testify to the ability of Mrs. Dorothy Baker as

a speaker and teacher …. She had a charming personality
and a very happy and effective way of presenting her mes-
sage, and best of all she had something to say.
The praise of Dorothy’s ability, of the way she handled herself,
makes it sound as if the whole process of speaking had become
quite easy for Dorothy, but in fact it was still most challenging.
Helen Archambault, a Bahá’í who then lived in the Boston area,
talked with Dorothy many times in Boston, at Green Acre, and
at National Conventions.
Before speaking to large audiences Dorothy has said that
her knees quaked as she approached the doors of the great
colleges, but she used the Tablet of Aḥmad several times
and when she finally gave her address she felt spiritual power
like a mighty wind sweep over her, and that the thousands
were on their knees before the Beloved. This would show
that she became selfless and spoke only after He had spo-
ken.
En route between colleges, Dorothy would sometimes put a
can of soup next to the radiator to warm, then stop by the side of
the road to eat her fast, inexpensive lunch. When time allowed
she would take advantage of a municipal golf course. Using the
adjustable-head club Frank gave her, she would play a few holes
until she felt, as she put it, “stretched out” and could go on, re-
freshed.
Back from an early college trip, Dorothy dreamed she saw hun-
dreds of the students riding in square, bug-like open cars. The
young people, all male (which seemed odd to her), called to Dor-
othy to join them at their destination. She recognized some of
their faces as students she’d spoken to at different colleges and

universities, so she followed. The next impression was of being in
a huge luminous banquet hall, a long room with tables stretched
its length on both sides. The young men were already seated when
she arrived, lining the tables from the entrance of the brilliantly
lit room to the far end, which seemed to disappear into light.
When she entered they were engaged in some joyous celebration,
talking and laughing, but as she walked in they all stood to greet
her. The joy of the room filled Dorothy’s heart as she walked
between the tables of radiant young men.
The next December Pearl Harbor was bombed and the United
States entered the war. Soon after Dorothy saw her first army jeep
and commented to the family that it was exactly like the car she’d
seen in her dream. Then a heavy bolt of understanding jarred
her; the young men riding through her dream were on their way
to meet death in those bug-like army jeeps and the banquet where
they would greet her was one they were going to soon, in the next
world.

Chapter 16
Memories of Dorothy; her talks and letters, 1940s
Travel, talks—hundreds during the early 40s, even beyond those
given at colleges—counseling the Bahá’ís and near-believers; these
were the activities Dorothy gave herself to, but her friends and
family members were never long forgotten, nor did they receive
less than a full measure of her love, though her time was limited.
Their responses to her and their memories of her speak lucidly of
Dorothy and of a devotion to her beliefs which expanded her love
of the people around her. Written accounts of these memories
and her own letters during those same years, primarily the early
1940s, display clearly her personality, her attitudes, and aims.
Louise B. Matthias quoting Dorothy Baker
There is nothing I would love more than to give every minute
of my life and all of my attention, all of my acts to teaching work
… but then I would become a very unbalanced per-
son and I would not be able to give a true picture of the
Bahá’í Faith. I have always to see to it that I have three facets
to my life—my Bahá’í work, my family, and recreation.
Mary Lou Ewing
On the cross-country train ride with Dorothy, from Ohio

to New Mexico, she talked to me about how exciting it was
to be alive. If she had her choice, she said, she would have
lived in the time of the Báb. She turned to me, her eyes alive
with fire and excitement, and asked, “Mary Lou, wouldn’t
you have loved to be alive during the time of the Báb?” I
answered, “Good heavens, no! She looked so startled, but I
was very serious, and explained that I simply would not have
had the spiritual wherewithal to have purchased—or some-
how gained—that kind of privilege. I told her that I might
want to buy a Cadillac, but would probably be lucky to get
a Ford. To live among the Dawn-Breakers would have been
like not having the wherewithal to join that august com-
pany. Dorothy obviously would have been part of them.
One day she told me that I must face the fact that I must
make the choice between being a mediocre Bahá’í and being
a flame-like Bahá’í who truly serves. It was frightening …
but I remember that she would put it very squarely on a
person that the choice was essentially with that person as to
what he would accomplish.
Margaret Ruhe
During the years that David and I lived in Atlanta, Georgia
on two different occasions, Dorothy came to be with us,
and we felt so honored that she took time out. One time she
came under conditions that really made me quite sad.
I wrote and asked her if she could come and help us with
a weekend teaching institute. She wrote back and said that
all her weekends were taken; there were no free gaps at all in
the near future, but she said, “You know, I have promised
Frank and the children to go on a fishing trip with them to
Norris Dam Lake in Tennessee. You know, that area is not

far from Atlanta. I’ll just take a day and a half off and come
down and be with you, and then scoot right back up there
to my family.” This made me feel very bad, because I felt
that Frank and the children needed her so much, and I knew
there were times when her family were very lonely. I knew
that her family life had been somewhat disrupted, and that
the two little children, Bill and Louise, missed their mother
very much. Later on I heard stories about how Bill really at
times was very, very lonely in his childhood because his
mother had to be away so much.
Anyway, Dorothy came and spent the weekend with us.
It was very interesting. We held a big public meeting one of
the evenings she was there in one of the large hotels in down-
town Atlanta. I had been asked to be her chairman. Dorothy
arrived at the meeting wearing a beautiful long evening gown,
and I was also wearing a long, formal dress for evening wear.
The two of us stood there receiving the guests, and a gentle-
man who became one of our very good contacts and stud-
ied the Faith for many years, came in and sat down and
looked around. After looking at Dorothy and me for a while
he came up and said, “What do you two glamour girls know
about religion anyway?”
Dorothy and I were simply delighted; we laughed and
laughed, and I’ve never forgotten that remark …. She was
so human, and she enjoyed all the human touches. She al-
ways studied the hats I wore, and always had some com-
ment on them, and this tickled me to death.
She was also very human in her domestic pursuits. For
some reason or other she had a special thing about canning
fruits and vegetables. On her way home from Convention
she used to stop at all those marvelous fruit stands in Illinois
and Ohio, and arrive home absolutely loaded with fresh fruit

and vegetables. Then everybody in sight had to help with
the canning process, which she thoroughly enjoyed. She got
right into the middle of it herself.
Mary Lou Ewing
Another thing I remember about those early days was the
ride to Bluffton, Ohio … fifteen or twenty miles from town.
Dorothy had called and asked if I would ride over with her,
to pick up Louise from a swimming party she had arranged
for her …. Going over Dorothy commented on how she
had been protected by Bahá’u’lláh in her mothering. She
said that she realized she was [away] from her children a
great deal; that it would have been very easy to have an es-
trangement, to have had a sense of neglect of her parental
duties, a sense of separation and deprivation. But she had
been comforted over and over by being intuitively aware,
even though absent from them, of difficult times which ei-
ther Louise or Bill might be experiencing. She could be in
the middle of a meeting, she could be in the middle of a
trip, the middle of prayers or studying, or most anything
and one of her children would come into her mind in such
a way as to alert her that she should instantly turn to Bahá’-
u’lláh and ask for their protection. Later on, when she re-
turned home, she would ask about what had happened, and
over and over she would be able to tie the prayer, or the
sense of urgency for prayer to a crisis that had occurred in
their lives. It was something that was on her mind, and about
which she was intensely grateful to Bahá’u’lláh—for being
close in this parent-daughter relationship, or parent-son re-
lationship.

37. The Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Lima in the 1940s.
Back row, left to right: Harry Jay, Dorothy Baker, Charlene Warner,
Clyde Dennison (?). Front row, left to right: Edmund Miessler,
Hazel McCurdy, Frank Warner, Floyd Saphr, Frank Baker.

Louise Baker Matthias (as a teenager)
One time, when Mother was away from home on a teaching
trip, I woke early, feeling especially happy and loving. I
dressed and ran down to the “pullman,” where Dad had
already finished his breakfast and was looking through the
newspaper.
“Hi, Dad,” I greeted him happily and kissed the top of
his head, where his hair had begun to get just a bit thin. As I
slid onto the bench across the table from him, I reached for
the pitcher of milk, bumped against the toaster knocking it
to the floor with a great clatter, doubly loud because I tried
to catch it on the way down—it shattered a cup and saucer,

38. Mary Lou Ewing, 1945.

clanged against a heavy wooden chair, ricocheted off the end
of the bench and finally subsided under the table. In a des-
perate attempt to halt its progress I was under the table, too,
on hands and knees.
Dad’s nerves were vibrating, and he snarled, “For heaven’s
sake, Louise! Can’t you be more careful?”
My nerves were in no better shape than my father’s. I
scrambled out from under the table, leaving the toaster in
its temporary grave, and snarled back, “No, I can’t! I was
born clumsy!” and fled, weeping, to my room. I threw my-
self across my bed, sobbing with self-pity and, for the mo-
ment, hating my father. The phone rang and I waited, ex-
pecting to hear Dad’s footsteps. There was no sound from

downstairs, so I pulled myself together enough to go to the
upstairs phone.
“Hi, Loweezy.” I heard my mother’s voice. “How are you,
Sweetie?”
“Oh, Muzz, I’m terrible! I hate Dad!” Through my sobs I
told her what had happened.
“Was that it! I knew something was wrong. I just dreamed
about you. You were a little girl, high in the air, in a little
wicker basket hung below a balloon. You were so happy and
laughed so gaily. Then for some reason the basket tipped,
and you fell out. I saw you falling. You cried out to me and
you looked so shocked that I woke up and had to call to be
sure you were all right.”
She was quiet for just a moment. Dad picked up the down-
stairs phone and heard her next words. “My poor ewe lamb!
And my poor, darling Frank-o!” Her voice was tender. The
three-way conversation that followed was not profound, but
within seconds, thanks more to Mother’s warm, loving ap-
preciative spirit than to her actual words, Dad and I were
once more feeling tender toward each other, and were laugh-
ing at the ease with which we had surrendered our nerves.
Roan Orloff Stone1
It was 1943—the national Congress of the Esperanto Asso-
ciation of North America was to be held in Lima, Ohio.
The Esperantists and the Bahá’ís invited me to spend a month
prior to the Congress teaching a class in Esperanto. I was
staying at the home of Frank and Dorothy Baker and their

Roan Orloff Stone and her husband, Jim, pioneered to Gallup, New
Mexico, and worked with the Navajos.

son and daughter, and the cook. And of course, Aunty Lu—
Dorothy’s mother, who was the Esperantist in the family.
Actually, I saw Dorothy seldom during that month. If
she wasn’t at meetings of the National Spiritual Assembly,
then she was travel teaching for the Faith. When she was
gone, the house, so charming (I loved it because it was made
of fieldstone and it had pillars and a veranda), was as quiet
as a church on Monday morning. The children were busy
with their summer activities. Frank Baker and Aunty Lu and
I rattled around in the house like three little peas on a big
dinner plate. Everything was so subdued!
No sooner did Dorothy Baker come home, however, than
there was an air of life, of brightness and joy and magne-
tism that went everywhere she went.
Conrad Baker’s son Dwight
My first memories of my grandmother were of visiting her
and my grandfather in the house in Lima. I remember sit-
ting on the couch with her in the long living room that could
be divided from the dining room and kitchen by a sliding
door. She would tell stories to Ann and me. I especially re-
member her telling (not reading) us about Jean Valjean and
the silver candlesticks from Les Miserables. She kept us eager
with anticipation by telling one chapter at a time with such
drama that we could hardly wait for the next chapter—and
with such compassion for Jean Valjean and his suffering. She
also told us stories from the Bobbsey Twins, Peter Rabbit,
and of an orphan family which I think was called the Box
Car Kids. (They all loved each other and stayed together
through thick and thin.) And of course she told us stories of
the Báb and the early Bahá’í Youth Dawn-Breakers ….

On one of her trips to Mexico, Grandma bought me a
little leather purse which I still have. It is shaped like a little
shoe and has a zipper up the front. The leather is tooled
with fancy designs and it says Mexico on the side. I also have
some coins from foreign countries which she gave me and I
keep in the purse.
Edna Andrews
I remember so well a morning (I’m not sure of the date—
1943 or 44). Dorothy was to go to Chicago for surgery. She
told me the date and the time of day the surgery would be
done. She asked me to pray for her while she was under the
anesthetic. She felt we could be very close to each other at a
time like this.
At the given time I went into my bedroom after discon-
necting the phone and locking my doors against neighbors
dropping in. I prayed for her, taking the healing prayers,
and concentrating on the Tablet of Aḥmad.
I think probably this was the only time in my life that I
experienced the “ecstasy” of prayer. Two hours passed; I knew
the surgery was probably completed. Then I realized that at
some time during the prayer I had seemed to feel that Dor-
othy had said, “Oh Edna, Pray. Fill your life with prayer.
Pray Pray Pray.”
A month passed and [Dorothy] came home and I went to
see her. I asked her what she would have said to me if our
minds had met during the time she was under the anesthetic,
and she answered, “Oh Edna, I would have said to you,
‘Pray, Pray, fill your life with prayer.”

John Robarts1
She came to Rice Lake (summer school) in 1943. We were
talking about prayer and she said, “I don’t always do it, but
I like to arise in the early morning, before all the rest of my
household, so I can have some quiet time to myself. I can go
into the bathroom and lock the door. Two prayers I like to
say are the Tablet of Aḥmad and the Long Obligatory Prayer.
Sometimes I have time for only one. I find that when I say
the Long Obligatory Prayer my personal affairs go well—I
seem to be inspired. And when I say the Tablet of Aḥmad,
all my Bahá’í work goes well.”
1943 was the last year of the Seven Year Plan. We had
many unfulfilled goals. Besides giving a course, Dorothy had
sessions with almost every member at the conference. I can’t
tell you how many of the people there pioneered, but many
did. Nobody could resist her. One woman wanted to pio-
neer, but she was unmarried, middle-aged and alone. After
talking to Dorothy, she went to Halifax, and wrote back
that she had found a job that was just as good as the one she
had left. A month later she wired home asking for prayers.
She was being married the following day.
Gene Pritchard2
I was a passenger in the car which Dorothy Baker drove
to Rice Lake. Dorothy stayed overnight with Harriet Pettibone,

For more from hand of the Cause of God, John Robarts, see Chapter 17.
Gene Pritchard, a devoted and active Bahá’í woman, all four of whose
children also became Bahá’ís.

and we left early the next morning. While she was driving in
heavy traffic in Buffalo, some people tooted their horn at
her. She most lovingly said, “Darlings, I will be right out of
your way.”
Always her heart was filled with love …. While at Rice
Lake Dorothy Baker spoke so dramatically, and beautifully.
When she made the appeal for pioneers her eyes flashed and
it seemed as though she was communing with the other
world. In fact one person in the room said that they had a
vision and had seen ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in the room. Sometimes
she told stories, and laughed heartily, and everyone in the
room laughed with her ….
Dorothy Baker often spoke of her Grandmother Beecher,
of her lovely daughter “Lou” for whom she prayed each morn-
ing[,] and she spoke of her pioneering in South America.
She also spoke of her son and told of an incident where she
had to do some work with the National Spiritual Assembly
regarding draft status. She said she had a son whom the de-
cision might affect, but regardless of any personal feelings
she had to do what was right in the sight of God. She often
spoke of her wonderful husband, and of his sacrifice in al-
lowing her to travel and teach extensively.

Once Dorothy Baker asked Martha Root how she was able to
accomplish so much in the face of so many difficulties. According
to an unsigned typed document found among the Baker papers,
Martha answered, “Dorothy, when I am faced with a difficulty, I
use the Tablet of Aḥmad every day for nine days, asking God, in
the name of that Holy Tablet, to remove the difficulty. If I am
faced with an extremely difficult problem, I recite the Tablet of
Aḥmad three times a day for nine days. And when I am faced
with a problem that is completely impossible, and there is and

can be no solution, I use the Tablet of Aḥmad nine times a day
for nine days, and the problem is always solved.”

Notes from some of Dorothy Baker’s talks at Rice Lake, 1941,
taken by Gene Pritchard
On Prayer:
Pray until you feel the inner contact about anything, then
watch. God will open the door. We should obtain God’s first
choice. Have magnetic spiritual passion. Talk, listen to the
inner silences. Hear the voice of God. Yearning opens the
recesses of the heart. Have ardor and conviction ….
Remember the gift of intercession, as it is one of the cre-
ative forces of God. Those who have ascended have different
attributes but there is no real separation. The realm of bounty
is not fully understood. The force behind our progress is the
degree of detachment, the consecrated life, and depth of
conviction and devotion. The depth of our contract with
God shows the conviction to God. Servitude is the essence
of motion.
Pray aloud, so your body will be surrounded by prayer. It
helps concentration. There is always divine companionship
in every loneliness. A soul is never alone. We should always
be God-conscious. “I am far from Thee, but Thou art near
unto me.” God is nearer to you than your hands and feet,
nearer than breathing. Joy is the water of life, the cause of
vivification …. Joy appears first in the life that is inspired,
then it affects the lives of others …. Every home where
there is prayer is the garden of God.
You can lose contact after your commitment through your
own veils and clouds if you do not pray every day. If there

are clouds around, use the Tablet of Aḥmad, as it never fails.
If there was a great wall Martha Root used the Tablet of
Aḥmad 9 times a day. “Seek, O servant of God, this light
until you remain in limitless joy.” Seek the eternal condi-
tions.
If healing is best, it will surely be granted. Remedies and
prayers are not contradictory. The law of prayer is higher.
The prayers of a soul do not penetrate the veils of the
Kingdom if we are unclean.
Use the Tablet of Aḥmad several times to find deeds you
can do to confirm souls. Do not lose your destiny. Ask God
if he can use you. “Rise to that for which ye were created.” It
is the Day of God. Let us perform some deed however small.
Through deeds we can recreate lives.
When you pray, first know you are standing in the pres-
ence of the Almighty, then pray with utter detachment.
On self, others, and the material world:
Give your life to God. Make a contract and keep it no
matter how hard or where it leads. Each one chosen of God
has to fight the battle of self. No matter how difficult make
the contract with God, the supreme sacrifice. Realize the
harmony of life here and hereafter. It is a great opportunity.
In Gleanings it says that some have the capacity of a cup,
and some a gallon. If we turn to God, through prayer he
will turn it into a rushing river. If you are in a community
where there are difficulties, try praying together. The heart
of every righteous man will throb. If personality problems
[were causing disunity], all difficulties will disappear. Every
soul bows down to God’s word. The vibrations are never-

ending. The word of God goes out, but never comes back.
No one has any enemy but himself, his own ego. Goliath,
our ego, is to be conquered by David.
It is good for each soul to take the Holy Writings and be
left free to grow in it, but never to become an authority on
it.
… The Sermon on the Mount still applies in speaking of
individuals. Turning the other cheek still is the highest act
of kindness and tenderness—radiant acquiescence. Social
life must be a forceful suppression of aggression—strength
behind love, justice. “Whatever ye eat or drink, or think, do
it all to the Glory of God.” The soul of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was
too great to recognize blame. He saw praise and blame as
one, so great was his love for humanity …. The unification
of mankind will be established only by a true, abiding love
that burns away the differences of self-interest, and melts by
its flame all hearts into one heart.
The perfect human sentiments and virtues:
1. Your thoughts and ambitions are set to acquire human
perfection.
2. You live to do good and to bring happiness to others.
3. Your greatest longing is to comfort those who mourn,
strengthen the weak, and to be the cause of hope to the
despairing soul. Day and night your thoughts are turned
to the Kingdom, and your heart is full of the Love of
God.
4. You know neither opposition, dislike, nor hatred, for ev-
ery living creature is dear to you and the good of each is
sought.

After questions, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá sought guidance from above
or smiled lovingly at the person, then spoke. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá
lived and worked in that higher and real world. All His con-
cepts, all His motives, all His actions derived their springs
from that “World of Light,” although outwardly He lived in
the world of confusion. He was a herald of the world of
reality, a summoner to all men to leave the seeming and live
on the plane of the Real.
All material things progress to a certain point, then begin
to decline. We must obey the law of motion. But with the
human soul, there is no decline. Its only movement is to-
ward perfection. Growth and progress alone constitute the
motion of the soul. The thought of our own weakness could
only bring despair. We must look higher than all earthly
thoughts, detach ourselves from every material idea, crave
for the things of the spirit, fix our eyes on the everlasting,
bountiful Mercy of the Almighty who will fill our souls with
the gladness of joyful service to His command, “Love One
Another.” …
God always lets us give up the thing we love most. We
must sustain the yearnings of the earth.
On pioneering and teaching:
Each community is an island of assurance. The second
Bahá’í Century is great. Never again will there be a time
when souls can arise to be pioneers. The pioneers are taking
the seed of heroic martyrs, and putting it together with bricks.
There are different stages. We will be ignored, we will be
persecuted, we will be tolerated. Whole groups will vote to
come in. Then, there will be the Golden Age. The key is the

way we execute our task. Every act will be remembered. The
people of the ages will be those who give all. The intimates
of the Guardian are those who packed up their houses and
walked.
Everyone should be a teacher and educator. Hearts are
waiting. Sometimes if you give the message it is not discov-
ered until the next world.
Spend every breath of your lives in the most great Cause,
so that you may in the end be freed from loss and failure and
attain to the inexhaustible treasury.
If ye will follow earnestly the Teachings of Bahá’u’lláh, ye
shall indeed become the Light of the World, the Soul for the
body of the world, the comfort and help for humanity, and
the source of salvation for the whole universe.
On speaking:
Have your chin in, chest out, shoulders back. Breathe
properly so your voice will throw. Take 20 deep breaths each
morning. Use the lips to make the 3 main sounds each day:
e, ah, o. Concentrate on throwing the voice from the dia-
phragm. Think of your voice as coming out of a pipeline.
Have warmth, depth, feeling, without being dramatic. Avoid
monotone. Have enough pauses for emphasis. Enunciate,
use your lips. If you want to stress a word, hold it …. In
speaking do not hold your breath. Fill up, say the sentence
expending the entire breath. For a good public talk you should
know your goal before you begin; know details. In a planned
talk you should know your distance, and have a few keys.
Put down the points to be covered, a single point for each,
and the key words to remind you of the story. Have your
notes on a card. Use as few notes as possible. Notes spoil
public speaking.

Memorize as many words of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and Bahá’u’-
lláh as possible. Use as many quotations and stories as pos-
sible to reach the point. When you come to the final point
sum up the goal. It is difficult to become unselfconscious
enough to speak from the heart. Discipline yourself to a brief
outline ….
Lua Getsinger took notebooks full of notes and philoso-
phies while in Haifa. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá told her not to be troubled
with them. He told her when she went to London she would
speak to the audience, but she should first turn her heart to
‘Abdu’l-Bahá and he would tell her what to [say]. Lua tried
to be absolutely obedient. She rose before the audience but
no words came. There was a terrible silence. She raised her
eyes and prayed. Then she spoke as an angel. Every soul
attained the inner meeting. Bahá’u’lláh knows what the hearts
need. As soon as you can arrive at the state of an inspired
speaker, do it. A heart might be confirmed by a look, a word,
an act or a story. We do not know what the soul needs. The
Beloved knows the capacity of others. In speaking, chan-
nelhood is the answer.
From a letter to Louise Caswell1 written by Dorothy Baker,
March 18th, 1942
… The negative forces of our time seem to knock at every
door. In a letter to Roberta Christian, the Guardian recently
said, “Life in this world holds many tragic and terrible hours
for us all—even for the beloved Manifestation of God Himself.
Even He is not spared the sufferings that fall to Man’s lot in
this fleeting world.” Later he writes in the same letter: “At

Louise Caswell, see Chapter 18.

such a time it is not unreasonable to expect your body and
your spirit to be exhausted and depressed.”
But Louise, you are so beautiful that Canal Zone cannot
fail to see it. It would seem to me that you would have only
to be what you are, a rare, delicate instrument of beauty in
the hands of the Beloved, to attract the whole Panamanian
world. And it will come, by the bounty of His Highness the
Exalted One. I think our greatest suffering comes in loving
the Cause so much that impediments to its spread amount
to actual heartbreak …. Darling, if you come north, save a
little time for me in Lima this time; it has been so long, and
one gets homesick to see an old friend. I am still a little
“chore-doer” and you are a pioneer with everlasting lustre. I
need you to help me to attain.
Tender love—Dorothy
A letter from Dorothy to Amatu’l-Bahá Rúḥíyyih Khánum, Feb-
ruary 3rd, 1943
Our darling Rúḥíyyih,
I suppose you never can quite know what your letter meant
to me; especially your mention of my lamb, Winnie Lou. I
am waiting for her to have a particular hour of great need,
and then I am going to send it to her! She gave her first
Bahá’í talk in Spanish, in Panama, and Louise Caswell writes
that it has left the real seeds of a Youth group as a number of
young students and soldiers attended.
Rúḥíyyih, the letter from Shoghi Effendi never has ar-
rived, though your dear note came over two weeks ago. I
wake in the night, wondering what it said, line by line and
longing unutterably to have it. Perhaps that is why God gave
me the comfort of yours, too, dearest one. Your letters to

Phil and others have been food and inspiration to all Ameri-
can Youth, especially my Winnie Lou. I believe that aside
from the Guardian himself, who is the Pen of God, you are
the chosen channel for our eager young people, especially as
you, above all, bring them close to him. They learn on the
one hand to nestle in his great heart, and on the other to go
out filled with determination and courage to serve. World
Mission is on their lips constantly and in their hearts. Please
never stop writing to America.
… My heart’s love once again to the blessed Guardian.
When next you have the privilege of entering the Tomb of
the Blessed Beauty, dearest Rúḥíyyih, will you pray that my
life may be a ransom to the Guardian? I cannot come to do
this, but I believe that He will answer your prayer. A thou-
sand thanks—
Tenderest love—Dorothy
From Elisabeth Cheneys1 letter to the Guardian, October 14th,
1944
Dorothy Baker is to undergo a major operation Monday
morning, November 27th, at the Women’s and Children’s
Hospital in Chicago, for the removal of an abdominal tu-
mor resulting from a serious fall when she was teaching in
Albuquerque, New Mexico, a year ago. During that western
trip, en route to San Francisco, a tiny steel splinter had been

Elisabeth Cheney, a writer and journalist, learned of the Faith in Lima,
Ohio, and went on to open Paraguay to the Bahá’í Faith in 1940. She contin-
ued to travel and live in Central and South America until illness and finally
death overcame her (see The Bahá’í World, vol. XIII, pp. 914-15). Elisabeth
loved Dorothy Baker very much.

blown into one of her eyes. Doctors examined her, but could
not find it, because it had penetrated the pupil of her eye
and was of exactly the same color. For two weeks with this
grave and painful disability, which began to affect her sight,
Dorothy continued her tour of lectures, addressing the great
race unity gatherings on the west coast, working with groups
and individuals, often being able to keep the affected eye
open only during her talks on the Cause of God, and that
only by a sort of miracle. At last she arrived in Albuquerque,
and because she could no longer see,1 she fell full length
down a steep flight of stairs; calmly picked herself up, and
went on to talk to a gathering of people about Bahá’u’lláh.
In the audience there was a physician, who was among those
that came forward to talk with her more intimately after the
lecture. And now, it suddenly became impossible for her to
keep the affected eye open. It kept closing in spite of all her
efforts to keep it open. The doctor questioned her about it,
and told her that he had a friend in Albuquerque, a young
medical man, who had access to one of two special lights in
existence in this country, which were designed to show the
location of particles embedded in the human eye, which
could not be detected with ordinary light. He made an ap-
pointment for Dorothy to be examined by this man the next
morning.
The special light showed the splinter embedded in the
pupil of her eye, and the doctors could not believe that,
enduring the agony of such an injury, she had been able for
two weeks to go on teaching the Cause of God. They de-
clared this a physical impossibility. The young doctor took
her hand and said, “I can remove this splinter, but I want

Her depth perception was affected.

you to know that when I do so, there is a strong probability
that you will be blind, and I do not want to make you blind.
Do you accept this responsibility?”
Dorothy answered quietly, “I accept it. I am not afraid. I
have faith that you will not blind me.”
The doctor operated and removed the splinter and when
it was over, he said, “Now open your eyes and tell me if you can see.
Dorothy obeyed and replied, “Yes, I can see light.”
“Thank God!” the young man said, with tears rolling down
his face. “I could not have borne it, if I had made one like you blind.”
Harriet Pettibone1
She told me at the Park Plaza in Toronto where we were
occupying adjoining rooms—that above all she wanted to
be a ransom. This was at early morning prayers in her room—
she looked lovely in a blue silk nightie and matching robe—
and she said it so fervently. I believe she was.
She was a keen judge of people and told me not to waste
my time with two people I introduced her to. She was right,
as far as interesting them in the Faith was concerned.
When I think about her she is as alive as if she was here in
person.
She put her arms around me—one morning after spend-
ing the night in our home—and said, very lovingly, that I
was a slow grower, meaning spiritually. Again she was right.

Harriet Pettibone, a Bahá’í from North Dakota who was active in Buffalo,
New York after her marriage in 1929.

Emmalu McCandless1
Dorothy Baker had tea with me in my room at the Flatiron
Hotel in Omaha, Nebraska in the fall of 1943. She was a
member of the National Spiritual Assembly then and came
to Omaha to visit the Bahá’ís.
I can remember her so clearly, how tall and slender she
was, how animated her beautiful face, how loving her atti-
tude, how eloquent her speech. She was beautiful and radi-
ant and moved like a swift-flowing stream. She was so alive.
One of the things we talked about was the Báb’s Address
to the Letters of the Living, and how it depicted the pattern
of life for all Bahá’ís. She prayed aloud for me personally
and for the success of the consolidation efforts in Omaha. I
was overwhelmed by the flow of her words and her anima-
tion in prayer ….
I have always felt “blessed” by that visit with her in the
hotel. It is one of the memories I will carry with me through
eternity.
Amy Brady Dwelly2
Perhaps the experience I remember best, and which has stayed
with me in all its intensity through the years was an after-
noon in her hotel room at A—, where she had come to clear
up a difficulty in which two Bahá’ís were involved.
Both parties had received suggestions from Dorothy as to

In 1924 Emmalu McCandless, her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Weyer, and all
her sisters became Bahá’ís. She later moved to Nebraska as a homefront pio-
neer.
Amy Brady Dwelly is well known in children’s education and psychology,
and also as a writer for children.

a certain appointment; both thought that Dorothy had the
authority to make the appointment, which she did not have
nor had she meant to leave such an impression. Both parties
were furious with each other but neither one held any en-
mity toward Dorothy. She had just returned to her hotel
when I arrived and found her grief-stricken. She paced the
floor, wringing her hands.
Then with tears standing in her eyes she began saying,
“Oh my, my, what have I done to my precious little—and
to poor deluded—? I wanted justice for both but I have failed.
I have harmed them both when I wanted so much to help
them both ….”
Much of what she said has left me but her sincere grief,
her deep sorrow, the baring of her breast to accept the darts
of criticism and blame for something she could not be held
responsible for—all these have left a lasting impression on
me. She wanted to make amends and I tried to convince her
that she was not to blame.
“I should have been wiser—I should have understood the
situation better ….”
At last I left her to her prayers and Bahá’u’lláh. As I walked
down the hall I felt as though I had been in the presence of
a martyr.
Edith McLaren1
In those struggling years Dorothy often came to me in a
dream which always gave me new courage to carry on. Once

Edith McClaren pioneered to Latin America and served as a member of
the Auxiliary Board. Her posts included Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua,
and Venezuela.

she loaned me her glasses. When I put them on they were
rose-colored! This was at a time when the problems seemed
insurmountable in the community of many capable,
strongminded people. I got the point of that dream as soon
as I awakened and took a fresh heart.
A letter from Dorothy
—honey,
Back from Canada and have both your letter and card;
the latter just arrived this morning.
Now dear, let’s just look at this thing sensibly. Human
personality is a curious thing. It graduates from kindergar-
ten to university in one of the spiritual fine arts, and lags
perhaps in the third grade in another. If all the Bahá’ís were
in the university in all of the fine arts you and I would have
practically no problems. But it isn’t so, and knowing this, I
don’t see how you can afford right now to try to expose your
bad health and delicate nervous system to the variables ex-
isting within our evolving groups. If a good doctor has sug-
gested dropping the thing and becoming inactive, I think
you are absolutely justified in doing just that. I wouldn’t
withdraw membership (unless at some time you already
have), but rather I would quietly retire from the entire situ-
ation and drop it completely from your mind.
Do you think that your formal relationship to the Cause
interests the Beloved at a time like this? I don’t. I think you
are a human soul, a tender, delicate human soul, who can’t
stand the kind of evolution we are now going through, to-
ward a larger collective life. And I don’t think He wants you
harassed by it for a minute. Turn your heart to Him and be
happy in Him; use His prayers, read His Word; go your way,

39. Elisabeth Cheney in 1944 with friends gathered in Wilmette,
Illinois (Elisabeth is seated in the second row, far right). Dorothy
Baker is seated in the first row, third from left.

and live your life. He understands. You can count on
it; He understands.
Keep the old chin up. Much love, and write when you
feel like it, always of happy, positive things; plans, observa-
tions, hopes, daily work, etc. The secret is that every day a
new world is born.
Love, Dorothy

Excerpts of letters from Dorothy Baker to Elisabeth Cheney
during Elisabeth’s time as a pioneer in Paraguay

Dec. 19, 1940
My Beloved Elisabeth,
Never in Lima’s little history has the going away of any-
one left such a hole in the middle of things. Everywhere
Elisabeth is on every pair of lips. …

Feb. 22, ‘41
… Your last letter was put in my hands just as I was leaving
Lima again. This is my first stop and I hasten to tell you
what has been flooding my heart. It seemed to me just like
Keith R. Kehler who became a Hand of the Guardian just at
the very time she felt she had failed ….
… It was as if every breath of inspiration was crushed
from her, and she experienced that “zero hour” you men-
tion …. The station of true martyrdom is a glorious, lonely
thing (seen on this plane), a trek through wilderness other
feet have not beaten down. How can anyone but One ac-
company you, shining herald? Who else is big enough? …

June 17, 1941
… The NSA passed the return of the Paraguay Angel with
deep regret, and a strange little silence seemed to pervade
the room that made me weep inwardly without knowing
why. … I love you so, my glorious Elisabeth. And it is
with a tender, weeping affection that looks to God and im-
plores only the highest destiny. …

And that pen of yours; oh my Elisabeth—you would have
been tempted to pride if you could have heard Horace Holley,
the human pen of North America, say in the midst of your
letter, “God, that girl can write.” I think it was when you
said, “In Paraguay, when the sun shines, there is thunder on
the horizon.” Bowled ‘ern over!
… Heart’s love,
Dorothy
Edna Andrews
I remember well the day, soon after my son died from a
drowning accident, she said, “Come, let’s go to a movie,
today we will laugh and have fun.” And we did. And I was
happy. She seemed to know intuitively one’s needs, and was
quick to do something to relieve the pressure, to fill the need.
She was the epitome of gentleness, yet at the same time
firm as a rock. Nothing ever deterred her from doing that
which she felt was needed. … One did not have to tell her
how one felt, she knew, and did just the right thing at the
right moment to bring relief to an anguished heart, or a
troubled mind. … She never criticized—she was never critical
of another’s weakness. She always seemed to understand the
motives of another person’s actions. …
For weeks after the drowning accident which took the life
of my seventeen-year-old son, I had been tortured by the
same dream … his dead body walking, trying to come to
me. I would waken, devastated by grief. I dreaded the com-
ing of each night.
One beautiful September morning Dorothy phoned me
and asked me to have lunch with her. After lunch she sug-

gested we sit out in her yard by the lily pool in the garden. It
was quiet and cool there and very peaceful, little gold fish
swam lazily in the clear water among the lily pads; a gentle
caressing breeze moved through the branches of the shade
trees.
Without preamble, Dorothy said, “Edna, you are sad.
What is bothering you?” Then I told her of the devastating
dreams which came night after night. She looked at me, very
intently for a long moment, then with infinite love in her
eyes, she gently touched my hand. Then in the most natu-
ral, conversational tone of voice she prayed that these dreams
would be removed, and that I would know a lasting peace.
To this day there has never been another distressing dream.
And peace did come to my heart, an abiding, continuing,
blessed peace.
Doris McKay
… I pray that through that pure spirit [Dorothy] God will
endow me with her chief and outstanding quality: sincerity.
A woman who was living at the Bakers at the time told me
that when she first met Dorothy she would not believe she
was real. Finally she went to work for her for three years and
never once in that time did Dorothy fail in the least degree
to exemplify the station which she had chosen to occupy.
That is a startling achievement, when you think of it.
Margaret Ruhe
In a letter she sent me on July 13, 1940, on Race Unity
matters, she wrote at the end, “Above all, do not be discour-
aged. The immortal Martha used to say that the great secret
lay in two things: first, never to miss the very smallest op-

portunity, and second to be conscious of wearing the mantle
of Bahá’u’lláh Himself while working. The Master once said
that the people are really like birds who are listening eagerly
for the voice of the Master Bird, and that if you know this,
you will have the right attitude of friendliness and charm.
They will thank you through all eternity. May the spirit of
the Blessed Perfection go with you. With Bahá’í love, Dor-
othy Baker.”
Mary Lou Ewing
There was an interesting sternness and penetration about
Dorothy. I have only met one person in my entire life who
knew Dorothy who was not entirely devoted to her. It was
very evident that that person had a rather strong ego and
was jealous. She would say, “Well of course Dorothy can
accomplish what she does because of her wealth and free-
dom.”
In trying to show this person her real love, in spite of the
criticism and resistance, Dorothy one day spontaneously gave
her a truly precious gift—precious in the material sense. Later
on that person was again openly critical of Dorothy, and
suggested that Dorothy protected people she loved. It was
possibly the only time I saw anger in Dorothy. She said,
more or less, “This is spiritual blackmail. She should not
have accepted my gift if she could not accept my sincere
intention and love.” That was the end of that. There was no
further discussion of the matter.
Paraphrased from an unsigned letter
Dorothy had a radio script with her in Providence, Rhode
Island and I accompanied her for an interview with the sta-

tion manager. He took one look at the Bahá’í title and then
said, “Well, I’ll read this and let you know.” He had been
informed that Dorothy was there for only two days.
In a pleasant, firm voice Dorothy said, “Oh, give that back
to me,” at the same time giving the manager a meaningful
glance. With the same knowing look and smile the manager
handed the script back to Dorothy. He knew that she knew
he had no intention of putting it on the air and much time
was saved. I might have waited around for days, but Dor-
othy had practical wisdom.
Charlotte Stirrat1
Being head and shoulders spiritually above others, she was a
target for jealousy. She used to have many unpleasant things
happen because of the jealousy of others. She’d come
home—Frank would console her—joke with her and say:
“It’s good to have something like this to suffer for. Imagine
your chagrin and remorse when you arrive in the next world
and you have nothing to say to Bahá’u’lláh when he says,
‘What have you suffered for My Cause?’ Now you have some-
thing to say.”
Dorothy Campbell Rougeou2
In January of 1942 I was invited to a Bahá’í lecture in Jack-
son, Mississippi. I had never heard of the Faith and knew

Charlotte Stirrat, a Bahá’í who, during her long and devoted years of
service to the Faith, pioneered in both Europe and Africa, beginning in 1947.
In Africa she lived in Mozambique and Swaziland and is now serving in
Namibia.
Dorothy Campbell Rougeou moved to South America in 1950 to assist in

nothing whatever about it. The ladies who welcomed us at
the door of the ballroom were most gracious and I kept look-
ing at them after I was seated for they had some quality I
couldn’t place. They seemed so relaxed and happy but there
was great dignity. Soon a beautiful tall blonde was intro-
duced as the speaker for the evening—Mrs. Dorothy Baker—
and she said that she would like to begin the meeting with a
prayer revealed by Bahá’u’lláh, the Founder of the Faith.*
We were all seated and after the prayer had begun I found
myself shaking all over and finally had to hold onto the seat
of the chair to try to control the shaking. My first thought
was that I had a deep chill, but as the prayer ended, the
shaking subsided. I was so shaken that I don’t remember
much of what she said, but before she stopped talking, she
said that the Bahá’ís believed that this was the Word of God
for today, and as always with the creative Word of God, it
had the power to change our lives. She challenged us to buy
a Bahá’í prayer book, read it for fifteen minutes a day for
two weeks and then we would be unable to live without it.
Being a good Baptist, I had never read a prayer book in my
life, but I found her challenge so extraordinary that I de-
cided to buy a prayer book and read it and find out for my-
self if what she said was true. Needless to say, after two weeks
of reading the prayers, I never stopped and found that I had
been changed, my heart cleansed of negative emotions, and
ready to study the Bahá’í Teachings. After a few months of
intensive reading, study and prayer, I accepted the Faith. …

*
the growth of the Faith there. Her record of service includes membership on
several South American National Spiritual Assemblies, most often as Secre-
tary. She finally returned to the United States in 1973 to marry her sweetheart
from 1930.

The first night, after the public meeting, I went home
and began to read some of the prayers. One that I read—
the Tablet of Aḥmad—had this statement: “He who turneth
away from this Beauty hath also turned away from the Mes-
sengers of the past and showeth pride toward God from all
eternity to all eternity.” That rocked me and I knew I had to
find out for myself if Bahá’u’lláh was the Messenger of God
for today, and if He was, then I wanted to be His follower. I
was blessed to be able to recognize Him and shall always be
grateful to Dorothy Baker for awakening my sleeping soul
on that January evening in 1942.
Hazel Little1
I recall one time when Dorothy, looking so pretty, made a
public talk in the Crystal Room of the Argonne Hotel. She
wore a long coral dress and looked just radiant. When it was
over, Dorothy came walking down the center aisle almost in
tears, and said to her Bahá’í friends, “Oh, I’m so sorry. I
didn’t present Bahá’u’lláh well. I got in the way.” Yet she, to
me, was perfect. So pretty, so knowledgeable, so kind, so
selfless.

Hazel Little, a teacher who learned about the Faith from Dorothy Baker,
she moved to Tucson and served on the Local Spiritual Assembly of Pima
County.

Artemus Lamb1
At another early Convention, I think in 1943, after I had
given a very inadequate little talk about the work of the Re-
gional Committee in the Rocky Mountain area, Dorothy
came up to me to tell me very lovingly, but emphatically,
that she was so happy to “feel my spirit of service.” This
expression struck me, and, I might add, her kind but sincere
words encouraged me to greater service. Later I perceived
that her constant endeavor seemed to be to encourage the
Bahá’ís to greater service. …
Once in Denver, Colorado, I presented her to a very small
group called the Religious Tolerance Society. It was really
not a very inspiring occasion, but as Dorothy talked, this
mysterious flowing eloquence began to surge and quickly
everyone was enraptured. At the end, one gentleman—a
rather analytical and cold intellectual, not in any way a spiri-
tual or emotional type, spoke up, obviously highly moved.
He said in essence that certain people have been given great
“gifts” and to Dorothy had been given the “gift” of eloquence.
Hazel Little
[At] my first meeting with [Dorothy], Eleanor Kepfer and I
joined her for lunch at an oriental tearoom. I remember say-
ing to her, “This faith sounds good. I can accept it, but I

Artemus Lamb, an American pioneer and a member of the Continental
Board of Counselors who served for years in Central America. Before he died
he accomplished his life long dream of completing a history of the Bahá’í Faith
in Latin America

can’t give up Jesus.” Dorothy, gently smiling, said softly and
kindly, “My dear Hazel, you don’t have to. This simply adds
on to your Christian faith.”
Yet, even so, my attraction to beloved Dorothy was such
that I made myself stay away from her for one year to make
sure that it was the song she sang and not infatuation with
the songstress that drew me. Indeed she was my spiritual
mother.
Belinda Elliot1
This particular evening [Dorothy] was speaker for a fireside
at the home of Philip Sprague. … Afterward I couldn’t
leave her. She was staying at a hotel in Greenwich Village
and I trailed along when we left the meeting. There was a
small, old-fashioned drugstore across from the hotel, the kind
of place that had little round marble-top tables where ice
cream was served.
Dorothy suggested we go in for a soda. As I remember my
times with her it seems she had such influence over me that
I was almost entranced. Another person who had the same
effect was Madame Ali-Kuli Khan, Marzieh Gail’s mother. I
could hardly be in their presence without weeping.
That evening in the Village is as clear to me now as though
it happened only a couple of years past, rather than all those
years ago, probably because of what she said to me as we sat
at our small table. Without preamble Dorothy looked at me
very seriously and said, “Sara Ellen (my name then), you
must always remain steadfast in the Faith. No matter what

Belinda Elliot moved to several homefront pioneer posts in order to assist
different communities.

happens in your life, remain steadfast. Because as the first
believer in your family you carry a great responsibility.”
She had my full attention. All I could do was stare at her
beautiful face. So smooth, so lit from within. She was wear-
ing dark blue and a small veil on her hat of that color came
down over her eyes. Then she explained that the first be-
liever at the time of the coming of any Manifestation of
God, has the privilege of interceding for the direct members
of their family for many generations. She said at the time of
Moses it was four generations forward and four generations
back. At the time of Christ, it was five generations forward
and five generations back. At the time of Muḥammad it was
six generations forward and six generations back. But in this
day, the day of the Glory of God, the first believer in each
family has the privilege of interceding before Him for the
direct members of their family for seven generations for-
ward and seven generations back.
That is exactly the way she said it to me. I can still see
Dorothy’s finger as she traced in a forward and backward
motion on the table top, the direction of the generations.
This information had a stunning and overwhelming effect
upon me. Tears streamed down. I just kept watching her
face, spellbound. She fascinated me. It is easier now to un-
derstand it was an irresistible spiritual attraction before which
I was speechless. There was nothing for me to say.
Others felt her spiritual force, too. I’ve watched her sway
large audiences, bring them to their feet after a speech. Dor-
othy Baker’s talent was so special. That night in Greenwich
Village will be remembered for all time. The sudden knowl-
edge of the responsibility laid upon me as a first believer,
surely has had a steadying effect all my Bahá’í life. …
Our wonderful session together was brought to a close

with these generous words. “You see in our family neither
Louise nor I have this privilege, because in our family Mother
Beecher has this distinction. She was the first believer.”
Louise Baker Matthias
Do you remember how James Farley, who was postmaster
general under Roosevelt, was known for his ability to recall
everyone’s name? He trained himself to do this. Mother was
impressed. I remember her talking about it. She made a very
conscious, concentrated effort to associate the names and
faces of her fellow Bahá’ís so that she could honor them in
this way.
Marion Yazdi1
In 1943–44, the centenary year, the Bahá’ís of Berkeley,
California had a year-long teaching campaign, the highlight
of which was Dorothy Baker’s one-day Berkeley visit, Sep-
tember 23, 1943. Dorothy gave talks continuously from the
time she arrived until late at night. A letter I wrote to my
parents a week later best describes that day and the follow-
ing two days:
“The day Dorothy Baker was here in Berkeley was
one of the most exciting days of my life. A number of
us met her at the train. There was just time (the train

Marion Yazdi was the first Bahá’í student at the University of California at
Berkeley, and at Stanford University in 1923. For her story of these times, see
Marion C. Yazdi, Youth in the Vanguard, Wilmette: Bahá’í Publishing Trust,
1982.

being an hour and a half late) to drive her to her first
engagement—speaking to University of California stu-
dents at the Race Relations luncheon. …
“While she was speaking there, I pressed her dress
for her afternoon engagement, wrote publicity for the
newspaper on her radio talk and took it to the office,
went to the Berkeley Book Guild and encouraged them
to put out more chairs, called on two people to go to
the talk, and got ready myself.
“The afternoon talk was very good and well attended
(New Trends in Race Relations). One woman called
me afterwards and said it was one of the richest experi-
ences of her life.
“After the club talk about ten of the people came
down here (2910 Telegraph) with Dorothy Baker (I
quickly made lemonade). Dorothy gave another talk
out in the court and everyone was completely happy.
“Then we went to the Women’s City Club. Ali
(Yazdi) was chairman, and Dorothy spoke after dinner
very delightfully. Then after some had gone she again
drew us around her and told stories until we really had
to stop her to save her for the date (Symposium) the
next night.
“The Symposium … was an outstanding success.
The place was filled, probably eight hundred or more.
I think we had over one hundred there from Berkeley.
“Mrs. Cooper gave a tea for a small group of special
guests on Saturday. I was on the committee for it and
invited some people who enjoyed it enormously. It was a
very lovely affair at the Women’s City Club in San Fran-
cisco. That day Dorothy gave the best talk of all, I
thought.”

San Francisco Chronicle, September 15, 1943

THE BAHÁ’Í SYMPOSIUM
“RACIAL EQUALITY ESSENTIAL TO WORLD ORDER”
The new world order that will emerge at the end of the war
will not endure peacefully, if based on military force and
political strength alone, but in addition must consider the
religious rights and racial equality of mankind.
That was the composite opinion expressed by four speak-
ers last night on a symposium conducted in the Palace Ho-
tel under auspices of the Bahá’í movement in San Francisco.
Speakers included Mrs. Dorothy Beecher Baker, a member
of the national assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States
and Canada; Attorney General Robert W. Kenny, the Rev.
Dr. Rudolph L. Coffee, president of the Temple of Reli-
gion, and Robert B. Flippin, director of the Booker T. Wash-
ington Center here.
Of the Bahá’í Faith, founded 100 years ago in Persia by
Bahá’u’lláh, Mrs. Baker said:
“It was scourged, impaled, imprisoned, beaten, shot,
lied about and suppressed at every turn, an infant pattern
against which governments and religions hurled their east-
ern fury. From these things it emerged unified and un-
compromising, a World Faith dedicated to the ideal of a
single humanity conscious of the Fatherhood of a single
God.”
Isobel Sabri1
I first met Dorothy Baker in the spring of 1945 when she
came to San Francisco to be one of the Bahá’í speakers at a

Isobel Locke in 1945. See also Chapter 18.

special public meeting sponsored by the Local Spiritual As-
sembly in conjunction with the international conference at
which the United Nations was formed. A number of the
Conference delegates had been invited by the Bahá’í Com-
munity to a special banquet and were later seated on the
platform during the public meeting. Marion Holley (later
Hofman) was the Chairman of the meeting which was also
addressed by a professor of Political Science from Stanford
University. Dorothy spoke very impressively about the spiri-
tual foundations of universal peace.
After the meeting Leroy and Sylvia Ioas invited a sizeable
group of people for coffee and ice cream at a nearby restau-
rant. I was not yet a Bahá’í and had come up from Stanford
with Farrukh Ioas, the elder Ioas daughter, who had intro-
duced and strongly attracted me to the Faith some weeks
earlier. I sat next to Dorothy, and among other subjects she
spoke of having been very ill recently. This particularly at-
tracted my attention as I also had been and still was quite ill.
Dorothy impressed on me the importance of overcoming
any such barriers. She said that one must just go ahead and
do whatever needed doing, knowing that God would give
you the necessary strength. She said that she had never al-
lowed her ill health to stand in the way of her serving the
Faith. This was a valuable lesson which I have taken to heart
with good effect through many years.
Dorothy came to Stanford a few days later for a luncheon
speaking engagement arranged by Farrukh Ioas at the Lagun-
ita Residence for women students where we both lived. About
fifteen students were seated at a specially arranged table in
the dining hall, but by the end of Dorothy’s talk which took
place after lunch the table was also ringed by standing stu-
dent-waiters—all thoroughly engrossed in the lively ques-
tion period. Marion Holley had driven Dorothy down from

San Francisco, and Farrukh and I had the blessing of spend-
ing the whole of that afternoon in conversation about the
Faith with these two outstandingly knowledgeable women.
I also attended teaching meetings in San Mateo and San
Francisco at which Dorothy spoke during that visit to Cali-
fornia. It was not so much what Dorothy said as how she
said it. She had a very spiritual presentation which conveyed
to the listener the deep quality of her faith. She had absolute
confidence in what the Faith would mean to the world—a
certitude similar in nature to that which I later witnessed in
the beloved Guardian Shoghi Effendi.
Dorothy Baker quoted by Hazel Mori
“Truly it is not how much time you spend reading the Writ-
ings, it is how much you think about what you have read. I
find it best to choose each morning some one phrase, some
one quotation from the Writings, and then carry it with me
all day, thinking about it at odd moments. That way I have
it in my memory and in my heart. You try it, and pretty
soon you will be full of the Words of Bahá’u’lláh, right up to
your ears—so full that they have to come out your mouth!”
From Mrs. Louise R. Eddy
She was scheduled to speak in the city of Highland Park,
Michigan at the YWCA on the Bahá’í Faith. I sat enthralled
by her personage, by her words, by the glow on her face, by
everything about her. After the meeting, I went up to the
stage to ask her a question which was of tremendous impor-
tance, of course, to me and which she must have had to

answer everywhere she went. I asked her if I should become
a Bahá’í? I had spent months agonizing over this. My family
had been Episcopalians for three hundred years and tho I
had broken with them to become a Unity student, a Unitar-
ian, I had still remained a Christian. She must have sensed
my anxiety. She came down from the stage and coming up
to me placed her hands on my shoulders, looked deeply into
my eyes, smiled and said very gently, “You will be a Bahá’í.
You have the Bahá’í eyes already.” That calm manner, that
sweet voice and smile, that soul searching look took away all
my stress, my feelings of doubt, my weariness and I had my
answer. I became a Bahá’í in May of 1947.
Doris McKay
I have concluded that we have to take one role only … and
that, the one where we do the most effective work. Dorothy
Baker has done that. I knew the old “Dorothies” who had to
leave. She is like a candle sacrificing herself to the Light. We
had breakfast together in Toronto and again she laid bare
her heart to me. She told me about riding home with Frank
and Louise and loving them and knowing that again she
must leave them, and unconsciously moaning so that they
heard her and how their glad chatter was stilled until she
gaily reassured them. But Frank knew! He just patted her
shoulder.

Chapter 17
Teacher and administrator, 1944–51
If the time and effort Dorothy exerted for the Faith between her
forty-fifth and fifty-second birthdays could be cut like a pie, one
half would be North American activity and the other travels
abroad. Work on the homefront, in the United States and Canada,
would have to be divided again into two equally substantial
wedges: teaching and administration. Dorothy diligently carried
her weight and more on committees and institutions of the Bahá’í
Cause. But from the beginning her real joy was teaching, seeing
doubt, frustrated anger, or phlegmatic calm dissolve as people
were exposed to the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh. She spoke with
great love and eloquence, but she took praise reluctantly. For her,
adulation had become a necessary by-product of the goal: allow-
ing people to hear the message of her Lord. Junie (Katherine)
Faily Perot recalled seeing Dorothy Baker angry only once, at
Louhelen. Dorothy felt the chairman made too much of her. She
commented, “No one is that good. You praise me too much be-
cause I go around and speak a lot. Frank is a better Bahá’í than I
am, because he does not go around talking.”
Lenore Bernstein also noted Dorothy’s very deep sense of hu-
mility. She once heard Dorothy remark, “It should be Frank, not
I, who stands in the limelight, for if it were not for Frank’s sup-
port and understanding, I could not travel or teach at all.”
And speak she did, thanks to him, and thanks to her own efforts,
for the glory of her Lord. One hundred years after the Báb de-

clared His mission, one hundred years after He fulfilled the promise
of the world’s sacred books, Dorothy spoke at the House of Wor-
ship in Wilmette.
Usually Dorothy was careless about her own privacy, except
for prayer. Just a few nights before her talk, Dorothy slipped into
Emma Rice’s hotel room, whispering through the dark to Emma,
who was already in bed, “May I come in with you? I hope you
don’t mind, but my daughter can’t find a room so I’m letting her
share mine with Frank.” Early the next morning Dorothy disap-
peared into the bathroom saying, “Wait for me and we’ll go to
breakfast together.” Her ease at sharing Emma’s quarters, her
friendly suggestion of breakfast together made Emma, although
she was already hungry, change her mind and sit down on the
unmade bed for what she assumed would be the length of time
required for a short shower.
A half hour later she was beginning to feel a hollow grinding in
her stomach as she dimly realized, no sound of running water yet
heard, that Dorothy must have gone into the bathroom for her
prayers. Time in the clockless room dragged on as Emma waited.
She wondered if a knock on the bathroom door would be appro-
priate or if she should simply leave a note and go on down to
breakfast.
Just at the point of putting one plan or the other into action,
the door swung open and Dorothy emerged, an aura of zeal and
charged energy surrounding her. “Shall we?” Emma eagerly agreed
they should.
At the table, Dorothy neither concentrated on her meal nor
cherished a few comfortable moments with her friend. Emma
noticed, “She ate nothing, really, because she was too busy greet-
ing people, answering questions and radiating joy and happiness
round about. That was Dorothy, God bless her!”
The only times Dorothy kept strictly for herself were the hours

spent in prayer, meditation, or study. And those periods were usu-
ally in the early morning, when other activities didn’t make de-
mands.
But on the afternoon of May 22, 1944 having asked to be
released for the rest of the day from her duties at the Convention,
Dorothy avoided lunch with friends and retreated instead to her hotel room.
She felt the most important talk of her life was to be given that
night at the Bahá’í House of Worship. The occasion was the cen-
tenary anniversary of the Declaration of the Bab. Before the pro-
gram of readings took place at 9:40 P.M. under the great dome, a
public meeting was to be held in Foundation Hall, where she and
two others would present the Bahá’í Faith. Dorothy felt it was
vital, for the success of her talk, to prepare herself spiritually.
With The Dawn-Breakers on her lap she sat quietly in the room.
Frank, her devoted protector, stood watch in the hall during lunch
and the afternoon break so that admiring, zealous friends, eager
and importunate, could not present themselves at her door. To
the urgent pleas for exception in one case or another, Frank was
stoic and firm. No one saw or spoke to Dorothy.
Mid-afternoon Frank drove her to the beauty salon, where
Dorothy continued to read while having her hair washed and set,
avoiding even the friendliest of frivolous chatter. She did not want
anyone or anything to dim her heart, and tried instead to “strain
every nerve to acquire inward and outward perfections.” She did
not want to chance diminishing the power of the spirit she prayed
would flow through her that night. Back at the hotel, after a last
check of the long white dinner gown bought for the occasion and
the final decision on what jewelry to wear, Dorothy settled down
for several hours of uninterrupted prayer, study, and supplica-
tion.
For Louise Baker, newly arrived home from her pioneer post,

the evening was distinctly memorable. “Foundation Hall was
overflowing; those who came too late to find seats stood to hear
the words of the evening’s speakers. For the first time a public
address system was set up to carry even outside Foundation Hall
so all who gathered could hear.” Three individuals spoke: Horace
Holley, the author of several books of poetry and prose, also at
the time a member of the National Spiritual Assembly; Dr. Harry
Allen Overstreet, a well-known writer of the day; and Dorothy.
George Latimer, another member of the National Spiritual As-
sembly, served as chairman of the Convention and of the public
meeting. He introduced Dorothy first. She rose from her chair.
Like a tall white candle glowing at the front of the room, she
moved toward the podium on that, the first night of the second
century of the Bahá’í Faith. Radiant with the power and majesty
of the historic moment, Dorothy spoke:
Religion is progressive, rushing forward like a giant river
from God to the ages, watering the arid centuries to produce
flowering civilizations and holy lives. God speaks, and the
merciless opposers of His truth are swept into the limbo of
the forgotten, while out of the lives of the martyr-revelators
moves the age-old, twofold process of the fall of an old or-
der of things, and the rise of a believing people, endowed
with the power to carry forward an ever-advancing civiliza-
tion. …1
Dorothy manifested the very power of which she spoke: the power
that enables believers in God and His progressive plan for hu-
mankind to carry forward that potent, ever-advancing civiliza-
tion. She spoke of the Founders of the world’s great religions, of
their gifts to civilization. Foundation Hall quivered with the shim-
mering vision Dorothy projected of God’s kingdom, finally come.

Dorothy Baker, Religion Returns (Wilmette, Ill.: Bahá’í Publishing Committee, 1945).

She closed:
The religion of our fathers returns, opening a new chapter
of revelation, and revealing a newly ordered world, to which
the prophetic welcome of the Báb calls all who are gathered
in this commemorative place: “Enter therein in peace, se-
cure.”
The account in Bahá’í News continues the description of the
evening’s events:
After the public meeting, we walked up the white path in
the darkness, up the steps and through one of the nine great
portals. The vast space beneath the Dome was packed with
Bahá’ís. I wished the Guardian could have been here to see
them, to see all these souls across the earth, who have grown
out of the words that the Báb spoke in Shíráz a hundred
years ago tonight.1
Following the commemoration Dorothy went to Amelia Col-
lins’ hotel, her eyes very bright, and whispered, “Get out of bed,
Millie! We’re praying all night.”2 The joy must have filled the hearts
of these two future Hands of the Cause, bowed down in adora-
tion on the one hundredth anniversary of the dawn of their Faith.
The talk Dorothy gave that evening was published in World
Order magazine under the title “Religion Comes Again to Man-
kind,” then as a pamphlet called Religion Returns. This was the
second pamphlet written by Dorothy to be released in the mid-
forties, following The Victory of the Spirit.3 In July of 1944 Dor-

Marzieh Gail, “Impressions of the Centenary,” in Bahá’í News, no. 170 (Sept.
1944), p. 15.
Notes from Nancy Phillips.
See Appendix I, pp. 499–534.

othy also spoke at a special Centenary Conference arranged by
the National Spiritual Assembly for delegates from five Latin
American countries who had been unable to attend the commemo-
ration in May.
National work, teaching on other continents, the needs of com-
munities in the United States—all of these concerns and the con-
comitant days and months of effort they demanded sometimes
made Dorothy unsure which areas should receive her most con-
centrated attention. She even asked friends in Lima to please con-
sider her situation when they elected the next Local Spiritual As-
sembly, as she was a member of the National Spiritual Assembly,
the Local Spiritual Assembly of Lima, and numerous commit-
tees. Because of their concern for her well-being she was not re-
elected to the Local Spiritual Assembly. Relieved but feeling guilty,
she wrote to the Guardian for his opinion of her action. He wrote
back that Dorothy should not have encouraged the friends not to
vote for her; in Bahá’í elections individuals should feel free to
vote for whomever they choose. The next Riḍván Dorothy shared
his guidance, but, still aware of her multiple responsibilities, the
Bahá’ís again did not elect Dorothy to the Lima Assembly.
Even without local administrative responsibilities, the needed
balance was missing in Dorothy’s life and she knew it. Europe
beckoned, as did South America, where Edmund and Muriel
Miessler, Louise Baker, and Elisabeth Cheney pioneered, all from
the area Dorothy once felt was barren territory: Lima, Ohio. The
pioneers had clear-cut work before them, but Dorothy felt the
pulling need of every front.
Still questioning where her fractioned energies should be con-
centrated, she put the matter to Shoghi Effendi in a letter written
February 17, 1947. The National Teaching Committee had asked
her to consider giving up one year of other teaching to concen-
trate totally on North America, as many groups and assemblies
seemed to need assistance.

40. July 9, 1944: Bahá’í representatives from Latin America—
both native believers and pioneers—with the National Spiritual
Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States and Canada.
His answer begged her not to “over-tax your strength, but rather
save it for your essential work on the NSA and in such important
fields as Europe.” In his wisdom Shoghi Effendi kept Dorothy
from personally tackling the problems of groups and assemblies
from New England to Arizona.
But in her “home” state of Ohio, the land she had dreaded
from afar twenty years before, Dorothy could not resist taking an
active part in the teaching. Her response to Bahá’u’lláh’s call to
love the people of the world would not let her discontinue the

tending and nurturing of Bahá’í communities in the cities and
hamlets and farmlands of that state. She did so with the patience
of a gardener who knows that, as surely as midday follows dawn,
with time and attention planted seed will grow. She often para-
phrased a passage from the Psalms, “In this day, no seed shall be
lost.” Hinckley, Medina, Granger, or Findlay, the villages and
townships of Ohio received the same scrupulous devotion as na-
tional talks and the international travel that she began in the 1940s.
Dorothy’s prominence in the North American Bahá’í commu-
nity meant little to the souls she tried to reach. That she was a
member of the National Spiritual Assembly of one of the largest
and most active Bahá’í communities in the world, that her name
was reverently spoken by numerous Bahá’ís on that continent and
others hardly mattered when she approached, as every Bahá’í has
and will again, souls shrouded with their own doubts.
Some people she spoke with, befriended, and set her heart’s
hopes on came into the Faith; a few others left. In Findlay, Ohio,
a woman who had seemed devoted suddenly dropped her mem-
bership. She explained her decision by saying she felt the Bahá’ís
adored Dorothy Baker too much.
Dorothy and other Lima Bahá’ís, with the help of Ruth Moffett
from Chicago, opened Findlay to the Faith in 1947. In 1950 Dor-
othy had notices printed inviting the citizens of Findlay to attend
talks at the local YMCA on Saturday nights. The notices, which
were widely distributed in the little town, began,
Dear Friends:
The classes you have been looking for start next Saturday
evening and you are invited to be there.

and ended with a list of the topics Dorothy planned to address in
the six lectures:

The Art of Being Happy
The Bibles of Mankind
Features of the New Civilization
The Races of Man (Illustrated)
Why Belief in Immortality
The Forward Look
Hardly anyone came, but after the first class Dorothy touched
local Bahá’ís Howard and Nellie Duff by anxiously asking, “Do
you think I did all right? Do you think it will do any good?”
Though few people attended the meetings, Nellie’s friends re-
sponded in what for Findlay seemed a wholehearted way: they
told Mr. and Mrs. Duff they had seen the notices and knew the
Duffs were Bahá’ís.
As Howard Duff recalled it, “Teachers from Lima held classes
for some of us for two winters, and they were not mild winters
either.” Those were cold months in more than one way. After the
first few meetings the Bahá’ís were told they could no longer use
the YMCA. One of the town leaders said it would be “like taking
the C out of YMCA,” never imagining he might be turning his
back on the very return his Lord promised. Still the Bahá’ís met
and said prayers together, gathering wherever they could. Howard
remembered Dorothy praying “with that glow in her face like
that on the face of a young girl in love for the first time. … That
was an angel, that woman!”
A few steadfast Bahá’ís from Findlay would drive to Lima for
special meetings. When they walked in the front door of the Bak-
ers’ house, Nellie Duff knew what it felt like to be a queen. “Dor-
othy would take us by the hands, sort of bow and say ‘Findlay!’ It
seemed something special.” What respect she had for those staunch
Bahá’ís who weathered the condemnation and the cold impassive
faces of their neighbors, greeting their spiritual recreation with

grumbling doubts or active opposition. In Dorothy’s vision the
Bahá’ís of rural Ohio were Dawn-Breakers and she gave them her
best.
In the mid 1940s there were six Bahá’ís in Granger Township
and four in nearby Hinckley Township. The Bahá’ís, like their
neighbors, lived on farms spread across the fertile Ohio land, but
there were enough of them in the two areas to form a Local Spiri-
tual Assembly. Lillian Dake of Granger remembered the anxiety
and strong feelings roused among some of the Bahá’ís when they
found out they had to form separate Bahá’í communities and lose
their assembly.
About this time our beloved Guardian, Shoghi Effendi,
asked that each be divided into townships, cities, or munici-
palities and to work towards forming groups and assemblies.
This worked a hardship on us to some extent as being
new in the Faith threw us into confusion, so Dorothy Baker
was sent to us and we were asked to have a joint meeting,
which we did.
At this meeting held at the Reidel’s in their little Farm
Parlor, we all sat in a circle and Dorothy (as we all called
her) stated that we were to carry on in obedience with our
Guardian’s wishes and to work for additional members to
the Faith.
She then told us how to treat one the other and it was a
very valuable session as she told us this by not mentioning
any names. … That one should try to be obedient to the
letter of the law, but that in the growth of our groups or any
one that we must be patient, and to teach by love the funda-
mentals of the Faith, and that when this knowledge became
clear to one, he would then be obedient, that one should
not talk about any one or repeat gossip, for it hinders progress

of the Faith, that we should only speak of the good one does
and enlarge on that and he will become encouraged and try
harder to do more.
That one should not be jealous of another, that there are
many ways one can serve the Cause of Bahá’u’lláh and that
one should encourage another to work in the Faith, that to
restrict one of the Group, the spirit is killed and no progress
will be made, that in fact it will kill the spirit of the group
and it will be caused to disperse. …
That it is each person’s duty to teach the Cause of Bahá’-
u’lláh in whatever manner he can. Some teach by actions
and others by pioneering, some only by hospitality, and oth-
ers financially, but that no matter how, each must sacrifice
to give something of themselves for that only brings happi-
ness and health on one or to a group.
What a bounty this meeting was to us and later Dorothy
Beecher Baker met at our homes many times and stayed at
mine as well as at the Herbert Kamps and the Bert Beach’s
…
Dorothy will always be remembered with fondness and
love by me and many a time I [still] see her as she washed
her hands at the lavatory and would with each ablution re-
peat the obligatory prayer, in the morning.
Another remembrance [is of] when she told us to work
and that making a mistake should not discourage us as she
had made errors when she first came into the Cause …
When I think of the many, many times she journeyed
forth [to] teach Bahá’u’lláh’s Cause of the Oneness of Man-
kind and the oneness of Religion and that Bahá’u’lláh was
the Christ returned as was promised, sacrificing self and fam-
ily and her utter devotion to the Bahá’í Cause, I am ashamed
to be called a follower of this Great Faith.

She was so happy and contented doing His bidding that
herself was never thought of, but only the daily task of
living as best she could for the Cause. No time of the year or
weather or even sickness stopped her, she went forth cheer-
fully and gladly and joyously taught the beginners in the
Faith.
She not only was a Standard Bearer, but also helped to lift
the load of the weight on the weak and beginners in their
path of following the Lord of Hosts in this Day, and helped
to prepare them for the teaching of the Bahá’í Cause, to
work together and alone as best they could.
I am overcome with emotion as I think of the Bounties
bestowed upon us in this region, by the presence of strong
souls at the beginning of the Formative Age of the Bahá’í
Faith [such] as Dorothy Baker and Louis Gregory.
The little towns were segregated, but the Bahá’í Faith reached
across the racial divide. Mrs. Dake remembered Dorothy Baker
speaking of Louis Gregory to the rural Bahá’ís of her area. Dor-
othy said that Louis Gregory was the only person she knew of
who had been able to stay in the presence of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá for
more than twenty minutes while a Tablet was revealed to him—
the rest fainted.
The Bahá’ís of Hinckley and Granger decided it was time to
teach their dark skinned neighbors. Mrs. Dake arranged for Dor-
othy and Louis Gregory to speak before the black congregation of
the Second Baptist Church in Medina, Ohio. Mrs. Dake watched
as Dorothy “spoke so lovingly of Louis Gregory that tears came to
their minister’s eyes as she spoke of how ‘Abdu’l-Bahá placed him
at the Embassy table in Washington D.C.”
In Lima the Faith kept moving forward in spite of the barrier
of racism. The future Knight of Bahá’u’lláh Elsie Austin wrote:

I first met Dorothy Baker when I was a young inquirer, re-
luctantly interested in the Faith because of its newness and
because I had reached the point of disbelief in the power of
religion to change people or social circumstances. The big-
otry and prejudice in the world seemed to me at that state to
be served by religion rather than diminished.
Mrs. Baker and Mr. Frank Baker lived in Lima, an insu-
lar, reactionary, small town in Ohio, a citadel of conserva-
tism and an area once identified with activities of the Klu
Klux Klan. In the rigid climate of this city Frank and Dor-
othy Baker had opened their home for Bahá’í meetings to
which all persons were welcome. Dorothy’s special radiance
of spirit and eloquence in speech made her home a site for
regional firesides to which believers and inquirers from ci-
ties and towns within a radius of fifty miles from Lima would
come. Here the Teachings were always earnestly and beauti-
fully presented.
This was the period of the early thirties, when racism and
bigotry were the accepted way of life, and people who did
not suffer from these blights did not often have the courage
of their convictions. Because of this atmosphere the courage
and stand for human unity which the Bakers took in open-
ing their home to teach a new Faith and to persons of many
races and backgrounds was a traumatic thing for Lima. The
comings and goings of so many different people attracted
much attention, yet the Bakers were never apologetic or fur-
tive in their efforts for the Faith. Their courage and their
sincerity gave real results, for nearly every person who went
to those firesides became a dependable and predictable Bahá’í.
The July 1944 issue of Bahá’í News shows Dorothy Baker in a
photograph of nine individuals, all dressed meticulously, the two

men wearing suits, the women in corsages, pearls, or hats. These
were the speakers at a race unity banquet held in Lima. Two were
African-American women, one of them Frances Cotman. More
than fifty years later, her grandson, Dr. Ivan Louis Cotman, re-
called:
Charles, my grandfather, was a carpenter and night watch-
man at the Frank Baker Bakery which I often visited during
my teen years when I was sent from Detroit to visit my grand-
parents in the summers. As I understand it, it was my grand-
father who began to be interested in the Bahá’í Faith.
Frances, my grandmother, was a domestic for Dr. and
Mrs. Halfhill there, a local physician. I can’t recall her do-
ing anything besides being a domestic until later when she
started Cotman’s “That’s for Cats” cat hotel at 932 W. High
Street in 1947.
Neither had finished high school but when they passed
away I found books on Arabic. They had written Allah’-
u’Akbar and other Arabic words in the margin of the books.
Imagine—“Negroes” in the early fifties attempting to write
and read Arabic—very insightful.
My grandmother was very active in diverse Bahá’í activi-
ties including travelling to Bahá’í meetings in different cit-
ies. Apparently my grandmother accompanied Dorothy
Baker to a Bahá’í lecture at Kentucky State College, now
Kentucky State University, located in Frankfort, Kentucky,
the capital city. Kentucky State was then completely segre-
gated.
It was still segregated when I entered college there in 1958.
It is noteworthy that my grandmother accompanied Mrs.
Baker to an integrated affair in a period when nothing was
integrated, not even the bus station. I remember the bus

station in Mount Sterling. My father said, “You sit over here.
This is where I have to live. Bobby Kennedy can tell you
where you can sit, but I’ve got to live here, so while you’re
here, you sit on the Negro side.” These were efforts, Mrs.
Baker’s efforts and my grandmother’s, at integration.
I have memories of visiting Lima in the summer and go-
ing to the Bahá’í Center, at the home of Frank and Dorothy
Baker, about 1953 or 1954. It was a two story house where
people met—brick. You went up the porch stairs, then there
was a room on either side of the entry hall. As I recall there
were a number of blacks and whites at these prayer meetings
and this assemblage of people would pray together.
It wasn’t like Buddhist chants, but there was a cadence,
one I remember clearly, my grandmother’s favorite which I
often quote, “Is there any remover of difficulties save God?”
That prayer is powerful. It’s a legacy Mrs. Baker and Mrs.
Cotman left to me and my generation.
I recall fondly my teen experiences in Lima, including
sunrise breakfast services with the Bahá’ís at Schoonover Park.
On Sunday mornings they’d go to the park and wait for the
sun to rise. They’d have all this good food, a pot luck break-
fast, picnic tables. My point is there was outdoor social in-
teraction between blacks and whites in that very socially re-
pressive town. Mrs. Baker and my grandmother were ad-
vanced in a very segregated, monolithic, repressive atmo-
sphere which I think says something about the Bahá’í Faith,
not to mention the valor of Dorothy Baker.
My grandfather told me about the Universal House of
Justice before he died. In 1994, while serving as Deputy Su-
perintendent of the Michigan Department of Education, I
accompanied a delegation of staff from the United States
House and Senate Committees to Haifa, Israel. On Mount

Carmel, high above the Mediterranean, one can look out
and see all of Haifa. One’s attention is automatically drawn
to the golden dome of the Shrine of the Báb and the sur-
rounding gardens. I found it very emotional to realize again
these “uneducated Negroes” as they were called, living in
Lima, Ohio, of all places, would have an international per-
spective and the foresight to envision all that. I felt the Bahá’í
Faith broadened my grandparents’ perspective in a spiritual,
literary and geographical sense.
My brother Charles and I were raised as Roman Catho-
lics at my mother’s insistence. My mother had converted to
Roman Catholicism from the African Methodist Episcopal
Church, the AME church.
Some of the family ostracized my grandparents. My
mother would say things like, “Mama Frances has gone
crazy!” They just didn’t take time to understand what the
Bahá’í Faith was about. But it made sense to us. As a Unitar-
ian-Universalist, the notion of progressive revelation, of the
harmony of science and religion, of racial harmony: these
principles make sense to me.
Just a word about my father. To the day he died, I never
heard him talk about religion. I never knew what my father’s
religion was, but he always kept a picture of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá on
his dresser. My brother and I were dropped off at church on
Sundays, but he never went. I never saw him in a church.
But he would always pray, using one of those Bahá’í prayers.
I still have that picture, and his prayer book.
Allie Diehl heard of Bahá’u’lláh in Lima in 1947. Her memory
of Dorothy as a local community member stemmed solely from
the years when outside responsibilities were such that, logically,

Dorothy couldn’t have had that much energy to devote to Lima.
But for her, placing the most important over the very important
did not necessarily mean grand scale teaching over small scale.
One night, what Allie described as “a typical fall Tuesday, early in
November 1947,” she met Dorothy.
I did not really wish to go to the Bahá’í meeting, but, be-
cause we had exhausted all the possible excuses for not go-
ing, my husband and I bowed to the inevitable. Really, I did
not want to go. I had heard that the speaker was a rather
wealthy person and I must admit that contact with other
“rich” ladies had not been a pleasant experience. Frankly, I
had a strong prejudice against most anyone “rich.”
It was a small fireside where all knew each other except I
did not know Mrs. Baker. (Those present were Joe Stahl,
Mildred Stahl, Lillian Wilson, Mrs. Baker and myself.) First
impressions can be powerful and I was struck with the
thought of how this sincere, beautiful lady could possibly
be associated with “rich” people. The economic barrier was
dissolved—instantly. The lesson, too, was powerful. After
being introduced as a person who would tell about the Bahá’í
Faith, Mrs. Baker said that she would try to tell the listeners
about the Bahá’í Faith. The word “try” stays with me today
because the illustration she gave was practical and meaning-
ful.
Gesturing with her fingers to form the shape of a small
box, she developed the idea that if she had a gift to give, it
might be in a box that big. That box could be wrapped in
beautiful paper with a beautiful bow. On the box could be a
card of greeting. Yet, to have the gift within, a person would
have to open the box himself. No one else could do this for

the individual. Knowing the Bahá’í Faith is the same thing.
A person cannot be given this wonderful gift of God with-
out opening the box and taking the gift.
That fireside was long ago, but the impression of the com-
pelling personality has remained. I had experienced some-
thing that evening most people rarely have. I had met some-
one who could demonstrate her teachings through her own
life.
As a Bahá’í teacher, Dorothy had no equal. She gave me
an education that would shame many. Using the works of
the Guardian, she would use the technique of analyzing the
Writings by looking at parts of speech. We studied Pattern
of Bahá’í Life by listing the verbs, then the nouns, the adjec-
tives and the adverbs. Once the words were pointed out,
each would be counted and discussed. This has helped me
to memorize many of the prayers and given me a skill that is
invaluable.
Deepening classes would be on time, scholarly, and well-
organized. Outlining was the method used and encouraged.
She was well-prepared and would readily show the references
in the Writings. Impromptu questions on a personal level
were answered immediately, followed by a letter two or three
days later recapping her comments with a specific reference,
usually from ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. The typewritten letter would
sometimes run two pages.
Dorothy always had time to see people who wanted spe-
cial help with personal problems. A call ahead for an ap-
pointment would assure time in either the library or Pull-
man at the Elm Street home/center. The interview was never
rushed and there was time to talk through the entire con-
cern. The advice given was solid and wise. I remember her

constant admonition to obey the Administrative Order, re-
gardless of the demands placed upon the individual.
The supportive personal love that flowed back and forth be-
tween the Ohio friends was not marked by a perception on
Dorothy’s part of herself as the source. She was responsive. Her
role was not one of strict authority, but of a flexible partner in the
giving and receiving of knowledge and inspiration.
The closest role model Dorothy had was Mother Beecher. She
visited the cemetery in Lima where Mother Beecher lay buried
rather as if she were visiting a shrine. But Mother Beecher had
not dealt with the Administrative Order to the extent Dorothy
now did as the first female chairman of the National Spiritual
Assembly of the United States and Canada. No precedent had
been set in the Bahá’í community for how a woman should act
when dealing with responsibilities usually left to men. A com-
mon response is to take on a dominant attitude and subjugate
more delicate qualities. This stiffly defined approach, that women
with responsible positions should act like the men who held those
positions before them, did not find favor with Dorothy. She fluidly
combined the active, or “male,” and receptive, or “female,” as-
pects of her character, which allowed other men and women on
the National Spiritual Assembly the same freedom. Since often-
times the clarifying remark in consultation may come from the
humblest soul in any meeting, consistently taking on the role of
the wise one can be an act of ego rather than of wisdom.
As Bahíyyih Nakhjavání writes, “it is not who we are but what
we do in relation to each other that makes a jewel of our lives. No
individual, therefore, can symbolize the active force alone, or as-
sume the role of the receptive agent rigidly.”1 An inflexible, care-
fully crafted self-image as leader or follower, the kind of rigidity

Bahíyyih Nakhjavání, Response (Oxford: George Ronald, 1981), pp. 33–34.

often deemed necessary in the world, would have reduced rather
than enhanced Dorothy’s effectiveness. Instead, letting the needs
of the situation determine her action, allowing the force of truth
to have its impact, whether through herself or through another,
she did not slip behind a comfortable facade of authority figure
or of servile attendant.
Others’ perceptions of Dorothy and her own attitudes toward
herself as a follower of Bahá’u’lláh and as an administrator on
Bahá’í institutions give an interesting vision of how various quali-
ties must have combined to create the effectiveness of her admin-
istrative efforts.
Artemus Lamb
I have never been very adept at describing people, and when
it came to trying to describe Dorothy, I am sure my own
lack of capacity and experience prevented me from ad-
equately perceiving many of her qualities. I do know that I
and everyone I knew wanted to be with her at every possible
moment to try to imbibe a little of her knowledge, inspira-
tion, and love. …
At one of my first conventions in the USA … Dorothy
was chairman of the Convention. In her opening remarks
she stated that often it was thought that spirituality and
efficiency did not go together—that it was either one or the
other—however, she did not believe this was so, and she
hoped this Convention would be both spiritual and efficient.
Now as I write this, I realize that it was this balance in Dor-
othy that impressed me so greatly.
Hattie Chamberlin, a Bahá’í in Massachusetts
She was a dynamic and powerful teacher. I remember well,

at a Convention in the Temple at Wilmette, Illinois when
volunteers were asked to pioneer to Africa—Dorothy im-
mediately went to one corner of the Foundation Hall and
said, “We’ll begin right here and form the line!”
Edna True1
My next association with Dorothy was on the NSA. I was
elected in 1946. … In the early days my mother, Corinne
True, was elected chairman of the Temple Unity Commit-
tee. Dorothy was the first and until now the only woman
chairman of the NSA.2 She tossed it off.
Her sense of humor was simply superb. It trickled through
everything she did. I don’t care how serious, she always found
room for a little laugh. … So she took this in the same way.
She said, “Oh, the men can’t decide which one they want.
You watch me, Eddie. It3 will be one year—that’s all it will
last!”
The men on the NSA used to tease her a little bit, be-
cause she was rather extravagant sometimes in her vocabu-
lary. We went over one day (to an NSA meeting) right from
the Convention, where she had talked about Latin America.
She’d spoken of “girdles of immorality around South
America.” She used this expression and they never let her
forget it. And no one would laugh harder than she would at

Edna True, daughter of the Hand of the Cause of God Corinne True,
served on the National Spiritual Assembly of the United States and on the
Continental Board of Counselors for North America and played a highly
influential role in teaching the Faith in Europe.
Judge Dorothy Nelson was elected to that position in 1988.
Dorothy’s chairmanship.

herself. It was wonderful to see. They just loved to tease her
about the different expressions she would use!
Paul Haney,1 from a tape made in Haifa, Israel, May 1976
I served with Dorothy from 1946 to 1953 on the United
States National Spiritual Assembly. She was a person of such
great qualities and capacities that it is very difficult to char-
acterize them, but certainly she combined in a unique way
the qualities of both an outstanding teacher and an out-
standing administrator, and that is a combination that is not
often found. She was indeed unique in that respect, and in
both fields she had the ability to bring out the best capaci-
ties that were latent within the people with whom she was
associated in the Faith. I recall that in the difficult and often
slogging sessions of the National Assembly she had the unique
capacity and ability to raise our sights to a true concept of
the real purpose of the work we were engaged in, and what
its ultimate objective should be.
As a platform speaker on the Faith, or indeed on any sub-
ject, she had no peer. Dorothy had an ability, in an abun-
dant measure, to “go across the footlights” in a very wonder-
ful way, which for the most part only great actors and ac-
tresses possess, and she used it not to project her own per-
sonality, but to project the Teachings. Whenever she spoke
of the Faith, what she said struck home to the hearts of the
listeners. It was not just her eloquence which enabled her to
evoke such response, but also her sincerity and her dedica-
tion to the Faith, and her deep knowledge of the Teachings.

See also pp. 418–419.

All these things in combination produced an effect that
people really marveled at, and in some cases envied.
Before I became a member of the National Assembly in
Riḍván 1946, I had heard Dorothy speak and I knew that
she was a great teacher of the Faith, but I had no conception
of the extent of her administrative capacity. I was soon to
learn that. At the very first meeting which the four new mem-
bers attended, while the Convention was still going on, the
first order of business was the election of officers. To
everyone’s surprise and astonishment Dorothy was elected
chairman, the first and only woman who has ever been chair-
man of the National Assembly of the United States.1
During the conventions that followed that year, until she
went to Latin America at the time of the Convention in
1951, she served as the chairman of the annual Convention,
and set a pattern of performance that I am sure subsequent
chairmen, including myself, have striven to emulate but have
never fully succeeded.
I recall that during the 1st or 2nd year of our service to-
gether on the National Assembly, she had written the Guard-
ian asking for the bounty of pilgrimage. At that time the
Guardian replied that a trip to the goal countries in Europe
would be more meritorious. With characteristic obedience
and happiness, because the Guardian’s wish was her com-
mand, she immediately arose and made the trip to Europe
and all the goal countries in those critical early months of
the 2nd Seven Year Plan. One can imagine how much her
visits must have meant in those difficult years to the pio-
neers who were struggling to establish the Faith in those coun-

See p. 303n.

tries, and to the few believers who had at that point accepted
the Faith …
Many of the friends still living will recall the extensive
tours she made, particularly to visit colleges and universi-
ties, both colored and white, throughout the country, where
she lectured on the Faith. She was for many years the chair-
man or secretary of the College Bureau of the National As-
sembly, and she had a very great interest in this type of teach-
ing. She always had a great empathy with young people. She
attracted them always, and was able to reach them with the
Message she brought.
I had the privilege of sharing the platform with her at two
very large public meetings which were held in the middle
1940’s; one of them I believe in 1945 at the Hall of Nations
in Washington, D.C., where she and Horace Holley were
the speakers. I was the chairman and Ollie Walter Olitsky, a
very devoted Bahá’í who was a baritone with the Metropoli-
tan Opera, sang. We had an “all-Bahá’í act,” as we termed
it. This program was repeated a year or so later at Times
Hall in New York City before a very large audience. On both
occasions both Dorothy and Horace Holley rose to great
heights. Each was a gifted speaker in his own way, and the
occasion brought forth their best efforts.
One of Dorothy’s gifts and graces that I admired very
much was her beautiful command of the English language
and the ability to make thoughts come alive by using color-
ful metaphors and figures of speech which were always
dignified, but expressive, and enabled her to reach her audi-
ence in a way that few people, and none in the Faith, could
do. She was unmatched as a speaker. As I said before, it was
not just this capacity that made her so effective as a speaker,
but the combination of this with the degree of sincerity that

Dorothy had, and her knowledge of the Teachings. The com-
bination is unbeatable! …
I have spoken of her qualities as a teacher and an admin-
istrator, but this tribute would be incomplete without pay-
ing tribute to her as a friend. Dorothy was a person one
enjoyed being with not only in serving the Faith, but in any
connection. She had a wonderful sense of humor and could
enjoy a good story or a good joke. During the intense ses-
sions of the National Assembly we always relaxed around
the luncheon and dinner table, and Dorothy was always one
of the most appreciative listeners to the stories that Horace
[Holley] and I and others would bring to the table, and she
contributed a good many herself. From a man’s point of
view, I think Dorothy could be characterized as “a good
sport,” a person with a sense of humor, and a sense of fair
play, and a thoroughly enjoyable person to be with under all
sorts of circumstances.
Jokes Dorothy wrote in a small spiral notebook for breaks dur
ing NSA meetings.
“There were rewards for everybody but the audience.”
Heywood Brown: “It opened at 8:30 sharp and closed at
10:30 dull.”
Descriptions: “Fred Astaire. Can’t act. Slightly bald. Can
dance a little.” MGM Inter-Office studio memo after first
screen test, ‘33. Framed over Fred’s fireplace.
Mother: “Darling, why making faces at your bulldog?” “Well,
he started it.”

Louise Baker
The first time Mother chaired a National Convention she
found that she could not keep control of the consultation.
It tended to become heated, get off the subject, and she
couldn’t remember the order in which people had raised their
hands to speak. Finally, she called a ten-minute recess.
Mother went immediately to the Cornerstone, as she always
did when she had a problem. She was very tense and ner-
vous, and prayed, “Oh, God! I can’t handle this. What can I
do? I feel as though I were in the middle of a terrible vortex
that drags me down.”
She forced herself to take a few deep breaths, relax, and
clear her mind. Suddenly she seemed to hear a voice saying,
“In the middle of a vortex there is absolute quiet.”
Immediately she felt relaxed and confident. She went back
to Foundation Hall and proceeded to handle one of the
stormier Conventions we have had over the years. Now and
then she would simply close her eyes when things threat-
ened to get out of hand, and stand quietly for a moment or
two, to regain that calm at the heart of the vortex.
From Dorothy to Edmund and Muriel Miessler

May 16, 1947
Dearest Muriel and Ed,
Since your darling, bubbly letter came, I have been con-
sumed by the task of being chairman of Convention and of
starting another year as chairman of the NSA, and these
two things are enough to put a novice like me into an early
grave!! Only the mercy and compassion of the Beloved pulled

us through with joy and assurance and a few little jokes on
Dorothy which nobody minded very much. …
The National Assembly is going on a double schedule
this year and as chairman I will have to give full time to it,
so that it will be impossible to remain on the Inter-America.1
This takes me out of your direct field of service, but my
heart will be just as much with you as ever; I wouldn’t have
to tell you that. Tell the dear Bodes about this when you see
them and give them my heart’s love and gratitude for their
remarkable service during this first period of Brasil’s up-hill
climb.
All my love, dear ones, and fervent prayers for your con-
tinued success. We get so busy in this world that it becomes
impossible to be to each other what we should be, but I
want you to know again, here and now, that you are so near
and dear to me that words are really inadequate to describe
it and I pray God to be worthy of your friendship.
Oceans of love, your
Dorothy
Bahá’í News, June 1948: “The Divine Plan Unfolds”
The chairman, Mrs. Dorothy Baker, opened the Conven-
tion at 9:30 by asking—“What is the magic of this time?”
In answering this she said that some of it was in the num-
ber 40. She referred to Moses and the 40 years in the wilder-
ness, the 40 days Christ spent in prayer on the mountain-
top and Muḥammad’s 40 days of preparation. The Báb, she

Dorothy Baker served on the Inter-American Committee from 1944–
1951, except for 1947–48.

stated, received Letters of the Living for 40 days while the
Blessed Beauty suffered for 40 years. In this Fortieth Con-
vention, she continued, “May God assist us to make this the
hour of a new birth, for it is the Time. In Europe, on my
recent trip, so many asked me: ‘How long will this obscu-
rity last? Will you hurry?’ Mrs. Baker closed by asking: “May
we make the keynote of this Convention that we arise to
carry the Cause of God out of our own obscurity into the
Light of God, for the true aim of the Convention is the
conversion of the world ….?”
The Fortieth Convention was historic. Some highlights
were:
The triumph of surpassing the goal set by the Guard-
ian of having 175 Assemblies in the United States and
Canada … A second goal, toward which all eyes had
been turned with hope, was described by Mr. John
Robarts, who was introduced by the new name of
“Chairman of the National Spiritual Assembly of the
Bahá’ís of Canada.” With enthusiasm and assurance
Mr. Robarts said: “We have accepted the challenge of
our 5-year Plan sent by the Guardian, we are going at
it NOW and we KNOW it can be done.” He spoke of
the good judgment of the Guardian in marrying a Ca-
nadian and of the inspiring letter received from
Rúḥíyyih Khánum, in whose childhood home the Con-
vention was held. Canada, Mr. Robarts reminded those
present, was the ninth pillar in the forthcoming Inter-
national House of Justice. …
Bahá’í News, June 1948: “Canadian Bahá’í Convention, 1948”
… Dorothy baker, for the last time acting as chairman of

our joint NSA opened the Convention and conducted the
election of our Convention officers. She had come with four
other members of the NSA of the United States (how
strangely shorn that title appears) to hand over to the Cana-
dian NSA the trust shared for so long.
Our Convention chairman, John Robarts, and secretary,
Laura Davis, took their places. …
John Robarts
When the Canadian NSA was formed five members of the
United States NSA came to help us. Dorothy was one of
them. Dorothy was chairman and we had the election of
Convention officers. I was then elected chairman and sent
to occupy the chairman’s seat. Dorothy had a silk scarf with
her with a pattern on it. I found it in the chair and put it
around my shoulders, with the feeling that it was a talisman
of the chairmanship which I was carrying on. I kept it for
several years and then gave it away. I have always regretted
doing that.
Excerpts from letters to Dorothy Baker from Amatu’l-Bahá
Rúḥíyyih Khánum

Haifa
July 14, 1947.
Dearest Dorothy,
This letter is not going to be very coherent because I am
always in a hurry. I suspect you live in very much the same
atmosphere and know what it means to always have a new
task treading on the heels of the one you are still doing.

I am so glad that you and Louise are now going to be able
to go to Europe and I think that your visit there will make a
big difference. …
Aren’t you ever going to grow old? I should think other
Bahá’ís at home would feel like tearing their hair out when
they see you turn up, year after year, with the same girlish
figure and the same sweet face. … How I wish we could see
each other! I long to stretch my mind in the presence of
some mature believers, if you know what I mean. I miss the
wonderful talks that I used to have with my mother. …
I did not mind a bit your writing to me in pencil, and any
word from you is always very dear to me, but knowing how
busy you are, I don’t think I should expect you to answer
me, any more than you should expect me to answer you.
A heartful of love to you.
Rúḥíyyih

PS. In reading this over I find it very inadequate. It was dic-
tated and I can’t be really at home with a non-Bahá’í stenog-
rapher from here. On the other hand I just cannot do the
Guardian’s mail and my own long hand. I get too tired and
have not the time. There is so much I should like to just
ramble along with you about … next time maybe. Now it is
eleven and if I don’t go to bed I can’t work properly tomor-
row. So often I wish I were at least two people!

October 20, 1948
Dearest Dorothy,
From afar I gather my own impressions of the Cause in
America and tho I may be very wrong here are some of them.

It sometimes seems to me in the effort to establish the ad-
ministration soundly the friends are going to the other ex-
treme and flooding a relatively small community with oceans
of procedure and red tape. Highly efficient races, like the
Germans and the Americans, who like to organize, have a
tendency to over-organize and get out details for every single
contingency that may ever conceivably arise. This is easy to
do, for to tell other people where to get off is a pleasure, to
make rules is so much easier than to follow them! But don’t
you think it kills initiative and makes people afraid of doing
the wrong thing, of breaking a rule? …
Forgive me for pouring out all this. But it is close to my
heart and your letter called forth these thoughts and I feel to
you I can always say what is in my heart, though I may be
wrong. Too often one sees in assemblies the attitude, “we
have the power, and you must obey.” Of course this is true.
But the wielding of power is an art. To lead gently is so
much stronger than to drive harshly and creates unity and
cooperation. …
Forgive this long scribble! Much love goes to you always,
and I long for the day we will meet.
Rúḥíyyih
Eunice Braun1
Around 1948, in the spring or summer, when I was studying
the Faith, Dorothy gave several firesides in the Chicago area.

An author, editor, and publisher who served at the U.S. Bahá’í Publishing
Trust for twenty years, Eunice Braun later became a member of the Auxiliary
Board, serving in the southern United States.

When I could find out where she would be speaking I would
come and listen to her. At one fireside there was a woman
there who dressed very exotically. She taught some kind of
religious philosophy on which she held classes. She had a
certain charisma, but she also had a certain arrogance about
her, as if she knew she was in command. She was not a Bahá’í,
but had come to hear Dorothy.
When Dorothy spoke she was very powerful, but at the
same time there was a tremendous humility about her. I wasn’t
a Bahá’í at the time. I had talked to the other woman, and
was deeply impressed by the difference between them. …
One evening at Louhelen she invited me to come to her
room to talk. A man named H—was there, who had had
his voting rights removed. I had run into him at different
places. He had caused great trouble in several places I had
been—great dissension. (He was very annoying to me, be-
cause I could see that he was just a troublemaker in the Faith.)
Apparently he was to meet with the National Assembly the
following weekend. He stopped Dorothy and wanted to talk
with her. I don’t remember just what was said, but she said
something like, “Just what is the Faith worth to you?” She
was a different person—like a lioness. She didn’t raise her
voice or anything, but her eyes blazed, and it was very pow-
erful. I thought at the time, “If I were that man, I’d drop
dead!”
He left, and we walked on as if it had never happened at
all. Some people say that Dorothy was all sweetness and light.
No, that isn’t true. She was a lioness in the Cause of God.
There’s no doubt about that. I think that she had an ability
to absorb the spirit so that when she was with people it
affected them very, very deeply. She had the ability to be
such a channel that the love came through to people. Some-

times, I think, people attributed that purely to personality,
but I don’t think it was that. She really was such a channel.
Motives purified by tests, skills honed by service, heart afire
through prayer and study and love, Dorothy saw the world in
desperate need. The 1940s was the time when she stepped into
the international field.

Chapter 18
International arena and Louise Baker, 1943–51
In 1940 Louise Baker turned eighteen and Bill seventeen. Univer-
sity or the family business were the obvious choices for Bill, but
Louise wasn’t so sure. At the last minute she decided to forgo her
fall enrollment at Rollins College, majoring in history, and apply
to Scudder Secretarial School in New York. Frank and Dorothy
were more than a little surprised with her answer when they asked
about the reason behind her change of plans. She said she had
decided to move to South America, but thought she would need
a skill to support herself there. Louise had a good background in
Spanish already and she had decided to train as a bilingual secre-
tary. Neither Frank nor Dorothy knew quite how to respond to
this surge of independence from their daughter, who seemed sud-
denly transformed from a rambunctious teenager to a strong-willed
young woman with her own ideas about how she wanted to live.
The two of them talked it over. Frank was against an interna-
tional move from the start, but Dorothy was more open. The In-
ter-America Committee was in need of pioneers in South America.
She was delighted that her daughter might be able to go. Another
single young woman might not be hardy enough, but Dorothy
knew Louise and her strengths. If she had the will to go, Dorothy
was in favor of letting her try.
The next summer, with Louise home from secretarial school
for vacation, Dorothy was doubly glad of their decision. She was

doing a lot of writing, and her daughter’s new typing skills were
very useful.
On January 1, 1943, Louise was on her way to Bogota, Co-
lombia. Reports to the Inter-America Committee and home to
her parents were positive. Dorothy began making plans to visit
the young Bahá’í community where “Winnie Lou” lived. She de-
cided to learn Spanish first and, in her typical style, set up a class
so that anyone else in Lima who wanted to learn could join her.
Frank bought some Spanish language records, and Dorothy
managed to stay one lesson ahead of the class she taught, which
was made up mostly of Bahá’ís. She planned to leave Lima in
December for a two-month teaching trip, beginning in Bogota.
On December 10 Horace Holley, the secretary of the National
Spiritual Assembly, sent her a cable from Wilmette:
WE ALL FEEL ASSURED SPLENDID RESULTS YOUR IMPORTANT UN-
DERTAKING MAY YOUR INFLUENCE GUIDE AND INSPIRE PRECIOUS
NUCLEUS FAITH IN COLOMBIA

Upon her arrival at the Colonial Hotel in Miami, Florida, the last
stop before her flight to South America, Dorothy received a cable
that must have given her heart wings:
FERVENT PRAYERS ACCOMPANYING YOU LOVING APPRECIATION SHOGHI RABBANI

Louise found that “by the time Dorothy got to Bogota she had a
good base of Spanish to build on, but could not carry on even a
simple conversation. She spoke, naturally enough, at many meet-
ings, and I translated for her.”
This method worked, but Dorothy was determined to put her
limited Spanish to use. She told Louise which stories she wanted

to use in her talks and asked Louise to tell them to her in the
simplest Spanish. Keeping the verbs in the present tense wherever
possible, Louise told her the same story five, maybe six, or even
seven times, trying to use the same words to make the job of
learning them easier. Louise carefully translated every sentence at
the next public talk, but right in the middle Dorothy launched
into her Spanish story, to the enthusiastic response of her listen-
ers.
After several weeks in Bogota, Dorothy and Louise traveled to
Barranquilla, Colombia, especially to visit an early Colombian
Bahá’í, Señor Carlos Nieto. In a letter to the Inter-America Com-
mittee, mailed just before leaving Colombia for Venezuela, Dor-
othy wrote:
Upon arrival (in Bogota) I found six believers confirmed by
Mr. Gerard Sluter. The two classes being conducted, one by

41. The Inter-America Committee in the mid-1940s:
Edna True, Virginia Orbison, Mrs. Barton, Dorothy Baker,
and Amelia Collins.

42. Bogota, Colombia, 1944: election of the first Local Spiritual
Assembly. Dorothy Baker, a visitor, is sitting second from the right.
Louise Baker is standing second from the left.

Mr. Sluter and one by Winifred Louise Baker, were courte-
ously turned over to the visitor and opened to guests. A class
in Dispensation of Bahá’u’lláh was organized for believers and
close students, and teas and conferences were arranged for
others. You all doubtless know now the joyous news that
two new believers have enrolled, and that the Guardian and
the National Assembly approved an immediate election. I
hope that the report has reached you safely. Several more are
close.
The weeks in Colombia had improved Dorothy’s Spanish to the
extent that she arrived in Venezuela with a stock of Bahá’í stories

and enough vocabulary to locate and talk to the native contacts
who had learned of the Faith from earlier teachers and pioneers.
She recorded with enthusiasm what must have been difficult ma-
neuvers on her first foreign teaching trip.
The extreme cordiality of the people forbids the “foreign”
feeling in Caracas. What a happy task it was to find, one by
one, the friends of Gwenne Sholtis, former pioneer, and re-
mind them of the great Cause which had been the object of
her love and devotion while among them. They had not
forgotten, and some of them were glad to come to the little
meetings at the Gran Americana. Delightful contacts of Mr.
and Mrs. Emeric Sala were later added, and new friends found
their way to the little gatherings. Through the courtesy of
Sra Trina Courlaender, editor of the magazine Pro-America,
and president of the National Club for the Union of Ameri-
can Women, a world of friendships opened up. The meet-
ings grew to about forty in attendance.
At the close of a period of five weeks, eight historic souls
accepted the joy and responsibility of the World Order un-
der the Guardian, and in addition, one youth, and one adult
who lacked permanent residency. Sra Courlaender herself
became one of the group that organized on that memorable
night. All were present when Dr. David Escalante was elected
the first Secretary, and all assisted in laying the first plans for
feasts and regular classes.1
The Caribbean, Mexico, Central America, and South America
received numerous visits from Dorothy over the next few years.
Viva Lismore, born to Swedish parents, moved to Cuba with her
husband in 1936, unaware of the existence of the Bahá’í Faith.

“Excerpts from an Inter-America Report Received Prior to the Convention,”
in Bahá’í News, no. 169 (July 1944), pp. 7-8.

She wrote that a friend, Josephine Kruka,
‘phoned me up and invited me to attend a lecture by Rose-
mary Sala, but at the time I could not gather up sufficient
energy to attend anything, as my family and myself were in
deep sorrow over the passing of our eldest son, Hugo, killed
in action on June 6, 1944. However, I invited Miss Kruka
and Rosemary Sala as well as Jean Silver for tea. They stayed
for several hours but never mentioned the word “Bahá’í.” I
remember Rosemary told me that I had a highly spiritual
nature. When they invited me to come and hear another
travelling teacher, Dorothy Baker, speak, I felt I could not
refuse.
When I arrived at the large hall where she gave her talk,
the two resident pioneers were at the door welcoming the
guests. They asked [me] to join the group sitting on the
platform, but I preferred to sit with the audience. I felt rather
upset by the fact that the translator was not conveying into
Spanish what Dorothy Baker was saying in English. I sat
there, listening to Dorothy Baker speak, a trim figure on the
platform, wearing a small hat, and quite suddenly I saw a
halo of light around her head. I asked my neighbor whether
she could see it, and she replied, “No.” Again, I asked her if
she could see this halo of light around the speaker’s head,
which was gradually becoming brighter. Her negative an-
swer surprised me. At this moment, Dorothy Baker said:
“Anyone who wishes to hear more about Bahá’u’lláh can come
to the Bahá’í Centre for the next ten days where I shall be
seeing the friends mornings and evenings.” I had never heard
this word “Bahá’u’lláh” before, and it went straight to my
heart and has never left since. From then on my life changed

entirely. I felt that I had embarked on a journey without a
compass, but also I felt confident that the journey would be
guided, protected and illumined.
In 1945 Dorothy Baker was in Mexico on a delicate mission for
the National Spiritual Assembly. Her goal was to disentangle the
nascent Bahá’í community from the grip of a spiritualist who
tried to control the friends.
On the way there Dorothy shared a train compartment with
Gayle Woolson. Amelia Collins accompanied them to the station
in Chicago. Gayle wrote,
While at the depot waiting for the train on which Dorothy
and I had a reserved compartment, we sat at a small round
table with metal legs in a restaurant of the station where we
had coffee and talked. I basked in the light of their presence
and inspiring conversation which revolved principally around
the guidelines given by the Guardian to consolidate and ex-
pand the work of the Faith in Latin America. The love for
the Guardian and the desire to follow his guidance was up-
permost in our hearts. … When the departure of our train
was announced, dear Millie, as we lovingly called her, re-
cited by heart, with profound feeling and sincerity, the Tab-
let of Visitation by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. The spirit of it accompa-
nied us on our journey. …
When Dorothy and I were settled in our compartment,
one of the first things she talked about was the magnificent
and thrilling new book of the Guardian, God Passes By—a
classic—which recently had been published. As yet, I had
not read it. She conveyed that it is a gem-like, ingenious
presentation of a summary of the first eventful one hundred

years of the Bahá’í Faith—1844 to 1944. … Dorothy car-
ried a copy of the book with her. How profoundly she trea-
sured it.
Among the things that Dorothy related to me in the course
of our journey was an episode in God Passes By about a criti-
cal period at the time of the early Bábís. Bahá’u’lláh told
them in part to recite the prayer of the Báb, which we call
the Remover of Difficulties, five hundred times. She then
said, “Let us say that prayer five hundred times for special
assistance with the work in Mexico.” I was delighted. Settled
for prayer in our compartment, she tore up some paper into
small pieces with which to keep count. We took turns say-
ing the prayer a number of times each (ten or twenty). When
we finished, it felt as though [we] were endowed with re-
newed vitality and fortified with a new spirit, inner peace
and a feeling of assurance that success would be obtained.
The train stopped at San Antonio, Texas, for a consider-
able length of time—perhaps an hour or so. The passengers
were able to leave the train. … Dorothy and I went out and,
for exercise, we walked up and down a stretch of the tracks
on the wood planks between the rails and talked. … She
always had something interesting and instructive to say. One
continually learned from her. …
Mexico City was reached about September 21st, 1945.
Dorothy and I settled in a moderately priced hotel. Our room
had a small parlor where friends could be received. …
Identifying the man who exerted such power over the Bahá’í
community was simple enough, but removing his negative influ-
ence was another matter. Dorothy first held a special meeting at
which she explained to the Bahá’ís the need to keep the Faith in
its pure form rather than introduce a lot of unrelated practices

and beliefs. To the man who was using his psychic practices to
influence and gain control over the new Bahá’ís, Dorothy spoke
with great strength. At one point Rosemary Sala, who with her
husband Emeric pioneered for fourteen years in South Africa,
then in Mexico, accompanied Dorothy to call upon the individual.
Rosemary was repulsed by the man’s countenance. Looking into
his eyes she saw a dark, treacherous abyss and felt the presence of
personified evil. Shocked and repelled, Rosemary asked, “Dor-
othy, how can you be near him?”
“Well, he’s a human soul, and going through his own tragedy.
We must either let him cut himself away, or receive him and change
him.”
After meeting with him, Dorothy settled on a method of offer-
ing the Bahá’ís an alternative to his totally dominant influence.
Rosemary Sala remembered,
We sat in the park in the middle of the Avenida de la
Reforma, and she said the Long Healing Prayer, which
Marzieh Gail had just translated, and we repeated it together.
In the evening when we saw Dorothy, she said that she had
had this inspiration. She was going to hunt for a new Cen-
ter. She would tell the Bahá’ís about the new Center, and
would invite all of them to come. Those who came to the
new Center would be considered the members of the new
community of Bahá’ís in Mexico City. … This was the way
she healed the situation, without causing any disunity, or
any disagreement, or any discussion between the believers,
which was perfect. They made their own choice freely. No
enmity was caused. This was a wonderful example of her
wisdom and gentleness.
In fact Gayle Woolson recalled that at the community gathering

a Bahá’í lady offered her home as the new meeting place. It was
large and modern and served the community well. The leader of
the spiritualism group and his family dropped out of the Faith,
and an election was held to fill the vacancies on the Local Spiri-
tual Assembly.
With the strain and tension gone from the community, inac-
tive Bahá’ís even began to reappear. With Mexico City strength-
ened, Dorothy felt able to spend the last part of her trip teaching
in Puebla and Vera Cruz.

In April 1945 Louise Baker had arrived in Caracas, Venezuela, to
help form the first Local Spiritual Assembly in Venezuela. There
she found Yolanda Stronach, one of the women whom Dorothy
had taught more than a year earlier during her first South Ameri-
can visit. With her one pamphlet and Spanish prayer book,
Yolanda had held together and strengthened the first few Bahá’ís
of Venezuela, almost all of them women.
In February 1946 Dorothy and Frank left Lima to visit Louise
and travel through Jamaica and Cuba on their return. Arriving in
Caracas, they found a small, thriving Bahá’í community. Dor-
othy gave numerous classes there.
One evening Dorothy, Louise, and several of the Venezuelan
friends were at a meeting in Yolanda’s home. The class, like others
she gave, had been advertised in the newspaper. Late into the
evening there was a knock at the door. Yolanda opened it and
found two men standing outside.
“Is a Mrs. Baker in this house?”
Their presence didn’t seem inspired by any spiritual quest. They
were direct enough, but somehow suspect. In an effort to be cour-
teous yet cautious, Yolanda said, “Did you read about Mrs. Baker’s
visit in the paper, or are you friends of some of the Bahá’ís?”
“Neither. Is she here?”

Hearing this exchange from the couch where she sat, Dorothy
went to the door. “I’m Mrs. Baker. Do you wish to see me?”
“Yes, we have a message.”
They came into the small parlor, their eyes on Dorothy, not
even glancing at the rest of the people in the room. The taller one
stood quietly, but before Yolanda could even close the door or ask
them to sit down, the other one began to speak.
“A man came to us with a message for Mrs. Baker.”
Again Dorothy said, “I am Mrs. Baker.”
The two men looked at one another, presumably for a signal
that each believed this was the woman they had come to find.
Their expressions didn’t change, but some sign must have passed
between them because after a long pause the shorter man spoke
again.
“In our practice we receive messages. This one is for you. A
man in robes, dark hair, dark beard, wishes us to extend his greet-
ings to Mrs. Baker. You are Mrs. Baker. Greetings from the Báb.”
The room remained quite still. Those who weren’t sure they’d
heard correctly didn’t even whisper their questions. Dorothy, who
had been staring dispassionately into the speaker’s face, then at
the tall man’s unmoving features, asked “How did you receive
this message?”
“He came to us in our practice and told us where to find you.”
“What is your practice?”
“We are spiritualists. We meet to receive word from other
worlds.”
“Would you like to know more about the man who spoke with
you? About the Báb?”
“The Báb asked us to do his bidding, and we have. Nothing
else is necessary.”
They turned and let themselves out, leaving Dorothy looking
after them, and the rest of the room looking to Dorothy.

On that same visit to Caracas, a native Bahá’í woman came to
Dorothy’s hotel after attending several of her classes and asked to
speak in private. Dorothy’s Spanish was still limited, but Louise
was there and able to translate. The three of them went outside
into the garden and sat in a sunny corner, hidden from the lobby
of the hotel by a semicircle of shrubs and trees. As soon as they
were seated the Venezuelan woman began to cry. Through her
tears came disconnected pleas for help and a jumbled narrative of
her problems. Louise struggled to understand, translating into
English whatever short phrases she could glean from the woman’s
desperate staccato that melted at times into moaning sobs. The
problems seemed hopelessly severe, but the details were unintelli-
gible.
“I don’t know what to do, Muzz. She’s so upset I can’t under-
stand what she’s saying.”
In surprise Dorothy turned to her daughter and said, “Why,
Sweetie, it’s perfectly clear. You go along while she and I talk.”
Horrified by what seemed to be the huge dimensions of the
woman’s problems and amazed that her mother could understand
the garbled, almost senseless explanations, Louise left them to
themselves. Two hours later they came in from the garden, the
native woman looking refreshed and calm. With fond tenderness
they kissed each other good-bye on both cheeks, and the woman
left.
Louise Baker had her own problems to contend with, as Dorothy
wrote in a letter dated October 13, 1945.
Winnie Lou is sick. Dangerously low blood count; pos-
sible parasites. Wants to stay but has to give up her job. Pray
for her when we can, dearest. She feels failure in Caracas,

but I think it is her health; and being just too tired and busy.
There is a little heart-break in her letter. Someone has said
that pioneering is ecstasy and tears, and I think it is true.
Every country has its ransom. Maybe her health is just that.
The mother of Ashraf said, “Go thou straight on, my son!”
Bahá’í News, May 1946, reported, “Mr. and Mrs. Frank Baker
have recently returned home after visiting Assemblies in Caracas,
Venezuela; Kingston, Jamaica; and Havana, Cuba. Louise Baker
is remaining in Caracas until after the election.”
Shortly after Dorothy’s return from South America, having sent
reports on Riḍván elections, the state of Inter-America Commit-
tee goals, and questions, she received correspondence from Shoghi
Effendi that included the following postscript in his own hand:
Dear and valued co-worker:
I am truly grateful to you for your magnificent services,
rendered in such an exemplary spirit, over so wide a field,
despite so many obstacles, and with such distinction. Perse-
vere in your high endeavors, and remember always that the
Beloved is well pleased with the standard of your work, and
that my loving and continued prayers will continue to be
offered on your behalf at the holy Shrines,
Your true and grateful brother,
Shoghi
(March 15, 1946)

Four and a half months later Rúḥíyyih Khánum, on behalf of
Shoghi Effendi, wrote to Dorothy,
He will pray for all those you mentioned in your letters—

but particularly for your dear daughter Louise, who seems
to be following most rapidly and closely in her devoted
mother’s footsteps!
In the same letter the Guardian wrote,
Dear and valued co-worker:
The expansion of your activities as a result of the inaugu-
ration of the new Plan will enable you to display, to a still
greater extent, the magnificent qualities that have distin-
guished in recent years your unique services to the Faith of
Bahá’u’lláh. I am proud of, and feel deeply grateful for, these
services. Persevere in your glorious and historic task, and
rest assured that I will continue to pray for you from the
depths of my heart.
Your true & grateful brother,
Shoghi

In the spring of 1946, just after Dorothy’s teaching trip to South
America, the needs of that continent fresh in her heart and mind,
Ed and Muriel Miessler visited the Bakers to talk about Regional
Teaching Committee work. Ed’s first wife, Elma, had died in 1939.
Ed and Elma had dreamed of pioneering when the children were
grown. Now Elma was gone. Ed still thought of pioneering, but
there was a new family situation, and the children, Margot and
Bob, were teenagers now and still in school. Muriel was a fairly
new Bahá’í, having declared her belief about the time she and Ed
married. Life was full enough of change and new responsibilities.
The moment had never seemed quite right to add starting over in
a new country.
Sitting together as the comfortable breeze of a cool Ohio after-

noon blew through the living room, surrounded by the familiar,
easy spirit of the house where both her guests had learned about
the Bahá’í Faith, Dorothy said to Ed and Muriel, “Now just what
is it that is keeping you from going pioneering? We need pioneers
in Latin America.”
The reasons seemed too numerous to even begin to explain,
but the only one that came to mind was that the children were in
school. Later, after more than thirty years at their post in Brazil,
Ed still recalled how simply Dorothy put the problem into per-
spective. “Bob will be graduating from high school and going to
college. Margot has only one more year of high school. She can
be our daughter during that year. Why don’t you say the Tablet of
Aḥmad every day for nineteen days? Then come back and let’s
talk it over.”
Long before the nineteen days passed, the Miesslers were back,
offering to go anywhere they were needed in South America. In
September Dorothy said good-bye to Ed and Muriel, two more
of what she called “the people of destiny”—pioneers.1

Sept. 25, ‘46
Goodbye, darlings of Bahá’u’lláh!
Anchors away! Vayan con Dios! May the Angels attend you.
Take along this bit of dust from the inner shrine of shrines.

Edmund and Muriel Miessler set sail for Brazil on September 25, 1946.
They both served valiantly for their entire lives. In 1952 Ed was named a
member of the Auxiliary Board by the Hands of the Cause. His territory was
all of South America and the Falkland Islands. For more information see Muriel
Miessler, Pioneering in Brazil: Our Glorious Spiritual Adventure (Brazil: Editora
Bahá’í, 1986).

Bahá’u’lláh Himself calls it potent, and our Guardian calls
it potent. And this, dear Muriel, is a quotation to which you
will turn in time of need, facing the Blessed Spot, and you
will know that the holy Navváb is actually gifted to assist
you when assemblies, committees, yes, and the dearest of
friends, are powerless to help you. Never be afraid. We have
human hearts that become deeply troubled; did not the heart
of our adored Master cry out many times? But not with fear.
“He who does not love God fears all things, but he who
loves God, all things fear him.” …
You are like the pearl to which the Master likened dear
May Maxwell when He said, “One pearl is better than a
thousand wildernesses of sand. When that pearl associates
with and becomes the intimate of the pebbles, they also
change into pearls.”
Eternal love,
Dorothy

Dorothy and Frank watched over the Miessler children, though
they lived with Muriel Miessler’s sister until joining their parents
in Brazil. On May 16, 1947 Dorothy wrote to Ed and Muriel that
Bob and Margot, “both came to Convention, the cute things,
and were right in the very heart of the Youth activities.”
When Louise Baker was in the United Sates between pioneer
posts, she served as recording secretary of the Inter-America Com-
mittee. But Dorothy had to leave service on that committee for a
time, as she said to the Miesslers in a letter written on June 2.
NSA is almost doubling the number of its meetings this
year and all National Assembly members are asked to relin-
quish membership on national committees. Edna True is
the lone exception to this, because the European work is still

43. Rice Lake Summer School, 1946: Lloyd Gardner, Annamarie
Mattoon, Louise Baker, Bill Baker.

so new. I have taken on the chairmanship of the NSA for a
second year and that will keep me pretty busy for a while
longer, of course, so I am thankful to be relieved. All the
same, I am homesick for Latin American news. I attend IAC
meetings once in a while when special conferences come up,
and in making overall plans, but I have no fresh news of
anyone, and miss it terribly. You will have to write me nice
long, newsy letters now, so I won’t be an orphan. You are my
darling dears, anyway, and will always be, though commit-
tees may come and go. …

I must close; this was meant only to be a note to tell you
how we loved having Bob. He is the most thoughtful, con-
siderate boy we have ever seen! We only wish it could have
been Margo, too, but she got away before we had a chance
at her.1 The Miesslers will soon all be together again and
then watch old Brasil!
Louise Caswell—an American who pioneered in several Central
American countries including Guatemala from 1953 to 1975, then
Yucatan, Mexico—served on the first regional National Spiritual
Assembly of Central America, Mexico, and the Antilles. While
Louise Caswell was still in Panama, her first pioneering post,
Dorothy wrote to her:
A thousand thanks for your beautiful gift, dear friend. It is a
symbol of something precious to me. The pioneers are the
“men of the unseen,” the people of destiny, of whom the
future will sing. To have been favored by one of them is
lovelier than I can express. It is a strange thing, dear Louise,
that when I think of you tears come to my eyes. It is a warm,
tender thing, and I am conscious that I did not create it.
The National Assembly is proud of all of you. Each is as
a thousand.
Lovingly always,
Dorothy

Margot and Bob joined Ed and Muriel in Brazil in 1947. Margot went on
to become a traveling teacher and pioneer in several countries including Uru-
guay, Puerto Rico, Honduras and the Pacific. Bob, like Muriel and Ed, eventu-
ally served on the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Brazil and
traveled to teach the Bahá’í Faith in many parts of the world.

In one year over thirty Bahá’ís left Lima for homefront or in-
ternational goals. But in Dorothy’s opinion a Bahá’í did not have
to be a pioneer to attain one of the greatest blessings of pioneer-
ing. She felt the pioneers were more successful in teaching than
those who stayed home because, in her words, “they are God-
centered. Everything revolves around their pioneering work, and
everything else is subordinate to it. Wherever you are, strive al-
ways to be God-centered.” Dorothy wrote the Miesslers at their
post in Brazil in January 1947, the same year Ed and Muriel helped
form the first Local Spiritual Assembly of São Paulo.
Frank and I are setting out for Mexico immediately after the
January session of NSA, speaking in Cincinnati and Louis-
ville on the way, and, of course, giving Louise a hand in
Mexico. If you want to catch me soon, write in care of Louise,
c/o US Consul in Vera Cruz. I expect to be there in mid-
Feb. She is doing a wonderful job and doesn’t need me at all.
This is Frank’s idea! And there is a possibility that Bernsteins
will go along.
I can ill afford the time, but Frank says I never will have
time and this is THE time to go!! Looks awfully like a vaca-
tion to me, dears.
Well, I must pack, as I get off day after tomorrow, not to
return. Frank (and perhaps the Bernsteins) will meet me in
Cincinnati later.
I can be reached by cable c/o Horace, up to Jan. 21.
I love you both so that it sometimes hurts, actually. I do
want you both to know that you are of the nearest and dear-
est friends I have in this world and the next.
Your
Dorothy

In Mexico the trip turned from vacation to teaching. Louise
was living in Vera Cruz but traveled by bus every week to Coatepec,
outside of Jalapa, where she gave an English class for contacts one
night, went teaching the next day, and then on the second night
gave a fireside-deepening. The following morning she would leave
Coatepec for Puebla, where she had a similar schedule, and then
take the bus to Mexico City for another two days—one night at a
deepening, the next assisting the Local Spiritual Assembly. On
the seventh day she would travel back to Vera Cruz to try to acti-
vate the small Bahá’í group there.
On her first day in Vera Cruz Dorothy told Louise the schedule
was too much for anyone and suggested dropping that city. Ex-
hausted from constant bone-shaking bus rides, sleeping two nights
a week on a plank bed with only a cotton blanket for a mattress
and two other nights in a single bed shared with one of the native
Bahá’í women, Louise took her mother’s advice. Frank and Dor-
othy helped her move to a comfortable room in Puebla.
In Coatepec, after Dorothy gave a talk, Louise took her par-
ents to a hotel in nearby Jalapa rather than to the small family
home where she usually stayed. High above sea level, cloudy, cold
and wet, Jalapa had a gruesome effect on Dorothy. She had often
suffered from asthma in certain climates, but Louise, who wrote
her account of that night, had never witnessed it before.
That night in Jalapa she couldn’t lie down. She couldn’t even
relax in an armchair. Her breathing was painfully raucous.
She spent the entire night sitting totally erect in a straight
chair, not even able to lean back. That way she could breathe,
although her breath rasped with every inhalation. I wanted
to go on up to Puebla, where the air was drier, but she
wouldn’t hear of it. “I’ll be just fine,” she told me. “You go

to sleep and don’t worry about me. I’ve had this often enough
before, and know what to do. I’ll just say a few prayers.”
When I told her I’d stay up and keep her company, she sent
me off to bed. It was abundantly clear that, close as we were,
this was a time she needed to be alone. I woke up several
times during the night, to see her still sitting in her chair,
the personification of Victorian “good posture,” her breath
rattling into her lungs. I spoke to her the first time or two,
but not after that, because she seemed to have retreated so
far into herself, and looked so utterly peaceful in spite of the
noisy breathing and rigid posture, that she had difficulty in
coming to the surface to answer me.
While the Bakers helped their daughter move and visited some
of the small towns where Louise had been teaching, the Bernsteins,
who had traveled with Frank and Dorothy from the United States,
flew to Mexico City to wait for their friends. The four of them
had planned a side trip to Cuernavaca, Taxco, and Acapulco, but
when the Bakers returned to Mexico City, Dorothy asked if the
others would mind going on without her so she could stay and
help the Bahá’ís there and in Louise’s goal towns. The little group
left, and Dorothy carried on with the work she wanted to do.
From Puebla she wrote to the Guardian about plans and goals
in Mexico and South America, among them the goal of forming
one new Local Spiritual Assembly. To her delight that Riḍván,
what she called “Louise’s two new assemblies,” Puebla and Coate-
pec, both formed.

Dorothy’s plans for the following winter included a teaching trip
to Europe. The second Seven Year Plan had begun in 1946, the
“second collective enterprise undertaken in American Bahá’í his-

tory.” It became known as “the European Campaign,” as Europe
was the “preeminent goal.”1 Louise was not sure where she should
serve. On June 21, 1947, Amatu’l-Bahá Rúḥíyyih Khánum wrote
to Dorothy, on behalf of the Guardian:
… The work your dear daughter is doing is very much
appreciated. … In regard to her future plans: he feels that,
although she can render valuable services in Latin America,
the work in Europe at present is more urgent, particularly in
Spain. He, therefore, urges you to, by all means, take her to
Europe with you and try to arrange for her to remain in
Spain, or, if that is not possible, in Portugal. … Please give
his loving greetings to Mr. Baker and assure him of how
greatly he admires the spirit of sacrifice he shows in enabling
you to serve so constantly ….
Dear and prized co-worker:
I deeply regret the delay in acknowledging the receipt of
your letters and reports which I have read with interest, grati-
tude and admiration. You are truly rendering in both the
teaching and administrative fields services which posterity
will gratefully remember and extol. The friends praise and
admire the spirit you manifest, the ability, the devotion and
zeal with which you promote the manifold interests of the
Faith. You should feel happy, grateful and confident. The
work in Europe stands in great need of workers such as you,
and I pray that you and your dear daughter may be guided
and richly blessed in this new and highly meritorious activ-
ity in the European field. Persevere in your noble task and

Priceless Pearl, pp. 402–3.

rest assured that the Beloved is watching over you and is
well pleased with the standard of your achievements.
Your true and grateful brother,
Shoghi

Louise decided this might be the perfect time for her mother
to receive permission to go on pilgrimage. Since she would be
traveling to Europe as well, Shoghi Effendi might allow them
both to go. Together they wrote to the Guardian and, on January
4, 1948, received the following reply.
Dear Bahá’í Friends,
Your letter to our beloved Guardian, dated Dec. 19th has
been received, and he has instructed me to answer you both
on his behalf.
He is delighted to see your plans for Europe and that you
both, each in a special field and way, are going to be able to
render such valuable and much needed services. You may be
sure that his thoughts and special prayers will be with you as
you labour for the Faith.
In the sad and dangerous condition this country is in at
present, it seems that pilgrimages to Haifa will be once more
postponed, owing to circumstances, for some time! How-
ever, he assures you both that he hopes the day will come
when together you can visit this sacred land. You would be
more than welcome, you know.
The increasingly confused situation in the world is caus-
ing a like confusion, it would seem, in the minds of men.
All the believers can do is to cling steadfastly and calmly to
the Faith and its teachings, and try to reach with the Mes-
sage those seeking for it, and to give the comfort and hope
we, as followers of Bahá’u’lláh, possess to all those they meet.

He greatly values and admires the services your family is
rendering the Faith in this period of the world’s greatest need.
With warm love
R. Rabbani
Dear and valued co-workers:
I greatly welcome the news of your contemplated trip to
Europe and of the aid and support you will both extend to
the pioneers in Europe. You will, thereby, be enriching the
splendid record of your past services, and setting a noble
example to your fellow-workers in the North American con-
tinent. My fervent and loving prayers will accompany and
surround you wherever you labour. Be happy, persevere in
your historic and glorious task and rest assured that the Be-
loved is well pleased with you and will bless your work.
Your true and grateful brother
Shoghi

A photo in Bahá’í News shows mother and daughter smiling
into the camera, the two of them looking uncannily like sisters.
The caption reads, “Miss Louise Baker sailed January 13th as pio-
neer to Portugal, and Mrs. Dorothy Baker flew to Europe January
12th to lecture in ten goal countries.”1
Dorothy wrote to friends on Christmas Day, before leaving.
Dear Ones,
This is goodbye. Louise and I start immediately for Eu-
rope, and oh how we want your prayers! Will you have one
daily for us? My help to Europe is especially thin, as it has to
be the fast-moving itinerant kind. If you lined my pockets

Bahá’í News, February 1948, p. 7.

44. On their way to Europe: Louise and Dorothy Baker,
January 1948.

with a million dollars in American money it would not com-
pare to the gift of fervent, real prayer every day now. It is a
pea soup fog I am going into. I think we all have to have this
sometimes. Your love will make your prayers count, and I
particularly want them. …
Fly out of NY Jan. 12—Return Mar. 20–21.
Tenderest love,
Dorothy
While Louise began to settle in as a pioneer in Portugal, Dorothy
visited all the European goal countries of the second Seven Year
Plan, as well as others: Ireland, England, France, Norway, Swe-
den, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland,

45. Louise and Dorothy in Madrid, March 1948, “looking like sisters.”

Italy, Spain, and Portugal. Everywhere she held press conferences,
spoke to small and large groups, and met with pioneers and na-
tive Bahá’ís to encourage and inspire them.
In early March Dorothy arrived in Portugal to meet Louise,
with a letter from Rúḥíyyih Khánum in hand. The letter asked
that they call on a certain friend of Rúḥíyyih Khánum and of her
mother, May Maxwell. The gentleman, Hubert Matthias, lived
in Lisbon, but had befriended the Maxwells in Germany some
fourteen years before. Greatly impressed with the older and
younger Canadian ladies, with their spirit and their personalities,
he began to study the Faith and eventually accepted it, writing
directly to Haifa.
Louise was aware that Rúḥíyyih Khánum hoped they would

contact her German friend, but in an unusual spurt of shyness,
had resisted the impulse, waiting for the support of her mother’s
presence. Instead Louise visited with Virginia Orbison. Virginia
was later named a Knight of Bahá’u’lláh as the first pioneer to the
Balearic Islands, east of Spain. Louise also made another friend,
Valeria Nichols, who was then pioneering in Portugal. (Valeria
later served on the National Spiritual Assembly of Mexico for
many years.)
As Hubert Matthias recalled, Dorothy was less shy than Louise
was about contacting him.
In Lisbon, Portugal in early 1948 I lived in a room with a
balcony that I rented from a German woman with two kids.
I think it was on a Friday in March that I received a phone
call from an American woman, Valeria Nichols, on behalf
of Mrs. Dorothy Baker, to please come for dinner at the
American Club the following Sunday. As always on week-
ends I drove out to my very primitive country place, but
returned early on Sunday afternoon to Lisbon to appear at
the American Club betimes.
When I entered the club on the fourth floor of an apart-
ment building the manager took me to the table in the right
corner where three ladies sat: Mrs. Baker, Mrs. Nichols and
Louise Baker. The reception was very cordial, as they were
Bahá’ís and I had joined the Faith in a letter to Haifa several
weeks earlier. I don’t think they knew that, and of course
were very happy when I told them so. My mood was a strange
one because before leaving my quarters I had strange pre-
monitions and some inner voice had repeatedly told me:
“Tonight you are going to meet your wife, tonight you are
going to meet your wife.” I told myself, calming my trem-
bling hands, not to be hysterical and to calm down. When I

first saw the three ladies and noticed Miss Baker’s tiny little
hat with short little black feather-like bunches of thick hair
sticking out on two sides, I decided that of this hat I would
make a shaving brush.
There was [for me] no doubt that the young woman would
be my wife and of course her mother, Mrs. Baker, my
mother-in-law. Dorothy put me at ease with her gracious-
ness and I felt at home with them, just as I had with the
Maxwells years ago when I met Mrs. Maxwell and her daugh-
ter in Munich, Germany. They had brought me to Canada
and the States in 1938, my first visit to America. Mary—
Rúḥíyyih had given Miss Baker my address as she was going
to Portugal, encouraging her to look me up. This had led to
the invitation for dinner, which we were now about to eat.
I guess we talked about the Maxwells, about Portugal and
about the Bahá’í Faith, and afterwards they asked me to come
to their apartment where there would be a meeting. The
four or five people that came were Portuguese and I was
asked to translate Mrs. Baker’s talk to them. I had lived in
Portugal for about five years already, so my Portuguese was
good enough. I remember hesitating when Dorothy said
something that I considered to be somewhat unwise to be
said more or less publicly in a police state, as Portugal was at
the time, but she nodded forcefully to make me translate
exactly what she had said.
The next day in the morning we all went to see the Moorish
castle on top of a hill on the east side of downtown Lisbon,
and for the next days we drove to Cintra and other places of
note. Mrs. Baker struck me as a very exceptional woman of
high intelligence and great empathy. Her grey eyes were ex-
tremely expressive and a pronounced jaw in her beautiful
face indicated a strong will and strong convictions. On the

way down from Cintra castle the elder ladies had gone ahead
and given Louise and me a chance to talk with each other,
and it was then probably that we realized that our premoni-
tions of meeting each other had been sound and realistic. I
remember stating to myself that the way Louise treated me I
wanted to be treated for the rest of my life. …
In the evening Dorothy took me aside, where we were
alone, kissed me on both cheeks and said, “Hubert, I’m all
for it.”
As a result of May Maxwell’s and Amatu’l-Bahá Rúḥíyyih Khá-
num’s friendship with Hubert years before in Germany, this young
man—his family torn apart by war, his body scarred and one arm
temporarily paralyzed by the effects of Russian bullets—had de-
cided, alone in Portugal, to become a Bahá’í. Through obedience
to Shoghi Effendi’s instructions, Louise Baker had moved to the
Iberian Peninsula, her first post outside of Latin America, where
she had spent some very lonely, difficult years. Following both
the instructions of Shoghi Effendi to teach in Europe and the
request of Rúḥíyyih Khánum to look up the young German in
Portugal, Dorothy brought the situation to its culmination.
When news reached Rúḥíyyih Khánum that Louise and Hubert
were married, she wrote to Hubert, June 20, 1948, from Haifa:
“And will you believe me if I confess that my secret and ardent
hope—the Guardian is my witness!—was that by just a miracle
this very thing would happen and you and Winifred Louise would
fall in love and marry?” In the beginning this end may have been
out of sight for all involved. Or perhaps the sequence of events
was forecast in one mind or another; at least Dorothy, Louise,
and Hubert had premonitions. But whatever the combination of
original intentions, the results were very satisfactory. On October
20, 1948, Rúḥíyyih Khánum wrote,

Dearest Dorothy—
I enjoy your letters so much and it was so sweet of you to
give me a glimpse of the Portuguese romance! I was so happy
about that marriage and to know Hubert has come to rest in
the Bahá’í harbour. He is a fine soul and has much needed
qualities in the Cause. …
In other countries Dorothy visited, the spirit of the assemblies
and individuals was recharged with hope and enthusiasm. Isobel
Sabri later served as a member of the Continental Board of Coun-
selors for Africa and at the International Teaching Center in Haifa.
She pioneered in Africa for more than thirty years. But when Isobel
met Dorothy Baker in Scotland she was still a fairly new Bahá’í
The second time I met Dorothy Baker was in Edinburgh,
Scotland, in the winter of 1948. I had become a believer
two months after meeting her in California and in 1946 went
as a pioneer to the British Isles during the Six Year Plan there.
My parents were British, so I had dual nationality and was
able to live and work in Britain with no difficulty. Dorothy
had written to the Guardian asking permission to visit the
Holy Land on pilgrimage. He had replied that it would be
more meritorious to visit the pioneers and young communi-
ties in the countries of Europe. Scotland was one of her first
stops.
After a series of meetings in Edinburgh which resulted a
few days later in the declaration of the first Scottish believ-
ers there, a Mr. and Mrs. Wood who had been greatly im-
pressed by Dorothy’s spirituality, the two of us travelled to-
gether by train from Edinburgh to Glasgow where she was
to catch her plane. During the journey Dorothy recited prayer

46. Lisbon, Portugal: Hubert Matthias, Louise Baker Matthias,
and Virginia Orbison, 1948.

47 Portugal, 1948: in Hubert’s Citroen.

after prayer by memory. It was remarkable to me how many
prayers she knew by heart.
Dorothy always gave considerable thought and attention
to her appearance. She spoke to me of the fact that even
one’s manner of dress should attract the listener to the Faith.
She explained that she had chosen a different colour and
outfit for each country she was to visit, according to the na-
ture of the people of the country as she perceived them to
be. For Scotland and England she had chosen a lovely soft
grey ensemble, and for Spain red!
Certainly Dorothy made the most of her natural charm.
There was a quality of impeccability about her. She also
paid attention to the details of her manner and words. One
sensed that she had really studied how to express herself,
how to teach the Faith effectively. She didn’t leave things to
chance. She prepared herself meticulously for her teaching
trips and her lectures. She carried in her suitcase consider-
able quantities of special mimeographed materials, answers
to questions, which she had prepared, ready to give to those
who showed interest. She once said to me, “What is the use
of God sending a soul into your life to teach if you are not
ready and prepared to help him?”
In speaking at gatherings of the Bahá’ís only, Dorothy
always took pains to have small vignettes or bits of informa-
tion about the Faith to tell them which they would probably
not have heard before. This made her a particularly appeal-
ing speaker to the believers.
After Scotland, she went to Birmingham, England, for
the British National Teaching Conference. The British Bahá’í
Community was quite small and conservative at that time;
but this lovely woman, Chairman of the National Spiritual
Assembly of the United States, won their hearts totally and

her effect in inspiring the believers to arise for the success of
their Plan was notable indeed. She spoke of the Guardian,
and her theme was, “If you love the Guardian, there is noth-
ing that you wouldn’t do to please him.”
The National Teaching Committee of Great Britain wrote to
the National Spiritual Assembly of the United States,
Mrs. Baker’s visit meant something very special to our na-
tional community. … appreciation is not confined to the
Committee but is warmly felt up and down the land. …
Great as was the value of her teaching work, however, by far
her most remarkable and permanent contribution grew out
of the providential opportunity for her to participate in our
Annual Teaching Conference. This Conference is one of the
three rallying points of the national community during the
year, and for the past three years has marked a significant
turning-point in the affairs of the Cause. In a sense, Mrs.
Baker’s presence and contributions were a pivot for the whole
proceedings of the Conference.
… A reception was attended by 85 people, including 50
non-Bahá’ís, while the attendance at the Teaching Confer-
ence was the highest on record, averaging about 75 believ-
ers. You will realize that this is more than a third of our
national community, every Assembly and goal town being
represented. Thus it is apparent that the beneficent influence
of Mrs. Baker’s work has gone out to all parts of Britain. …
Her work will long be remembered, and we feel sure that
she has done much to knit even closer the bonds of Bahá’í
fellowship which unite our two national communities. …1
In Spain Dorothy spoke to small groups of four, or eight, or

Quoted in “Around the Bahá’í World,” in Bahá’í News, no. 209 (July 1948), p. 4.

sixteen—five meetings in all—in Madrid. Virginia Orbison’s di-
ary read, “Dorothy not well but holding up.” According to a his-
tory of the Faith in Spain that Virginia was writing, “Dorothy
conquered all the hearts of those she met.”
Doris Lohse, who was to become a pioneer of long standing in
Switzerland, wrote from Brussels, where she pioneered in 1947,
Darling, with your teaching work, with your talks on prayer,
your touching stories and with the “Seven Valleys” you have
started the irrigation of a nearly parched soil in the hearts of
your listeners. They really did not know what they lacked so
desperately. Your visit has been an invaluable contribution
to the first awakening of a nation.
Lea Nys, the first person to become a Bahá’í in Belgium, learned
about the Faith from two American pioneers, Jack and Eunice
Shurcliff. She was active in helping to organize Dorothy’s visit.
Dorothy Baker spent one week in Brussels in 1948. I didn’t
know much about her; just that she was a great lady, and
had done much for the Faith. But when she came, we knew!
She was very impressive.
We had been trying to find a way to contact the 50 or
more associations in the city which had aims which accorded
with one of the Bahá’í principles. When Dorothy Baker was
to come, this seemed the right chance. I was put in charge
of organizing the meeting; it was the first time I had done
this sort of thing for a really large meeting.
I contacted a friend who was a very well known musician,
and he made arrangements for a very fine trio to play before
the meeting, which was held in the Hotel Atlanta in a large
and very lovely meeting room which could seat about five

hundred. Between four hundred and five hundred attended.
When Dorothy Baker entered the hall, she was like a
queen. She was so attractive, and she always seemed to be
master of any situation. The way she dressed was very
different from the way the Belgian women dressed, and was
most attractive. When I recall that lady’s capacity, it was
tremendous. She had a very fascinating power which was
working … strongly that evening. She had something very
special. We were “all ears,” absorbing her words, the way she
talked, her manner, the gestures she used—her whole atti-
tude was something I cannot convey here. It could not be
reproduced. ….
When I had introduced her she stood up and greeted the
people with “Alláh-u-Abhá,” and then she explained its mean-
ing. She talked about world unity. … She stood very straight,
and there was a microphone, but she did not use it.
Then she talked about life after death, and gave many
details. It was for me something of a discovery of a different
aspect of the teachings. I had never been very concerned
with it. She really drew it to our attention that we have only
one life to get ready for it, that we must be prepared, that we
must pray and meditate every day, that we have only once
the opportunity to know the Manifestation of God on this
planet. …
Within five or six months of Dorothy Baker’s visit several
local assemblies were formed in several different cities. She
brought us a lot, and she left a lot. …
Dorothy’s own memories of the same period in Brussels were
centered, as were all her recollections of that 1948 trip to Europe,
on the Bahá’ís she met there, not on herself. She wrote,

Brussels was the scene of day and night activity, with the
Hotel de Boeck, except for one large downtown meeting,
the stage center for peace leaders and the many friends and
contacts of the Bahá’ís. On the last evening the little parlors
overflowed into the hall. A tender note was struck by a Do-
minican priest, recently disrobed for the sake of his con-
science. He sat in the farthest row back. A pioneer who had
given him a book some months before, recognized him and
spoke to him. “What do you think now?” she asked. He
lowered his head for a moment and then replied with
unaffected simplicity: “I have found the truth.” A hero had
found Bahá’u’lláh.1
In Brussels Dorothy Baker and John Robarts, who had served
with her on the National Spiritual Assembly of the United States
and Canada, were together again on the program for a public
meeting. That morning Mr. Robarts woke up with laryngitis and
a sore throat. He recalled that Dorothy told him, “Don’t worry
about it, but get yourself to the meeting anyway. I am to be your
chairman. I will not embarrass you but if, even at the last minute,
you feel that your throat is clearing, you may have an experience
that I once had. I had the same sort of throat, but got to the
meeting anyway and suddenly, when my turn came to speak, my
throat cleared and I addressed the meeting without any trouble.
John, just relax. Don’t worry about the meeting. Pray, and I will
pray with you.”
He arrived at the meeting in silence. When Dorothy got to the
point of introducing the speaker, she looked over at him. He nod-
ded that she should go ahead with it. Then, to his own amaze-
ment, he spoke without any trouble. Later, still astonished at what
had happened, Mr. Robarts commented, “Well, it was Dorothy
Baker who got me through that one.” A few years later Mr. Robarts

Dorothy K. Baker, “A View of Pioneering,” in Bahá’í News, no. 207 (May 1948), pp. 9-10.

48. Dorothy Baker in Lisbon, 1948.

and his wife, Audrey, were named Knights of Bahá’u’lláh because
of their move to Bechuanaland. In 1957, Shoghi Effendi appointed
John Robarts a Hand of the Cause of God.
Dorothy’s trip made her even more sensitive to the sacrifices
and confirmations of the Bahá’ís who leave their homes to settle
in new countries with the hope of spreading the teachings of Bahá’-
u’lláh.
Pioneering is ecstasy and tears; bad food, cold rooms, dark
pensions, and periods of fruitless waiting; yearning souls, sud-
den illumination, an outreaching public and new convic-
tion of the “power that is far beyond the ken of men and of
angels.” …
From Oslo to Lisbon the pioneers are singularly suited to
their tasks, as if by Providence ordained to them. …
But Dorothy was not naive. In the same report on her trip abroad
she proved her understanding of the distance still to be traveled
in the work of the Faith.
Europe is frustrated and often skeptical, living in fear and
believing in nothing. But Europe is groping too, and in search
of a soul, and the part of her that finds it will go to almost
any length to keep it. The new believers are the eyes of Eu-
rope; they alone can look ahead. To them the Cause is the
difference between everything and nothing.1
In 1949, a year after the European tour, Dorothy set out for the
International Teaching Congress in Guatemala. A cable from the
Guardian was analyzed by a committee of the Congress and from
his suggested activities—“EXTEND SCOPE TEACHING, CONSOLIDATE
ASSEMBLIES”—a two-year plan was drawn up with specific goals.

ibid, p. 9.

Dorothy was impressed by the diligence and hard work of the
Bahá’ís of Central America and the Antilles. However, the out-
standing attainment of this Congress in her mind, “was the greater
understanding which the delegates acquired of the Guardian and
a tremendous deepening in their love for him.”
Edward and Mary Bode were Americans who had established
the first Local Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Beverly Hills,
California, before pioneering on three continents including Eu-
rope, where they lived in Holland for nine years. While in
Amsterdam they received a letter from Dorothy in which she again
expressed her devotion to Shoghi Effendi:
What a perfectly marvelous letter from the Guardian! His
discernment, love, and inexhaustible wisdom continue to
be an unanswerable proof to the validity of the Cause. How
could anyone fail to see it who had the privilege of witness-
ing it as it unfolds in life after life, in treatise after treatise,
and in deed after deed of magnificent, international dimen-
sions? I remember sometimes poignantly what dear Rúḥíyyih
Khánum wrote her Mother in May’s last days in New York.
She said, “Somehow, Mother, I am coming to believe that
all my salvation is linked up in some inexplicable way with
the Guardian and that without him I am like a bit of chaff”
(I think she said) “on an endless ocean.” In these uncentered
times, when all the dark forces of the world are converging
in wars and greed and prejudice, thank God for our Guard-
ian, for his peace and calm and wisdom and unyielding loy-
alty to our goals. I feel as if I were sitting with the three of
you and sharing your joy at this moment.
Dorothy’s faith in Shoghi Effendi was explicit and unwavering.
Just after the Guatemala Congress Dorothy corresponded with

Cora Oliver, a pioneer elected to the first National Spiritual As-
sembly of Central America, Mexico, and the Antilles, and later
named a Knight of Bahá’u’lláh for her early settlement in British
Honduras. Dorothy wrote to Cora, “if a door opened and Latin
America or Europe beckoned and the Guardian said walk through
it … some way would open to take care of it surely.”
In 1950, drawn by the goals of the Guardian’s second Seven
Year Plan, Dorothy represented the National Spiritual Assembly
of the United States and the Inter-America Committee at both
the Annual Congress for Central America, held this time in El
Salvador in April and the fourth Annual Congress for South
America held in Lima, Peru in May.
While Frank and her mother traveled to Portugal to visit Louise
and Hubert, Dorothy boarded a southbound train and, stopping
here and there for North American teaching, headed toward San
Salvador and the International Congress. She wrote a letter to her
family aboard the “Frisco Lounge Car.”

1950
Easter eve
Hi Dears!
Well, we’ve just gone through Will Rogers country, and
are entering Arkansas. I think thus far we have kept up the
record of a fresh study class in every city, though Oklahoma
City was tougher. Soon Jackson and mail; I must confess
I’m anxious. Only Eureka and Little Rock to go first. Wish I
could see you tonight.

April 11
Riding on a bus thru the Ozarks, and what a country!
Eureka is a little Shangrila, hanging up on a hill like an eagle’s

nest. I stayed at this hotel, and I think the asst. manager,
Charlie Smith, is going to sign up and be the historic ninth,
even tho’ he is a Catholic and has had all his children
confirmed. His wife was the even more historic first, and
there was bitterness. He alone was worth coming for and
that precious group had 45 people out last night! It’s such a
village in its psychology, too.

Little Rock
Three letters, and how I gobbled them! I could see the
water systems and furniture lining up, and imagined myself
eating a bit of garden lettuce. Endive coming up?
And by this time Wetchi1 is with you. Greetings to Wetchi;
I would love to know her.
This afternoon I am to call on the Governor of Arkansas,
and they say he is very fine. [Later she writes: “This fell
through.” D.F.G.] Last night we had a grand meeting, with
photographers and wire recorders adding to the pleasant
bustle of the occasion. This is quite a bunch out here.
All my love,
D.
Take some pictures, please!

Jung Hotel
New Orleans
Well, well! Here I am ‘way down in NO [New Orleans]

Hubert’s sister.

ready to hop over. This is the last line in some time, per-
haps.
Mother’s note in Jackson was so sweet I am sending it to
Edna True: she will be so thrilled by Louise’s activities.
I am meeting with the Area TC1 here and with the Com-
munity and with the public, and a hundred errands in town
to do, but Tues. (18th) the little old Pan Am will pull out for
Mexico with Dottie just front of the wing, and a Katy True
capsule inside. Don’t forget to pray for me!
Study groups don’t line up for us here as readily as north-
ward but individuals like to be worked with on a social ar-
rangement with reading off-side. The south is surely conser-
vative. But they are fine stuff.
Elisabeth Cheney has been very ill, and is about to go
home. Better, but not good. She may be IAC [Inter-America
Committee] secty. next year, if well, but she can’t take Latin
countries any more.
Milly Collins has taken a flying trip to Puerto Rico and
Haiti to insure elections, and may pop over to the Salvador
Congreso. Brave little heart! Europe just about did her up.
Everywhere the Central Amer. area hangs in the balance,
and we are all rolling our sleeves ‘way up.
Big hugs to our two children; every day I think of you
and am so thankful you are all together.
Dearest love—D
Here is the Crescent, on top of Eureka Springs. It used to be
a hospital. Now you can be there and have good meals and

Teaching Committee

good rooms not too expensively and go fishing in a dozen
directions and have your fish cooked for breakfast—Some
time, maybe, Franko! Climate like Portugal’s hills.
Dorothy’s presence at the two congresses in San Salvador, El
Salvador, and Lima, Peru, was important because these were the
last international gatherings to be held in South and Central
America before the Annual Conventions the following year and
the formation of National Spiritual Assemblies in those regions.
As a representative of the National Spiritual Assembly of the
United States and of the Inter-America Committee, Dorothy’s
specific mission was to help bring about full consultation on the
particular problems that the Latin American National Spiritual
Assemblies would be facing when they came into existence the
next year.
Julius Edwards, a delegate from Jamaica who was later named
a Knight of Bahá’u’lláh in Africa, made something of a sensation
in San Salvador. He was conscious that few people of African
descent lived in that Central American city; on the street, people
were intrigued with the color of his skin and would stop and
smile at him as he passed.
Many seekers were invited to the opening session of the Con-
gress. A Salvadorean ambassador to another country, newly aware
of the Bahá’í stand on racial harmony and unity, arose after the
keynote address and spoke enthusiastically, explaining his own
experience with persecution in other countries because of his Latin
origin. He ended his remarks with an emotional declaration that
he intended to write a book on the subject and have it printed
with white ink on black paper to emphasize his newly awakened
desire for racial amity.
A retired Salvadorean police inspector stood up in the audience
and vehemently began to address the ambassador, condemning

his idea as ridiculous, and announcing to the rest of the assem-
blage that the obvious motive for his desire was financial reward.
Julius Edwards, the only black in the audience, sat quietly listen-
ing. Then he heard Dorothy Baker’s voice.
“Mr. Chairman, would you kindly give Mr. Edwards the floor?”
From the podium he addressed the ambassador. “Señor, I have
had similar experiences of racial prejudice.” He stretched out his
hands to the man and in a strong voice said, “I conquered!”
With a great smile the ambassador leaped up and embraced
Julius. The spirit of the first session was changed from one of
bickering conflict to unity, and the tone was set for the remainder
of the five-day Congress.
Soon after, Dorothy received five dozen roses from the ambas-
sador, who was obviously impressed with her diplomatic powers.
Alfred Osborne was an educator who became a Bahá’í in Panama
and was later appointed as a member of the Continental Board
of Counselors. Watching Dorothy in Latin America, he wrote:
I was particularly impressed because I felt that she had given
up some of her comforts, some of her style of living, be-
cause it was evident that she came from a very good, solid
background, in order to mingle with the people and teach
the Faith. She did not register at the expensive hotels. She
and Louise Caswell used to live in little third-rate hotels or
pensions. I remember attending a number of deepening
classes, sponsored by Louise Caswell and taught by Dorothy
Baker. I thus had an opportunity to see how they were living
and the sacrifices they were making. Louise always struck
me as being a sort of aristocratic person; a lovely, very sweet
Bahá’í, who could adjust so beautifully, and accommodate
herself, and Dorothy Baker as the same. These pensiones did
not have private baths. Facilities were shared by all who lived

there. I never once noticed any feeling of repugnance or re-
gret or disdain in those two pioneers as they went about
their work of teaching the Cause.
Dorothy’s vision of pension living was somewhat different. She
wrote to Frank and her mother,
This little Pension serves three squares a day anyway, even if
you don’t have private baths, and I have a sala with my bed-
room for the committee to come to, which saves me from
running around. It is rudimentary, but clean and honest.
And lots of fresh pineapple etc. I have felt fine right along,
all but one day in Lima, Peru, where I must have had a touch
of the tourist tummy. Am wondering how you both got
along.

Her lifestyle was simple, her attitude loving, and her magnetism
was difficult to describe adequately.
Dorothy reported thoroughly to the Guardian on the many
activities of the Inter-America Committee, which she had served
on beginning in 1944. In The Priceless Pearl, Rúḥíyyih Khánum
wrote that the first Seven Year Plan, begun in 1937, had a “triple
task.” The final aspect of the plan was “to create one centre in
each Latin American Republic ‘for whose entry into the fellow-
ship of Bahá’u’lláh’ Shoghi Effendi wrote ‘the Plan was primarily
formulated.’”1
The Inter-America Committee’s diligent efforts met with whole-
hearted encouragement from the Guardian.

Rúḥíyyih Rabbání, The Priceless Pearl (London: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1969), p. 9.

Haifa,
Israel,
February 18, 1951
Mrs. Dorothy Baker, Chairman,
Inter-America Committee
Dear Bahá’í Sister:
I have been instructed by our beloved Guardian to acknowl-
edge receipt of your letters dated as follows:
January 3rd and 30th, June 4th, 8th and 10th, August
1st, September 27th and October 28, 1950. He has also
received the many enclosures and photographs forwarded in
these letters.
He feels that the work accomplished by your Committee
and its very active members during the past year has been
highly effective and gone a long way towards insuring suc-
cess during the elections for the two new National Spiritual
Assemblies this coming April. …
The success likewise of the two Congresses was marked
and most encouraging. …
He feels that the Inter-America Committee has played a
singularly historic part in the development of the Cause, in
the prosecution of the second Seven Year Plan, and in
reflecting glory on the entire North American Bahá’í Com-
munity. It is wonderful to see how the spirit of Bahá’u’lláh
has sustained the believers in carrying out this tremendous
project, and how their efforts have been blessed, in spite of
many difficulties to be overcome and many heartbreaks on
the part of all concerned. He, himself, is immensely proud
of what has been done, and congratulates your Committee
on the splendid work it has achieved and the example it has
set. …

He assures you one and all of his loving prayers and his
deep appreciation of the services you have so selflessly ren-
dered the Cause of God. …
With warm Bahá’í love,
R. Rabbani
P.S.—I am enclosing a little message from the beloved Guard-
ian addressed to those who wrote him on the occasion of
the Fourth Bahá’í Congress for South America. Will you
please see that it is shared with the believers concerned.
[The Guardian added, by hand]
May the Almighty bless your strenuous, devoted and meri-
torious efforts, aid you to enrich continually the record of
your manifold services, and win still greater victories for His
Faith & its institutions.
Your true and grateful brother, Shoghi

Between 1943 and 1952 Dorothy visited fifteen Central and
South American countries. Artemus Lamb, then a member of
the National Spiritual Assembly of Central America and later a
Continental Counselor, wrote,
Her influence in Central America is most powerful, and at
the same time mysterious, for in reality she spent only a few
days here on several occasions; yet all loved her deeply and
feel dependent upon her like children upon a mother.1
In 1951 the National Spiritual Assembly of Iran requested a
record of Dorothy’s travels and experience as a Bahá’í. She re-
sponded as follows:

Quoted in Mariam Haney, “Dorothy Beecher Baker,” in The Bahá’í World:
A Biennial International Record, Volume XII, 1950–1954, comp. National
Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States (Wilmette, Ill.:
Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1956), p. 673.

Member of the National Spiritual Assembly of the United
States from 1937 forward. Four years chairman. 1945–1949.
Present vice-chairman.
Successively chairman of the following national committees:
Assembly Development Committee
Louhelen School Committee
Child Education Committee
Radio Committee
Race Unity Committee
College Speakers Bureau
Inter-America Committee
National Programming Committee
Inter-Continental Committee
Teaching: National Assembly representative in the his-
toric first National Convention of Canada and Central
America. Eight teaching journeys to Latin America, one to
Europe, two to Canada. Attendance at five Latin American
and one British Congress. Following countries and prov-
inces visited:
Latin America Canada Europe
Mexico Ontario England
Guatemala Quebec Eire
Honduras New Brunswick Scotland
El Salvador Norway
Costa Rica Sweden
Panama Denmark
Cuba Holland
Jamaica Belgium
Puerto Rico Luxembourg

Venezuela France
Columbia Switzerland
Peru Italy
Argentina Spain
Paraguay Portugal
Brazil

The Colleges: In one hundred and forty colleges and uni-
versities Bahá’í lectures given in Assemblies or Chapels, most
of them leading to class room discussions, or to further lec-
tures by other speakers, comprising the first organized effort
to spread the Faith in the colleges under a sponsoring com-
mittee; terminated unfortunately by the war.

The Bounty of Bahá’u’lláh was first conferred through the
faith and generosity of a paternal grandmother, “Mother
Beecher,” with whom I visited His Holiness ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in
the city of New York. It is a blessed thing to remember the
child who sat entranced at the feet of her Lord and received
his all-merciful love. In that hour all fear was replaced by a
passion for all people. Beside this, only one thing remained;
that Bahá’u’lláh is the All-Glorious redeemer and His power
is equal to all things. This fixed principle became, and still is
the fulcrum and pillar of an otherwise impotent life.
Faithfully, in the service of the Guardian,
Dorothy Baker

Chapter 19
Growing family & appointment as Hand of the Cause of God,
1947–1951
While his mother and sister traveled the globe, Bill Baker, after a
year at Yale University, was drafted into the army. For three-and-
a-half years during the Second World War he served as an army
cook. After the war he returned to Lima, Ohio, to work at his
father’s bakery. The family was very hopeful that Bill Baker would
marry a Bahá’í, but the national community was so small and
spread out that Dorothy feared he would never have the opportu-
nity to meet many Bahá’í girls. She began to make a point of
inviting young ladies to Lima for the weekend so Bill could get to
know them.
It was after a visit from a particularly sweet and pretty girl named
Annamarie Mattoon that Dorothy went to the cornerstone room
at the Bahá’í House of Worship in Wilmette and prayed that Bill
would marry. She prayed for God’s will, but later confessed that
she had had her eye on Annamarie. On December 23, 1947, Bill
married Annamarie at her sister’s home in Wilmette. Members of
the next generation of Bahá’ís were coming into their own.
Annamarie’s sister, Florence Mattoon, had married Otto Zmeskal
seven years before Bill and Annamarie’s wedding. Both Florence
and Otto had been students in Dorothy’s youth classes at Louhelen.
After their wedding Dorothy wrote to them expressing her tender
contemplation of Bahá’í marriage.

Dearest Flossie and Otto,
You can’t know, and I’m afraid I can never tell you how
happy it makes me to write to a Bahá’í bride and groom,
and especially to have it be you. Our Louhelen days together
have endeared you both to me. … There is no doubt that
your home will become a place of attraction and brilliant
illumination. … I pray that there may be a thousand thou-
sand marriages like yours. It seems to me that it must be a
prototype of the New Day, of all marriages of the future.
Dorothy was very close to Florence and Otto, who, after Bill’s
marriage to Florence’s sister, were now family as well as friends.
Dorothy spoke to them about her son. She told them that she
loved Bill so very much and depended on him. “He is like a rock—
you can count on Bill.”
After his own wedding, Bill Baker went to baking school in
Minneapolis, then back to work at Plezol, the family bakery. The
four-and-a-half years he worked for his father were wonderful
years for Frank and Dorothy. During her travels Frank had Bill
and Annamarie nearby as well as having his son’s able assistance at
Plezol. Dorothy adored coming home to such a rich family life.
Her mother, Luella, now lived with them on Elm Street, and
only twelve miles away at the family farm were her dear son and
his bride, Annamarie.
When Frank’s namesake was born to Bill and Annamarie on
March 5, 1949, Dorothy was overjoyed. She wrote to Cora Oliver:
Here in Lima I have become a grandmother! A darling little
boy, Frank Mattoon Baker, has moved into all our hearts,
and as you may well imagine, directs two households with
no effort at all! He is so sweet and I really do believe will
have many of the fine qualities of his two namesakes, the

49. Bill Baker and Annamarie Mattoon’s wedding in Wilmette,
December 23, 1947

grandfathers Baker and Mattoon. Bill and Annamarie are
naturally bursting with pride and joy these days.
When Frank junior was very young he adored his grandmother.
After Bill and Annamarie married in December of 1947, Bill con-
tinued to work for his father at the Plezol Bakery. Their growing’
family lived at Frank and Dorothy’s farm near Lima, Ohio.
Annamarie remembered “Dorothy became an enthusiastic grand-
mother urging and insisting on being allowed to baby-sit. …
The children loved her dearly and Frank … tended to get sick if

his beloved grandmother’s travels kept her away more than two
months. It is interesting to note that Dorothy Baker’s children
and grandchildren have all pioneered or are now pioneers.”
On Dorothy’s return home from a long trip, she would drive
out to the farm and be greeted, as she got out of the car, by an
ecstatic little boy. Dancing in a ring around her, Frank could not
control his joy at Dorothy’s homecomings. Florence and Otto’s
daughter Ellen visited the farm in the summers and remembers
wonderful rides in the Bakers’ big convertible.
Dorothy relished being a grandmother and was able to see the
family often until 1952, when Bill and Annamarie moved to Illi-
nois. Bill had broken off his studies at Yale before the war and
could now finish his bachelor of science degree at the University
of Illinois, where he also earned a master’s degree in food tech-
nology and a doctorate in biochemistry in 1960. Annamarie re-
called that Bill remained quite active during all of this. “Even
then he was finishing his Ph.D. and, of course, very busy, he was
an attentive father and husband and a very active Bahá’í being
chairman of the Champaign, Illinois, Bahá’í community and of-
ten having two firesides a week.”
One day during their stay in Illinois Bill and Annamarie took
their laundry to a new dry cleaners. The man behind the counter
saw the “Baker” label in their clothes and asked Bill if he was
related to Dorothy Baker. Bill said, “She’s my mother.” The man
was thrilled. He said, “We were good friends!” Four or five years
before, he had attended a Bahá’í talk given by Dorothy while she
was on a teaching trip and had spoken to her afterwards. That
casual meeting had been enough to endear her to him for life.
Conrad Baker, Dorothy’s stepson, graduated from the Yale
University School of Medicine in 1934. He married Marjorie
Wheeler in her hometown of Bridgeport, Connecticut, on July
23, 1935. Conrad interned at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit

where his first child, Dwight Conrad Baker was born in Decem-
ber, 1937.
The family moved to Lima, Ohio the following year where
their daughter Marjorie Ann was born in February, 1939. Conrad
and his family lived in Lima for two years where he practiced as a
pediatrician. So though she wasn’t technically a grandmother yet,
Dorothy had plenty of practice with Conrad’s two little ones.
Then Conrad decided to become a resident in anesthesiology at
Cincinnati General Hospital.
When the war broke out Conrad enlisted in the army and served
in England, France, Belgium, and Germany. After the war, Dwight
Baker remembered times with his grandparents, Frank and Dorothy.
About 1947 my parents and Ann and I took a trip to Green
Acre, and Grandma was there too. She was very busy at-
tending NSA meetings at Rogers cottage which had little
meaning for me at that time. In 1948 I went to Green Acre
with just my father. I remember running and playing on
the big porch on Sarah Farmer Hall—which kids are still
doing to this day. …
During a visit to Lima in 1950, Grandma found out that
I was interested in radio broadcasting and engineering. She
went to the trouble of arranging for a visit to the transmitter
tower of the Lima radio station, then drove me over. They
let me stay for most of the afternoon talking to the engineer
on duty and learning about the workings of the radio sta-
tion. In addition Dorothy and Frank also purchased a gift
subscription to my first electronic publication. That really
got me started in what would become my career.
In the spring of 1946 Conrad Baker joined Windham Com-

munity Memorial Hospital in Willimantic, Connecticut. Conrad
was the first Bahá’í to live in that area.
In the fall of 1948, following Conrad and Dwight’s trip to
Green Acre, a pneumonia epidemic broke out in New England.
As the only anesthesiologist on staff, Conrad was on call at the
hospital twenty-four hours a day and worked endlessly.
Among those who became ill were his two children, Dwight
and Ann. Conrad successfully treated them both with penicillin,
which was a fairly new approach to the treatment of the disease.
When Conrad himself caught pneumonia, the rampage had been
so wide spread that the hospital ran out of penicillin. Conrad
Baker died on November 13, 1948, at the age of thirty-nine, a
devastation for his young family. He was buried in Windham.
Now both of Frank’s children whom Dorothy had met so long
ago at the little boarding house had passed on to the next world.
But Frank and Dorothy had two children, as well. Frank decided
it was time for him to make an overseas trip, and visit Louise. As
Dorothy wrote to Cora Oliver,
Frank and Mother still plan to go to Portugal, and I am
still piling my pennies into the Temple at every turn and
planning to go nowhere. …
I am submerged in plans for the Convention, and am
trying to work in a little circuit or two on the subject of
Temple building and its needs. April will be the worst,
though, and after that life should become more simple. There
are many grave problems immediately ahead of us, and the
Convention is our natural springboard for taking care of
them. … The material side looms up like a mountain be-
fore us; aside from the usual current needs, $850,000 must
be met in two years for the Temple. No wonder the Guard-
ian likens it to the deeds of the martyrs; it’s a little like that
in another way.

50. Frank Baker in the 1940s.
Frank and Luella did go to Portugal together in 1950. Although
Dorothy’s financial resources were already marked for the comple-
tion of the House of Worship in Wilmette, she also made a trip
there a year later, in the summer of 1951. At home, Annamarie
was pregnant with her second child; overseas, Louise was preg-
nant, too. On the way to be with her daughter during the birth,
Dorothy sat on ship deck reading Childbirth Without Fear and

wrote home to Frank, “Am wondering about our Annamarie these
days.”
Settled into the German Hospital in Lisbon to wait for the
baby with Louise, Dorothy received a cable about Bill and Anna-
marie’s new arrival. Dorothy wrote back to Frank, “I am thrilled
that hers is a girl, and ‘spect she and Bill are too. Now she can use
the cunning dresses, and she will feel as if she is playing ‘dolls’!
Anxious to know the name.”
With her new granddaughters safely born, Crystal Louise to
Bill and Annamarie1 in Lima and Dorothy Elisabeth to Hubert
and Louise in Lisbon, Dorothy returned to the United States to
heartbreaking news. During the time she awaited the two births,
her adored friend Louis Gregory had died. With other devoted
admirers of the man whom Shoghi Effendi called “dearly-beloved,
noble-minded, golden-hearted Louis Gregory,”2 Dorothy deeply

Bill and Annamarie Baker, with their nine-year-old son, Robert, and their
daughter Crystal, pioneered in Peru in 1968. In 1974 they moved to Cochabam-
ba, Bolivia. Annamarie made the adjustment to their new home in South
America a comfortable and happy one for her family and became a teacher and
vital member of their new community. Annamarie died at her post on May 13,
1995, but she is still much loved. Bill Baker served on the National Spiritual
Assemblies of Peru and Bolivia and was later appointed to the Auxiliary Board.
He founded the Dorothy Baker Institute outside Cochabamba, Bolivia. The
institute is devoted to development in the Alto Plano, the poor, high altitude
communities found on the eastern incline of the Andes Mountains. His em-
phasis is appropriate technologies and grassroots education.
Crystal Baker Shoaie, for many years a member of the National Spiritual
Assembly of Bolivia, and Robert Baker, M.D., are both actively connected
with Núr University in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. Frank Baker, Annamarie and Bill’s
eldest son, having pioneered in South America in 1976 and 1977, is now with
the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of
Illinois.
Quoted in Harlan F. Ober, “Louis G. Gregory,” in The Bahá’í World: A Biennial
International Record: Volume XII, 1950–1954, comp. National Spiritual Assembly
of the Bahá’ís of the United States (Wilmette, Ill.: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1956),
p. 666.

mourned his passing. In a cable from Haifa the Guardian con-
ferred the rank of Hand of the Cause of God on Louis G. Gregory.
Those assembled at the Louis Gregory memorial service in
Wilmette heard of his outstanding service to the Bahá’í Faith.
Dorothy officiated at the gathering and recounted some of the
many ways Louis gave his life: fourteen years as a member of the
National Spiritual Assembly between 1922 and his retirement in
1946 and annual participation in college teaching projects and
race amity work. To the Bahá’ís assembled that November day,
his appointment as a Hand of the Cause of God must have seemed
the natural outcome of a life of sacrificial service.
Like Louis Gregory, other Westerners had received this honor
posthumously, but none had yet received it while living.
Dorothy did not see herself as outstanding. She genuinely
seemed to find others more capable and worthy of leadership. In
April of 1951 she wrote to Cora Oliver,
Last year we were chairmen of sister communities; at the
moment we are vice chairmen of Nat’l Assembly (tho’ I go
out of office next week if my real choice steps in,) and more
and more of our tasks follow the same paths as we trudge
along, anyway, though yours is of course infinitely more his-
toric. Fun to think about it so!
Dorothy saw herself as neither the source of the strength and
power others attributed to her, nor above the trials of being hu-
man. Just home from a National Spiritual Assembly meeting,
Dorothy asked Harry Jay, a good family friend in Lima, if she
could talk to him after his noon radio broadcast. She looked de-
jected when he greeted her. When they were alone she told him
there was disagreement at the national Bahá’í headquarters. False

rumors had been spread about her. Harry was stunned by her next
words and repeated them to his wife that night: “I feel like getting
out of the teaching work—let it all go, and go back to being a
housewife.”
In addition to the personal hurt Dorothy felt from the cruel
and untrue gossip of some individuals, her pain and anxiety were
increased as she was called upon to perform a service she felt un-
sure that she could render. In one of the countries Dorothy vis-
ited, a woman had a strong dislike for a young pioneer. The woman
was determined to have the young man declared a covenant
breaker. However, the National Spiritual Assembly of the area
did take away the young man’s voting rights.
Dorothy was asked to inform the pioneer. She was very dis-
tressed, as she believed the man was innocent of any wrong do-
ing. Obviously the decision had to be obeyed, but Dorothy knew
it would result in his leaving the country as he was there on the
pioneering budget.
A Bahá’í who knew Dorothy well watched her grapple with the
problem.
All night long Dorothy Baker paced her room, praying
for guidance, knowing that the man was innocent. The only
answer she felt was that she must obey the institution, no
matter what the circumstances. Therefore when she went to
tell him, she also told him that although he now lost the
financial assistance he had previously had, he was not re-
quired to leave the country. … he could still teach. He
determined to stay, if it were at all possible.
… She continued to write the young man, encouraging
him. He got a job selling, and stayed in a different city each
night. During the day he worked at his job, and each evening
held a meeting in a different city in the course of each week.
At the end of the year there were seven new communities

ready to form seven new Local Spiritual Assemblies, in each
of the seven towns he had visited in the course of his work.
… His voting rights were immediately restored. … Dor-
othy Baker said later that because she obeyed she could see
that he was strengthened and assisted by her action, and he
too obeyed fully.
Notes taken from one of her talks show her concern for obedi-
ence to the institutions and the thoughts on which her actions
were no doubt rooted.
The Institutions form the embryonic basis for God’s new
world order and future world divine civilization and are the
main channel through which guidance and blessings flow to
the believers. They have great spiritual power—the Power
of the Covenant—which comes from God. Unity depends
upon firmly adhering, loyally upholding, and lovingly obey-
ing these divinely-ordained institutions.
Dorothy Baker obeyed the institution though the situation was
difficult. Earlier she had found the heart to carry on in the face of
harsh criticism, but this period was one of the most painful of her
Bahá’í life.
Soon after these two incidents Edna True called Dorothy from
the Bahá’í National Center. A cable had been received from Shoghi
Effendi. The scope of the Guardian’s cable was tremendous, cov-
ering the superstructure of the Báb’s Sepulcher, the International
Bahá’í Council, various historic sites in the Holy Land, and the
four upcoming international conferences. Edna did not read all
of it but quoted his last point,
HOUR NOW RIPE TAKE LONG INEVITABLY DEFERRED STEP, CON-
FORMITY PROVISIONS ‘ABDU’L-BAHÁ’S TESTAMENT, CONJUNCTION

WITH SIX ABOVE-MENTIONED STEPS THROUGH APPOINTMENT
FIRST CONTINGENT HANDS CAUSE GOD. …

Edna read the names of the three Hands in the Holy Land, the
three in Persia, then those for the American continent: “Horace
Holley, Dorothy Baker ….” Dorothy interrupted.
“Wait, Eddie. You’re kidding!”
Edna repeated the news again and again, as Dorothy contin-
ued to insist it was a practical joke. Dorothy was sure that it had
to be a hoax. As Edna True recalled, she had to insist again.
“I’m not kidding.”
“Yes, you are. You’re kidding. You must be!”
“Please be serious, Dorothy. I’m not kidding.”
“You’ve got to be. There’s no reason why he would appoint me.
Eddie, I think he means you.”
“No, he doesn’t. There’s no chance of a mistake here.”
Years later Edna was still amazed at Dorothy’s persistence.
I kept talking, and it took quite a bit of talking. And I said,
“Now you just go back and think about this, until you real-
ize it’s true.” But she just fought it off. She just knew it was
not true. I said, “Well, you just wait and see; see how things
develop. There isn’t anything more I can tell you except that
it’s sitting right here in front of me, dear, and your name is
on it.” It was so peculiar, trying to persuade somebody that
she was on this very important list. … I was all ready to
explode with excitement, but she put me down to a solid
argument of persuading her. It was characteristic of Dor-
othy. … She even cut off from me still saying, “You’ll find
it’s a mistake. It can’t be true.”

In Portugal the summer before, Dorothy had given a course
called “What Is a Good Administrator?” In it she listed qualities a
good administrator must have. Among them were:
Detachment: from people, love or dislike, from praise or cen-
sure, from your work.
Frankness: combined with courage and courtesy.
Integrity: in personal affairs consulted on by the Assembly,
and loyalty to Assembly decisions.
Humility: Take the Cause seriously, but don’t take yourself
seriously.
It seems Dorothy had mastered the last quality. As Edna said,
“All her modesty, all her humility came to the top and she just
couldn’t conceive that this could be true.”
To her daughter and son-in-law, Louise and Hubert Matthias,
Dorothy wrote in late December 1951 or very early January 1952,
Darlings,
Wanted you to see this first from me, and not from out-
side sources and read the two long messages of our Guard-
ian. There are twelve Hands! I am amazed, thrilled, baffled,
and uplifted, and only realize vaguely what it all means.
Above all, I am humbled to a small spot.
It is the International phase opening up, and it is over-
whelming.
All my love,
Dorothy

Shortly after the appointments Leroy Ioas visited the Bahá’ís in
Canada, where Rosemary Sala was living.

He came to our NSA meeting and we all gazed at him.
Here was a first living Hand of the Cause! A being from
another world! And he looked at us and said, with tears in
his voice, “Oh, don’t look at me like that! You know, we
used to think that the Hands of the Cause were these glori-
ous beings, before whom we would have to bow down, and
now we find that they’re just—they’re just like I am!” and he
broke down and wept.
Then he said, “When Dorothy heard, she lost her voice.
And when Dorothy loses her voice, the birds stop singing.
The world is silent.”
Dorothy described the shock she felt in letters to friends, fam-
ily, and Bahá’í institutions around the world. But as the days passed
there were signs of her growing assurance and understanding,
and finally of the eagerness she felt to begin a “completely new
epoch”:
Alice1 beloved:
How like you that was!
And how my heart flew back to the day when you came
up to a meeting of the Race Unity Committee in Wilmette,
trudged on foot through snow drifts to the depot, sat for
hours wet and ill, went home and took to your bed literally
for months. And during all this time foolish Dorothy, on
four national committees and with many problems at home,
did not write a single line to one who, almost a martyr, must
have often wondered at such seeming ingratitude. Yet my
Alice was one of the first to send a loving appreciation of the

Alice Cox, a Bahá’í friend who wrote for World Order magazine and re-
viewed articles for that and other publications for many years.

Guardian’s upsurge of divine bounty to one of his servants
who with eleven others stands completely stunned and lis-
tening. And your promise to pray for us is the most precious
part of your dear message, for we three here are still rooted
to the spot, waiting for some Act of God to pull us up and
propel us forward again in His Path. Alice, to you I can say
that I lost my voice for almost three days and am physically
weak still! It has been like an electric shock. Your prayers are
needed, and I for one shall count on them. Will you pray for
nineteen days, please dear? May I ask for this? And when
you come to my name, ask that the All-Merciful Lord will
lift me to the heaven of true understanding, and pour upon
me, however unworthy, the capacity to gladden the heart of
our adored Guardian and serve him with ringing victories in
every way that his dear heart desires.
Over and over come these sustaining words: “Put your
whole trust and confidence in God Who hath created you,
and seek ye His help in all your affairs. Succor cometh from
Him alone. He succoreth whom He will, with the hosts of
the heavens and the earth.”1
With a heart full of love and gratitude to you and to all.
Dorothy
Precious Muriel and Ed:2
The enclosed little envelope is for Bob and his lovely bride.
Please feel free to take it out and read the note and have a
little prayer holding the Holy Dust before they have it. I had
always wanted to give you such an envelope of your own, so

‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Selections from the Writings of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, comp. Research
Department of the Universal House of Justice, trans. Committee at the Bahá’í
World Centre and Marzieh Gail (Wilmette, Ill.: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1997)
no. 45.1.
Muriel and Ed Miessler.

add your blessing to this one and pass it along to your chil-
dren. When it is our Margo’s turn, perhaps I shall have been
to visit the blessed spots “situate by the sea” and will have
something for her. Inshallah! These two children of yours
seem so like my own, somehow. At least I don’t see how I
could feel closer!
Your dear letters are going to be kept always, in my file of
treasures. They were so fragrant and wonderful that I could
not help passing them around to Aunty Lou1 and Frank to
read. So great is the new motion in the Cause, through these
things, that almost sixty letters have come, from all over the
world, praising God for the safe advent of so great an inter-
national phase of our Faith, and offering the blessing of
prayers for the newly appointed ones. There is such an in-
termingling of spirit in these days, and such a growing love.
Gladys and Ben Weeden2 are back from Haifa, and are
journeying around a bit before settling down in America
again. They had lunch with NSA last week, and told us so
much of the life at Haifa, and the great trial and suffering of
our beloved there. Fresh attacks have broken out, and the
“mess of pottage” for which the younger generation of the
Holy Family has traded its birthright, is a blow indescrib-
ably harrowing to him. The form it has taken has been mar-
riage to children of the violators, and in every case, resulted

Luella, Dorothy’s mother; Dorothy’s children called her Aunty Lou.
The Weedens’ wedding in 1948 was the first Bahá’í wedding to occur in
the newly formed State of Israel. Mrs. Weeden assisted in the work of the
Guardian while in Haifa, and Mr. Weeden, among other tasks, was able to
assist in building the superstructure of the Shrine of the Bab. In 1953 the
Weedens were the first Bahá’í pioneers to settle in Antigua, in the Caribbean,
and were named Knights of Bahá’u’lláh.

in careless indifference or outright rebellion. Please pray for
the Guardian daily.
There were tender things and happy things too, but per-
haps I was in a serious mood (for me) and the poignant side
kept cropping out. I will try to remember everything, to
share with the believers in April when we are alone without
outsiders. One thing that struck me was that our Guardian
travails when something tremendous is to be born, almost
as a mother having a child. He will be absent from meals for
days sometimes and remain in his own apartment. Tension
is often great then, and the household is on tiptoe. Then
comes a burst of something tremendous and world shaking,
and joy rings through the halls again; hearts look up and
thank God, and everyone plunges more eagerly than ever
into the tasks set, tasks demanding an absolute perfection, a
complete obedience, an unquestioning devotion, upon which
in every case hangs the success of any service. How he looks
to us here in the west, not only to awaken the sleeping giant
of the Occident, but to prepare ourselves for world con-
quest. Our home successes must come first, and upon them
the greater task rests. Those who arise are known to God
intimately, in His Day, before the majesty of which all the
worlds quake. I will bring much more when I come. The
believers must work as never before.
I hope that the NSA can save the first half hour of every
day for these things, right in the Convention proper; I am
going to write to dear Manuel1 very soon now, and am only
waiting for the NSA letter from up here to reach him first.

Manuel Vera, Secretary of the first National Spiritual Assembly of the
Bahá’ís of South America.

Then we will plan, according to what your NSA can ar-
range. I will not discuss any of these things in the schools
where non-Bahá’ís may be, and when no NSA members can
be present. I can take parts of Drama of Salvation in the
school though, if Bahá’ís and very close students only come.
It should be a close and wonderful time … and the eigh-
teen chosen souls of Latin America committed to the lead-
ership of these continents should be present as much as pos-
sible, I would say. We’ll see, after a little more writing and
consulting. It is a breath-taking time to be alive and con-
scious, and the whole further evolution of glorious Latin
America in the great destiny set for them may depend largely
upon the understanding of a very few. Then we are ready for
the multitudes. In a letter to our Guardian this very week it
came to me so strongly to say, when mentioning problems
still existing, that the two National Assemblies raised up in
the Latin continents were complete assurance of victory. He
is impressed, I know he is, with these remarkable beginnings
in administration.
Our two little families are thriving. Annamarie and Bill
have two exquisite babies, and Louise and Hubert have a
little pioneerling there that seems to hold extraordinary prom-
ise. …
If Bob and Myriam cannot cash these two ordinary little
checks, just send them back, and I will put them both into
one American Express. We thought such small ones would
have no trouble. A big hug to both of them for all of us, and
please let us know all of the news on the family front. Per-
haps I can stop off for a peek at them myself; who knows? I
do nothing any longer, of course, without direction.
All my love, and heartfelt thanks,
Dorothy

PS. I am afraid that the wire recorder would be impossible
this time, due to teaching materials. Let’s watch for the very
first one going by boat, and send it along then. Too bad dear
Margot Worley did not know. There will be others.
Response to a letter from Valeria Nichols
Feb. 1, 1952
The appointments were staggering, like an electric shock
around the world. And each fleck of dust named has been
galvanized into new streams of tho’t and action by a power
outside himself.
May the Beloved assist us to give our all on the altar of
Shoghi Effendi, and add to his joy and strength daily. We
can never be worthy, but He is the All-Merciful.
* * *

615 W. Elm Street
Lima, Ohio
USA
Feb. 4, ‘52
Luxembourg Bahá’í Assembly
Luxembourg—Ville, G.D.
Luxembourg

Beloved Friends:
Your fragrant letter brought back so plainly the beautiful
city of Luxembourg and my heart leaped across the sea to
embrace you all in your wonderful work for the blessed king-

dom. I often think with intense gratitude of the visit to Eu-
rope and my precious association with you all. How glor-
ious it has been to watch your progress, and what sturdy be-
lievers Europe can boast today, to say nothing of her prom-
ise for the future!
I beg you all to pray that in these soul-shaking days we
who have been appointed to the new responsibilities incum-
bent upon the Hands, may be enabled to so serve our re-
vered Guardian as to bring increasing joy to his overbur-
dened heart. This is our common prayer and whole desire.
Knowing your love and depth of understanding, I can with
the greatest assurance ask you to share in it.
The appearance of these institutions is still another sign
to us all that the Faith can now sustain, outwardly and in-
wardly, the impact of world recognition and world adminis-
tration. God be praised that you and I have been privileged
to see this! Please give to the dear friends of the Luxem-
bourg Community, most loving greetings. May we meet
together many times, and each time with a greater victory to
offer.
Warm Bahá’í love,
Dorothy Baker

51. 1951: Dorothy Baker, Hand of the Cause of God.

Chapter 20
International responsibilities & pioneering plans, 1951–53
Bahá’í News
June 1951
The delegates and friends gathered for the first historic Con-
ventions of Latin America, celebrated in Panama City and
Lima, Peru, had the joy and bounty of receiving, through
the good offices of Mrs. Amelia Collins, a priceless gift from
our Guardian to the first National Spiritual Assemblies of
those great territories, of a lock of the blessed hair of His
Holiness, Bahá’u’lláh.
This precious relic, designated for the first National ar-
chives of the newly elected Assemblies, was presented by
the visiting members of the United States National Spiritual
Assembly, Miss Edna True and Paul Haney in Lima, Peru,
and Mrs. Dorothy Baker and Horace Holley in Panama City.
The effect was “electric,” to quote the friends, and all hearts
melted into an extraordinary unity as they turned to Haifa
and the Guardian in thanksgiving for their many newly con-
ferred blessings.

Before traveling to South America the following year, in 1952,
Dorothy made a valiant effort to pave the way for comprehensive
deepening on the message and meaning of Bahá’u’lláh’s revela-
tion. She had helped with a one-hundred-and-thirty-four-page

study guide she wanted to use there. It was titled The Drama of
Salvation: Days of Judgement and Redemption. Published by the
Bahá’í Publishing Committee in Wilmette, the book presents the
coming of each of God’s messengers through the ages as “the most
important single event in the era of which He is a part. For through
Him the Word of God is ‘made flesh and walks among men.’”
The reader is brought into immediate contact with the power of
the summons of Bahá’u’lláh, “He Who is the sovereign Lord of
all is come. The Kingdom is God’s.”1
Dorothy went to great lengths to make translations of The
Drama of Salvation available in South America in time for the
pre-Convention school. On April 5, 1952, she wrote to pioneers
in South America,
I do have a very great favor to ask of you, Evie and Ed, by
way of making my little look-in at Buenos Aires really pro-
ductive. It has to do with Drama of Salvation. I got Sarah
Pereira to translate it, and Ev Larson to set it up on stencils
and run it off, and as it turned out that my Part III was
never received by them, that meant that Elizabeth Cheney
had to be tied up to setting it up, doing the translating her-
self, and running it off here. … I have sent a load to Costa
Rica and a load to B.A., with several samples of corrected
copies, that is corrected by pen and ink, having corrected all
that I possibly have time for here, and am asking you two
down there, and Louise Caswell and Art Lamb up there, to
hire it out, so to speak, and have ready when I come. I will
pay fifty cents a course for the pen and ink corrections, and
each course will take an hour and a half or two hours to do,
so of course, it is not adequate payment. It is just a stipend
of love, with a plea that it will be direct and real service to
the Faith as well as a little pocket money. … You know who

Bahá’u’lláh, Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, trans. Shoghi
Effendi, 1st ps ed. (Wilmette, Ill.: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1983), p. 210.

could use just a little pocket money, and who will sit right
down and get it done immediately. … And no-one is to be
bashful about taking it; they will find ways to use it, for the
Cause if not for themselves, and many need it personally
these days. I only wish I could offer more in each place, but
it cost me $25 to send it all down by air, a necessity now.
Oh, dear ones, I wake up in the nights praying for you
valiant ones these days; something in me pulls on the heart
strings as never before. God reward your steadfastness.
In a letter written May 27, 1951, Dorothy congratulated Ed
Miessler on his “election to the first Nat’l Assembly of South
America. … victory after victory awaits that new Pillar of the U.
House of Justice.” Then, at last, she was there again. Dorothy
first attended the Central American Annual Convention in Pana-
ma, then went on to the South American Annual Convention
held April 29–May 2 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Muriel Miessler,
one of Lima, Ohio’s pioneers to the Latin field, was present in
Buenos Aires.
Muriel and Dorothy were very close. It was in Dorothy’s house
that she and her husband decided to pray about pioneering. The
incident described by Muriel below was kept confidential for
twenty-five years.
There was a particularly stormy session of the Convention
in progress—I need not say what was the problem, but it
was one that was testing the very faith of some of those
present. As I was not a delegate, I was not present, but was
sitting in a nearby room doing some typing for the NSA.
This room had been prepared to hold the sacred relics,
Bahá’u’lláh’s hair was lying there in a frame, together with
some small things of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and some sacred writ-

52. Convention of South America, Buenos Aires, 1952.
Dorothy Baker is standing in the center wearing a dark suit
with white collar and buttons.

ings, and the room was decorated with flowers and pictures.
It was at the moment a little shrine.
Suddenly Dorothy came in from the Convention room. I
could see that she was agitated, though she talked calmly
enough. She walked around, touching this and that. Sud-
denly, at some word I uttered to the effect that it was sad
that some would have to leave the Convention early and
would not be able to hear a particular message which she
was to bring, she began pacing up and down and praying
aloud. I felt that I was just no longer present in her con-
sciousness, as she prayed with tears streaming down her face,
her shoulders shaking, calling out again and again to Bahá’-
u’lláh, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and Shoghi Effendi. She knelt down and
clasped the blessed hair of Bahá’u’lláh to her breast, and cried
for help. She was in agony even as Christ was in the Garden
of Gethsemane. And her agony was entirely for the beloved

Cause—her whole suffering was for the unity of the believ-
ers and their progress. Her words—though not loud—rang
in that room and echoed and re-echoed, and I felt such a
Presence that I cannot describe it. Finally, she stood, calmed,
smiling, serene—and went into the Convention room. And
there was a new peace there immediately.
At the close of the incident, Dorothy looked at me with a
world of emotion in her eyes, and said, “This is between
you and me, isn’t it, Muriel?” And I gave her my word—
except that I could share it with Edmund. Now—perhaps, I
am released from that promise—I’m sure if it would do any
good, Dorothy would release me.
Margot Miessler took notes one afternoon when Dorothy did
speak in Buenos Aires. Dorothy placed great emphasis on The
Dispensation of Bahá’u’lláh and the Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-
Bahá.
The Guardian pleads with us to speak of the greatness of
the Cause, its world scope. He begs us to give it prestige. Do
not speak of it as if it were your own little, personal philoso-
phy; it is the salvation of God for this day, and without it
the planet becomes nonexistent. Mrs. Baker explained that
teaching falls into three categories of which the first is the
fire of attraction, and every single believer is responsible for
this. But it is only the first step.
The experience of the heart is important, but it is not
enough. Now the Guardian has said that a basic study of
Bahá’u’lláh and the New Era is necessary, and that for the
third stage—preparation for membership—we have the
Dispensation of Bahá’u’lláh and The Will and Testament of
‘Abdu’l-Bahá.

Now, I think we do not yet realize the importance of The
Dispensation. If you could all go home and tell the believers
in your community this: that just as The Aqdas was the Book
of Laws and gave us the laws, the succession and the institu-
tions of the Faith, and The Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-
Bahá was the charter of the world order, so The Dispensation
has its place, for it stands as the testament of the Guardian.
In it he plainly defines the place of the Guardianship in rela-
tion to the world order.
It is interesting, in the absence of an actual will at the time of
the Guardian’s death five years later, that Dorothy Baker called
The Dispensation of Bahá’u’lláh his testament.
At the request of the National Spiritual Assembly, she remained
in South America after the 1952 Convention to teach.
She wrote home to Frank and the family:

May 4 [1952]
Dearest Folks:
I have not finished the school courses, but will just begin
a letter home and see how far I get.
There are many problems, and this National Assembly is
so pressed; I wish I could wave a wand for them; they are so
valiant. After the school, we are going to take rooms to-
gether in town and finish up. Then it looks as if I will go to
Brasil via Paraguay. Asunción needs it. There seem to be
many more problems here than in Central America. …
It is beastly cold here, and there is no heat. We have a
cottage system with a central eating place. At noon it is warm

in the sun, and the rest of the time we freeze. But the hearts
are warm and the spirits high.
Tomorrow we visit Quilmes, the cemetery where May
Maxwell is buried, to pay tribute to her and to hold a Me-
morial service for Sutherland Maxwell. …

May 6
School over and we have all flocked in to town for NSA
meetings. We are staying at a little hotel where there is heat,
which never gets turned on because it is not cold enough
yet. But I keep my coat on night and day and get along all
right.
Before coming in I cabled for prayers and the prayers of
the friends because only the power of prayer can accom-
plish what has to happen here. When I get to Brasil I will
write more. Already I feel the help, and do so appreciate it. …

May 10
Sorry this is so disjointed, alas! Will mail this today, but
want to say that two meetings a day are now arranged up to
Tuesday, May 20, when I take off for Asunción. Tell Elisabeth
to get busy on help for Asunción, her baby, at that time! I
am not exaggerating when I say that this stay in Buenos Aires
is more important than anything else on the whole trip, and
miracles are happening. They have to happen, and now.
If June 7 is too late for strawberries, maybe someone could
give me a hand on a crock of good jam, and I’ll let the freez-
ing go.
All my love—Keep with me—Dottie
Gayle Woolson, a member of the National Spiritual Assembly

of South America, recalled that she and Dorothy were offered a
lovely apartment in Buenos Aires which belonged to Mr. Carlos
Foos, “who generously gave us full use of his home and went
somewhere else to stay while we were there. What a great joy it
was to be together!” Gayle continued,
The next day we were visited by a wonderful Bahá’í couple
of Jewish background who resided in Buenos Aires, Jose and
Zulema Mielnik, who were rather new in the Faith. They
had met and heard Dorothy at the recent Convention and
Bahá’í school and were so deeply impressed that they re-
quested to have an appointment to visit her. When this couple
entered the door they were already in a state of exhilaration
over the expectation of seeing Dorothy Baker. She received
them with much joy and graciousness, and enveloped them
with her radiant love. After we were seated, Dorothy spoke
beautifully to them about various aspects of the Faith in-
cluding references in the Bahá’í Faith about Jesus Christ.
Dorothy quoted the writings of Bahá’u’lláh concerning Jesus
Christ by heart. According to Gayle, she recited from memory
the following passage from Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’-
lláh.
Know thou that when the Son of Man yielded up His breath
to God, the whole creation wept with a great weeping. By
sacrificing Himself, however, a fresh capacity was infused
into all created things. Its evidences, as witnessed in all the
peoples of the earth, are now manifest before thee. The deep-
est wisdom which the sages have uttered, the profoundest
learning which any mind hath unfolded, the arts which the
ablest hands have produced, the influence exerted by the

most potent of rulers, are but manifestations of the quick-
ening power released by His transcendent, His all-pervasive
and resplendent Spirit. We testify that when He came into
the world, He shed the splendor of His glory upon all cre-
ated things.1
Gayle continued,
After a few moments Dorothy went out of the room briefly
to get something. In that interval the couple looked at me
with glistening eyes and ecstatic countenances and said, “We
feel as though we have been at the Altar of God.” I, too, was
in that same state of feeling transported to the Presence of
God. This was a powerful characteristic of Dorothy Baker.
Dorothy’s travels in Latin America in 1952 took her to Argen-
tina; Paraguay; Rio de Janeiro and São Paolo, Brazil; Puerto Rico;
Jamaica; Costa Rica; Camagüey, Cienfuegos and Havana, Cuba;
then again to Miami, Florida.
While pioneering in Brazil, Muriel and Edmund Miessler al-
ways loved Dorothy Baker’s visits. She was their spiritual mother.
But those were busy times during her travels, always packed with
Bahá’í activity. Dorothy longed to see more of the Miesslers, too.
The needs of the Faith were great, though, and now she was a
Hand of the Cause, with even more responsibilities. But Muriel
remembered one day when time stopped, just for them.
It happened one Sunday when Edmund and I were resting
after having had a terrific week. We were so tired that we
decided that we would not answer either the telephone or
the door bell. So, we turned over—and before we were asleep,
the door bell rang. We looked at each other. And stayed in

Bahá’u’lláh, quoted in Shoghi Effendi, The Promised Day Is Come, 3d ed.
(Wilmette, Ill.: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1980), ¶269.

bed. It rang again, and again we looked at each other with a
question in our eyes. But we didn’t answer it. It rang again,
impatiently, and Edmund said, “All right. I’ll answer it.” Guess
who it was! Our beloved Dorothy! She had been in Asuncion
and was supposed to come to us on the following Sunday,
but there was a pending air strike, and she took the last plane
available out to São Paulo. It was the most beautiful surprise
imaginable, and we had a FEAST for a whole week, with
nothing else really planned. I’ll never forget how humbly
proud I was one time when Dorothy listened to a remark
that I made and said: “I can use that, Muriel”—I had al-
most too much love and adoration for her. She really was
one of the Chosen Ones.
On Dorothy’s stopover in Miami before returning home from
South America, she spoke with the Bahá’ís, including Lucile Buffin,
who had visited Lima, Ohio, almost twenty years before. Lucile
noted two comments Dorothy made in Miami:
“You know, in the Bible it says, ‘Take heed what ye set your
heart upon, for it shall surely be yours’” … at this same
meeting I remember hearing her say, “There is only one thing
in this life that I dread and that is growing old. I hope when
I go I shall go with my boots on.”
During the South American trip Dorothy had to rise at 2 A.M.
one morning to catch her plane from Buenos Aires to Paraguay.
Gayle Woolson had been with her until that point. Sure that
Dorothy was badly in need of further rest, Gayle suggested she
might sleep on the plane, but Dorothy answered, “No, I never
can sleep on a plane. The greatest sacrifices I make for the Bahá’í
Faith are to leave my husband and to travel by plane.”

But she made these sacrifices and she was confirmed. God had
granted her the physical strength to carry on. She traveled the
world, served her Lord, her family, and her home community. If
one desire was left unfulfilled it was the desire she had expressed
to Rúḥíyyih Khánum in a letter dated February 2, 1943:
My heart’s love once again to the blessed Guardian. When
next you have the privilege of entering the Tomb of the
Blessed Beauty, dearest Rúḥíyyih, will you pray that my life
may be a ransom to the Guardian? I cannot do this, but I
believe that He will answer your prayer. A thousand thanks.
Tenderest love
Dorothy

In 1953, exactly ten years after writing that letter, Dorothy
made her pilgrimage to that most sacred spot. Her prayers there
surely reflected the same devoted hope: to be allowed to offer her
life as a ransom to free Shoghi Effendi from distress or harm. In
February 1953, on her way to the Kampala Intercontinental Con-
ference, she was welcomed to the Guardian’s presence, where story
has it that in greeting her he said, “Welcome, welcome, a thou-
sand times welcome, my martyr pilgrim.”
Dorothy anticipated “that at the Guardian’s table” she might
see “new vistas and sense indescribable joy ahead.” In her pilgrim’s
notes, copied by Elsie Austin, who was present during much of
Dorothy’s pilgrimage, she recorded the following words of Shoghi
Effendi, spoken to the Bahá’ís gathered at dinner:
The planet is the footstool (of God). The Holy Land is in
the heart of the planet. It is the meeting place of three con-
tinents—and is the nest of the Prophets.

He went on to describe the sacred place where the Báb’s remains
lie, much as he had described it in his message of March 29,
1951, to the Bahá’ís of America: “Within this Most Holy Land
rises the Mountain of God of immemorial sanctity, the Vineyard
of the Lord, the Retreat of Elijah, Whose return the Báb Himself
symbolizes.” There, on Mount Carmel, are the gardens, “the ex-
tensive properties permanently dedicated to, and constituting the
sacred precincts of, the Báb’s holy Sepulcher. .. Within this shell
is enshrined that Pearl of Great Price, the holy of holies, those
chambers which constitute the tomb itself.” It is this tomb, which
holds the Báb’s remains, that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá “acclaimed as the spot
round which the Concourse on high circle in adoration.”1
Having spoken of the Holy Land and the Mountain of God,
Shoghi Effendi went on to tell the pilgrims about the connection
of this world with the world beyond, and about the meaning of
the “Supreme Concourse”:
There is a very close connection between the souls beyond
and souls here. This connection depends upon certain
difficult conditions—concentration, purity of heart, purity
of motive. It will be possible to communicate, but do not
attempt to experiment now.
One can even smell the presence of these souls. The Mas-
ter said, “I can smell the spirit and the fragrance of the writer
from this letter, when I opened it.”
The Supreme Concourse are beings of whom we have no
conception, but it includes souls of people who have been
very devoted and other beings as well of whom we are not
aware. The higher the position, the greater the influence.
They rush to the assistance of the sincere servants who arise
now.
We need to develop greater concentration and purity in
prayer. Prayer and action attract the assistance.

Shoghi Effendi, Citadel of Faith (Wilmette, Ill.: Bahá’í Publishing Trust,
1965), pp. 95, 96.

53. In Haifa on her long-awaited pilgrimage,
with Luṭfu’lláh Ḥakím, January 1953.
God assures each one that every act is a magnet for the
Supreme Concourse.
The Master said … “As to the question that the holy and
spiritual souls influence, help and guide the creatures after
they have cast off their elemental mold, this is an estab-
lished truth of the Bahá’ís.”
Only these references from Shoghi Effendi concerning the Holy
Land and the next world are available from Dorothy’s pilgrimage.
Within the year she was to make her home near one and in the
other.
Amatu’l-Bahá Rúḥíyyih Khánum knew of the many times Dor-
othy had asked to be allowed to come to the Holy Shrines. Her
first request for pilgrimage was made to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in 1920.

Then, in 1935, the Guardian accepted her offer to contribute her
travel money to the National Fund for the construction of the
House of Worship. In 1937 the financial tests caused by the per-
secution of the Bahá’ís of Lima again made it impossible to afford
pilgrimage. Then the restrictions imposed because of dangers in
the Middle East limited travel at the time of her 1939 and 1948
requests for pilgrimage. On each occasion she had been unable to
fulfill her fondest hope. Writing of Dorothy’s pilgrimage, Rúḥíyyih
Khánum recalled,
So you see that when she did eventually come here it was the
fulfillment of a lifelong dream of hers, and I remember go-
ing up to her bedroom the night before she was to leave and
telling her how distressed I was that after waiting so many
years to come on the pilgrimage, she only had seven nights
(due to airplane connections). She gave me an answer which
I have very often quoted to the friends. She said that she felt
that when people came here they were like a dry sponge and
that when they had the experience of the pilgrimage—the
Shrines, the Guardian—in an instant they were filled like a
sponge being plunged into water and that very little more
could be added, so I should not feel sad that she had only
had seven nights. Her beautiful eyes were shining when she
said this and I was deeply touched.
Marguerite Sears went on pilgrimage later that same month,
February, 1953. In her notes from the Guardian’s conversations,
Mrs. Sears has recorded,
The hosts of the supreme Concourse are suspended between
earth and Heaven waiting to assist, but we must be like a
magnet to attract this spirit. This spirit has accumulated

because it has not been drawn upon. … It requires purity of
heart and extreme concentration to communicate with the
next world. The Bahá’í who turns to God—he not only can
achieve miraculous things, but can exercise a great influence
on others.
In Dorothy’s informal talks with the friends in Haifa, she spoke
of prayer, too. “The power of prayer is dammed up at the chan-
nel, never at the source. Spirituality is a measurable force, like
electricity or light. … Prayer is not conquering God’s reluctance,
but taking hold of God’s willingness.” And she quoted the Bahá’í
writings: “I swear by the Bounty of the Blessed Perfection that
nothing will produce results save intense sincerity.” This attitude
of intense sincerity, according to her son, Bill Baker, was perhaps
the greatest secret of Dorothy’s success.
As a Hand of the Cause, Dorothy Baker attended all four In-
tercontinental Teaching Conferences, during what Shoghi Effendi
described as the “GREAT JUBILEE COMMEMORATING CENTENARY OF
THE TERMINATION OF THE BÁBÍ DISPENSATION BIRTH BAHÁ’U’LLÁH’S
REVELATION SÍYÁH-CHÁL ṬIHRÁN. …”

Rúḥíyyih Khánum explains the Ten Year Crusade by saying
that there was to be a three-year pause that would lead into the
third Seven Year Plan. Instead there was no wait.
A victorious army, having swept all barriers before it, is of-
ten so exhilarated by its exploits it needs no respite. It is
ready to march on, fired by its victories. This was the mood
of the Bahá’í world as 1953 approached and it was about to
enter the Holy Year.
The highlights of the Holy Year were four great Intercon-
tinental Conferences ….2

Shoghi Effendi, “Momentous Announcement of the Jubilee Centenary,” in The
Bahá’í World: A Biennial International Record, Volume XII, 1950–1954, comp.
National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States (Wilmette, Ill.:
Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1956), pp. 24, 115.
Rúḥíyyih Rabbání, The Priceless Pearl (London: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1969),
p. 416.

As the Guardian wrote,
Let there be no mistake. The avowed, the primary aim of
this Spiritual Crusade is none other than the conquest of
the citadels of men’s hearts. The theatre of its operations is
the entire planet. Its duration a whole decade. Its commence-
ment synchronizes with the Centenary of the birth of
Bahá’u’lláh’s Mission. Its culmination will coincide with the
Centenary of the Declaration of that same mission.1
Kampala, Uganda, in the heart of Africa, welcomed Bahá’ís
from four continents and nineteen countries at the First Inter-
continental Teaching Conference in February, 1953. Leroy Ioas,
a Hand of the Cause who had given up his executive business
position in the United States to serve Shoghi Effendi in Haifa,
represented the Guardian in Kampala. Mr. Ioas gave his message
to the Bahá’ís who gathered under the large army marquee, a sub-
stantial tent set up on the grounds of the Kampala Ḥaẓíratu’l-
Quds. Of the 232 assembled Bahá’ís, nine men and one woman
were Hands of the Cause of God. Many of the Hands had never
met one another before. Among them were ‘Alí-Akbar Furútan
and Dorothy Baker, who greeted each other for the first time.
The day Dorothy gave her first talk in Kampala, she and many
of the Bahá’ís visited African villages first. Their transportation
got them back rather late, so Dorothy had no time to dress or
prepare herself for the public talk. Mr. Furútan recalled the
evening:
My first impression was of her spirituality—her face, her
eyes; how she looked at the people. I was especially impressed
by the way she talked—a very special way. First she loved
them. You could see from her eyes, her manner, she loved

Shoghi Effendi, quoted in Rabbání, Priceless Pearl, p. 412.

54. Hands of the Cause of God attending the First Intercontin-
ental Teaching Conference, Kampala, February 1953. In the back-
ground is the Kampala Ḥaẓíratu’l-Quds. Left to right: Músá
Banání, Valíyu’lláh Varqá, Shu’á’u’lláh ‘Alá’í, Mason Remey, Horace
Holley, Ṭaraẓu’lláh Samandari, Dhikru’lláh Khadem, Leroy Ioas,
Dorothy Baker, and ‘Alí-Akbar Furútan.

people. She talked about their beliefs, their history and reli-
gion, their sacred scriptures. Then gradually she began to
talk about the Faith. … Another thing I saw in Hand of
the Cause Dorothy Baker, she did in almost all the meet-
ings. She herself would say a prayer at the beginning and at
the end, in such a way and with such spirituality and feeling
that even Bahá’ís like myself would be uplifted. I felt I was
ascending to heaven; her voice and manner were quite dis-
tinguished.

55. Dorothy Baker in Kampala: making a point.
Mr. Afshar, a pioneer to Africa who was present on the occa-
sion, commented years later,
She was in my idea not from this world. In my life I have
seen few people like her, and I haven’t seen any more since
that time. At the time she was speaking English. I could
understand a few words only, but I could follow her tone
and her emotion, and without being able to help it I was
crying. She was talking and I was crying all the time. Her
words were really God’s Word, and I couldn’t imagine that a
human being could do such work, could thrill the world.
As moving as Dorothy’s talk was, it had some repercussions
that hurt her deeply. A member of the press who was present at
her talk reported in the newspaper that the Bahá’ís were in favor

of “revolution.” Dorothy had repeatedly referred to the Revela-
tion of God, but the journalist had misunderstood. Horace Holley
wrote a piece for the paper that explained the Faith’s true posi-
tion. Though the incident provided wide publicity for the Faith’s
views, Dorothy was very upset that her words were used, misused
really, to shed a false light on the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh.
The effect on most of the native Bahá’ís who heard her speak
was thrilling. Dorothy had been introduced as a relative of Harriet
Beecher Stowe, who wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin and fought against
slavery. Mr. Furútan saw that the people were very excited by her
connection to such an outstanding figure in the history of racial
harmony. He listened as Dorothy explained that, as a Bahá’í, she
appreciated the book and admired the greatness of the soul of
Harriet Beecher Stowe even more. Mr. Furútan, himself a distin-
guished scholar, author, and speaker, remarked that her talk and
her presence “literally raised a tumult and attracted many among
the audience to the Cause of Bahá’u’lláh.”1
Also present at the Kampala Conference was a young man
whose family members had been in the household of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. He
himself had grown up in Haifa in the time of the Guardian. His
name was ‘Alí Nakhjavání. Almost three decades after the Kampala
conference, Mr. Nakhjavání stood in the lobby of the pilgrim
house in Haifa, where he has served the Bahá’í world as a member

From 1957 on, the Hand of the Cause of God Mr. Furútan’s presence in
Haifa has had a magnetic effect on the hearts of the thousands of Bahá’í pil-
grims whom he has welcomed so tenderly. ‘Alí-Akbar Furútan was born in
Iran and accompanied his parents to ‘Ishqábád, Russia in April 1914, when he
was nine. He took his degree at Moscow University in child psychology and
education. He was the Secretary of the first National Spiritual Assembly of the
Bahá’ís of Iran and served in that capacity for twenty-four years. He was ap-
pointed a Hand of the Cause of God in 1951.

of the Universal House of Justice since 1963. He recalled his im-
pressions of Dorothy Baker:
Dorothy was strong in the Covenant. Someone must have
taught her very well about the Covenant. She was in love
with every word of Shoghi Effendi. In front of an audience
it was clear her motive was pure. She knew what she must do
and her object was to help them see what they must do.
She bewitched her audience, not so much with her words
and stories, but with her beauty and dignity, with the way
she delivered her talk, the use of her hands, and the manner
in which she moved them for emphasis. She combined love
with eloquence and wisdom.
In August of 1952, a young woman engaged to a Muslim left
England to meet her fiancé in Mombasa. Her name was Irene
Bennett. Before leaving England she had read Bahá’u’lláh and the
New Era, was deeply affected by it, and handed the book on to
her sister. On the ship she met someone connected with the Aga
Khan schools and was offered a job as a teacher. When she arrived
in Mombasa members of the British colony were so shocked to
find that her fiancé was foreign, they sent her away to Nairobi to
teach in the Aga Khan girls’ school there.
Disgusted with the racial attitudes of the English colony and
discouraged not to be able to live in Mombasa where she could at
least see her fiancé, Ali, Irene decided to go home to England
when the term ended. Then her sister wrote. She had read the
book, Bahá’u’lláh and the New Era, and had become a Bahá’í
Irene went to her first Bahá’í meeting in January of 1953, where
she met many Bahá’ís who were arriving for the conference. On
Tuesday the 24th of January, she became a Bahá’í. On Wednes-
day she was invited to hear Dorothy Baker speak at the United

Kenya Club. But the opening ceremonies of the school where she
taught were planned for the same evening. At the last moment
she decided to skip the ceremonies and go to the Kenya Club.
Many Bahá’ís were there, en route home to various African
countries from the Kampala Conference. Listening to Dorothy,
Irene began to weep. She said later, “never before had I been un-
able to control my tears, and I felt very much ashamed.” As long
as Dorothy spoke, Irene continued to cry. Mrs. Khadem came
over after the talk and explained to her that this was her spiritual
rebirth. In fact, the impact of her declaration was felt by many
who had attended the conference. Aziz Yazdi told her, “Yesterday
you were our friend. Today you are our sister.”
Irene went home, she said, walking on air. She remembered
thinking, “How can I teach school tomorrow? I can’t do it.” But
when she arrived the headmistress told her a holiday had been
declared at the opening ceremonies the night before, so Irene was
free to lunch with Dorothy and Mabel Sneider.
After lunch, Dorothy asked Irene to tell her about her life. Irene
told about Ali.
Dorothy said, “You must put your trust in Bahá’u’lláh. Before,
Ali was one step ahead of you, and now you must bring him one
step ahead to catch up with you. … You may find, after all, that
you won’t marry Ali …. Would you like me to go and see Ali in
Mombasa? I am flying to Dar-es-Salaam, and I might be able to
change my ticket for a stopover in Mombasa en route.”
In retrospect, it is unbelievable that Dorothy offered this, but
in fact they walked directly to the office of the East African Air-
line and changed Dorothy’s ticket. Dorothy talked to Irene about
serving the Faith. She told her she would introduce Ali to the
Bahá’í Faith. Dorothy said, “I married a man who was not a Bahá’í,
but he became one later.”
On Saturday Dorothy left for Dar-es-Salaam, stopping over in

Mombasa to find and meet Ali. On her arrival, she happened into
a shop owned by Ali’s best friend. When Dorothy met Ali, she
liked him and found him very spiritual. He was intrigued by this
sudden visit and asked if he could become a Bahá’í and still re-
main a Muslim. But when Ali came to Africa, and attended Bahá’í
meetings, he showed no interest whatsoever, which baffled Irene.
They did not marry. Irene stayed on in Kenya as a pioneer, then
pioneered to Portugal in 1959. With her sister she moved to the
Orkney Islands—and so lived all her Bahá’í life as a teacher and a
pioneer.
The spring following Africa, Dorothy attended the All-America
Intercontinental Teaching Conference in Chicago, Illinois. There,
at the Medinah Temple, she spoke of the Guardian and of his
reference to ‘Alí Nakhjavání during her pilgrimage:
He told of ‘Alí Nakhjavání. He spoke of the fact that this
intrepid youth had gone into the jungles of Africa, as you
have no doubt been hearing, and, assisted by Philip
Hainsworth1 of Britain, they lived with the Teso people; they
ate the food of the Teso people; they slept on straw mats or
leaves, or whatever it is that you sleep on among the Teso
people. The rain falls on your head and salamanders drop in
your tea, if there is tea. And they stayed! And they did not
say, “Conditions do not warrant it because these people eat
herbs and things that would just kill us.” They stayed! Is
there an ‘Alí Nakhjavání, then, in America? At the present,

Philip Hainsworth enrolled in the Faith in 1938. He has served as chair-
man of the National Bahá’í Youth Committee of the British Isles, a member
of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United Kingdom, and
as a member of the first National Spiritual Assembly of Central and East Af-
rica.

no. I mean, up to the present. Is there a Philip Hainsworth?
Up to the present, no.
Now, the dark skinned people, he [Shoghi Effendi] said,
would have an upsurge that is both spiritual and social. The
spiritual upsurge will rapidly bring them great gifts because
this is an act of God and it was so intended. And all the
world’s prejudiced forces will not hold it back, one hair’s
breadth. The Bahá’ís will glorify it and understand it. The
social repercussions of race suppressions around the world
will increase at the same time, and frightened, the world’s
forces will see that the dark skinned peoples are really rising
to the top—a cream that has latent gifts only to be brought
out by Divine bounties. Where do the Bahá’ís stand in this?
Again and again he pointed out that the Bahá’ís must be in
the vanguard of finding them and giving them the base. For
the social repercussions will at times become dreadful, if we
do not, and we shall be judged by God.
I thought that I was rather a fanatic on the race question,
at least a strong liberal, but I sat judged by my Guardian,
and I knew it. My sights were lifted immeasurably and I saw
the vistas of these social repercussions, coming because of
our spiritual negligence through the years, and I saw the
Indian tribes dotted about this continent unredeemed, wait-
ing—waiting for an ‘Alí Nakhjavání. Are the African friends
going to have to come and awaken us for the dark skinned
races in our midst? God forbid, that in even this coming
year we fail in this. …
God grant that we may raise up our heroes who will dedi-
cate their lives to the Indians, to the great dark skinned races,
to the Eskimos, to the Negro peoples so brilliant, so prom-
ising in our national life. Which one will be our ‘Alí
Nakhjavání?

Jim Stone was not present at that memorable talk, but he drove
his old truck sixty miles to hear Dorothy speak one night in Vir-
ginia. For him, that night was a step, unheralded and unplanned,
toward a life of service.
The last time I saw Hand of the Cause Dorothy Baker
was in the home of Joel Marangella in Falls Church, VA, I
believe in the summer of 1953.
Joel had asked Dorothy to come over to Falls Church from
Alexandria where she was staying, at the time, to speak on
the Faith to some of his friends. There were possibly 40 or
50 in the room as it was a fairly large house with a large
living room.
After the evening formalities were over and we were all
milling around, chewing cookies, drinking punch and chat-
tering like magpies. … Dorothy really blossomed out and
showed her true qualities.
It started getting late, 10:00 P.M., 10:30 P.M. and still no
sign of anyone deciding to leave. In my mind loomed the
possibility that the evening would be a repetition of those
earlier meetings in which we went home at 2:00 A.M. or later.
As I had to be to work in the morning, and had to drive over
60 miles of winding mountain road, it looked like it would
be morning before I got there. Finally about 11:00 P.M., I
asked Joel if he was going to take her back to Alexandria,
thinking if he was, I’d leave and go home.
He answered, “Oh! My car isn’t good enough to take her
home. … I’ll phone for a cab in a while and pay for it.”
Dorothy was then standing only a short distance away,
talking to some people. I turned to her and apologized for
interrupting and said, “Joel will not be able to take you back

to Alexandria. Would you like to ride in my old 1934 Ford
Pickup so that I can?”
Her reply was short and to the point, “Come on Jim.
Let’s go.”
She thanked everybody for a lovely evening and we left.
As we left, we could feel the remarks of the crowd more
than hear them. … “The renowned, beloved Dorothy Baker
riding nine miles home in the middle of the night in an old
rattletrap of a PICKUP. How could one think of such a
thing?” …
However, as far as the two old friends were concerned
that ride that night was the highlight of the whole evening.
No ride in a gold plated Fleetwood Cadillac could have been
more spiritually rewarding.
Those two friends reminisced for half an hour and were
completely oblivious to the bumps in the road or any other
inconveniences involved.
That year, she had addressed the National Convention as
to the need for the development of teaching work among
the American Indians. Living in Martinsburg and being out
of touch with Chicago goings on, this fact was unknown to
me and she never referred to it.
However, the Guiding Hand of God was working and
that fall saw me preparing to move to Gallup, New Mexico
and fulfill her wishes. I never knew that I had done so until
I arrived in Gallup and it was brought to my attention. …
I have been here now some 29 years and have no inten-
tion of moving.

Knowing that Dorothy had just been at the Kampala Confer-
ence, where Leroy Ioas had represented the Guardian, his daugh-

ter, Farrukh Ioas, asked Dorothy how he was. After hearing the
glowing report on his performance at the Kampala Conference,
Farrukh asked if, now that he was a Hand of the Cause of God,
her father still used strong language, or if he had changed in that
respect.
Dorothy answered:
I believe we have to revamp our definition of saints. Your
father was the Guardian’s representative … and it was his
job to see that the Guardian’s gift—a photograph of the
portrait of the Báb—was shown at that conference. Leroy
met with those in charge and asked what was the appointed
time on the agenda. They told him not to worry, that it
would be taken care of. The next day nothing was men-
tioned so Leroy asked them again to make a decision as to
when it would be shown. They assured him that it would be
taken care of—but it wasn’t. Leroy called them together then
and told them that the Guardian’s gift would be presented
that day at 2 or 3 P.M. and that if it wasn’t he would tell the
Guardian they didn’t give a damn.
As Nancy Dobbins, who recounted the above story years later,
said, the most important aspect of it is the ability Dorothy had to
turn the issue around and say that the definition of a saint must
be changed—not the saint himself.
During that same spring of 1953 at the National Convention
in Wilmette, a young Bahá’í woman was combing her hair in the
ladies’ room during a break. She turned around and saw Dorothy
Baker standing next to her. Reelected to the National Assembly,
now serving as a Hand of the Cause, but most important, alive
with her joy in serving Bahá’u’lláh, Dorothy was admired by most
and adored by many, among them the young Bahá’í who turned

to find this radiant figure so close by. Dorothy embraced the girl
and surprised her by commenting on her fine “Bahá’í reputation.”
The dark-haired girl answered that her real wish was to be more
like Dorothy, to be able to do the things Dorothy did for the
Faith “so effortlessly—so beautifully.” Then she asked, “Is there
something I can do to help me achieve this, to be more like you?”
Dorothy smiled and said yes, there was, then told her listener,
“What helped me develop was a certain detachment from the
world and all that pertains to it. At this stage in my life I fill my
mind and thoughts only with spiritual things. When things of
the world come into my mind I instantly think of the Greatest
Name or some divine attribute.” Years later, when Soo Fouts1 be-
came a member of the National Spiritual Assembly of the United
States herself, she still remembered and practiced Dorothy’s ad-
vice.
Dorothy’s thoughts, so disciplined to spiritual realities, were
totally reflected in her outward behavior and demeanor. At that
1953 National Convention Belinda Elliot found her to have “a
radiance unlike any I had seen before, or since. She appeared to
be almost transparent to me and in the auditorium during ser-
vices she kept gazing upward. My eyes were always fastened on
her face. …”
Al Reinholz wasn’t a Bahá’í, but some friends from Milwaukee
thought he should see the House of Worship and think about
declaring. On a Sunday they drove to Wilmette to look around
and hear the Bahá’í talk that was scheduled. It happened to be
given by Dorothy. One thing stood out for Mr. Reinholz: the
prayer Dorothy said before the talk—the “Remover of Difficul-

Soo Fouts, former member of the National Spiritual Assembly of the
United States, is serving as a pioneer in South Korea.

ties.” He said, “I’ve never heard anyone since say it the way she
did. This was almost my only contact with her. It was a tremen-
dous thing. She knew just when to pause—I don’t know if it was
a natural thing with her or whether she practiced it, but it was
very effective.”
In a sense, she did practice it, as Mrs. Khadem witnessed. It was
the year after her husband, Dhikru’lláh Khadem, was appointed a
Hand of the Cause of God that she visited the Bakers. While he
traveled to South America in service to the Faith, as he would
later travel throughout the world, Javidukht Khadem recalled that
she went on a teaching trip of her own.
Dorothy Baker said that I must stay with her, so I went to
her home in Lima, Ohio. She said that she had made an
itinerary for me to go to all the firesides in the area as the
speaker. I was very shy. I said I knew very few of the Bahá’ís
in the area. She said it did not matter; I had to do it.
Every day someone picked me up and took me to the
fireside. Each day I became happier. Every night I came home
late—sometimes at 1 A.M. When I got home I found Dor-
othy Baker and her wonderful husband sitting in the break-
fast room (the pullman) and talking. She told me that it was
the only time she had to be with her husband, because all
day she was so busy.
At the end of 10 or 11 days she had to go to the National
Assembly meeting, and I wanted to go to visit my brother.
She said, “Let us go together in the car.” On the way she
told me, “I have so many things that I must do, and I do not
have time. Will you please read these letters I have received,
and take notes on how to answer them?” I made notes on
the back of each letter, as she told me what to write.
In the middle of this she said, “I have to do something

that I forgot. I promised to pray for Elsie Austin,1 because
she wants to go to Africa, and the door is closed. Will you
help me?” and I said, “Sure.” I did not know what she wanted.
She said, “I want to say the ‘Remover of Difficulties’ 95
times.”
She said it very slowly, and with each word her tears poured
down. She didn’t even notice me. I looked at her. I had never
experienced anything like this. The tears covered her face,
and dropped onto her clothes. I did not even count the num-
ber of prayers she said, but when she finished she pulled the
car over to the side of the road, and she passed out.
I opened the car door and called, “Dorothy—Dorothy.
Please!” After about 10 minutes she opened her eyes, and
was so happy! She said, “I am sorry, honey, that I bothered
you so much.” I asked her, “Is this the way you always pray?”
She answered, Is there any other way?” “Do you always say
your prayers like that? Do you say your Obligatory Prayer
every day like that?” I asked. She said, “Did you ever read
that you must wait to pray until you are feeling spiritual?
Every morning I say many prayers, so that I will be spiritual
enough to say my Obligatory Prayer.”
That was my trip with Dorothy Baker.
Dorothy felt the spouses of the Hands of the Cause must be
encouraged, as they carried a great burden and received little rec-
ognition. She worried about them and how they felt, whether
their potential was being brought out or lost in the shadows be-
hind their vibrantly shining mates. Mrs. Khadem became an ex-

Elsie Austin pioneered to Morocco from 1953 to 1957 and was named a
Knight of Bahá’u’lláh. She then pioneered to Nigeria in the 60s and later to
the Bahamas. Elsie Austin now resides in the Washington D.C. area.

56. Hands of the Cause of God attending the Third
Intercontinental Teaching Conference, Stockholm, July 1953.

ample of one who has been ardent and active, among other things,
as a fine speaker and a member of the Auxiliary Board in the
United States.
Dorothy’s own beloved Frank was an example of the sacrifices
made by the wives and husbands of the Hands. He financed her
travels, then bore the loneliness of her absence. She was his dearly
loved companion and was keenly missed during her months away
from home every year. Even when she was home she wasn’t able
to spend the time with him they both would have liked. Hand of
the Cause Paul Haney recognized the suffering Frank went
through. In Haifa, speaking of Frank Baker in May 1976, he said,
I don’t believe the extent to which he sacrificed to make it
possible for Dorothy to do all the things she did is generally
realized. He loved her very much, and he loved being with

57. Hands of the Cause of God at the All-America Intercontinen-
tal Teaching Conference, May 1953. Left to Right: Dorothy Baker,
Shu’á’u’lláh ‘Alá’í, ‘Alí-Akbar Furútan, Ṭaraẓu’lláh Samandarí,
Músá Banání, Valíyu’lláh Varqá. Twelve Hands of the Cause of
God attended the Conference.

her. He sacrificed much of the time of their married life to
make it possible for her to be away, and render those out-
standing services to the Faith. I’ve always felt that in many
ways he was an unsung hero of the Faith.
During the Intercontinental Conference in Chicago, Hand of
the Cause of God Corinne True, ninety-one years old, invited all
the Hands who were present, as well as their spouses and several
other Bahá’ís, to dinner at her home. In her long life Mrs. True

had gone on pilgrimage to Haifa nine times, had received more
than fifty tablets from ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, and had been instrumental
in the building of the Bahá’í House of Worship in Wilmette,

58. In the House of Worship, Wilmette, 1953, with Matthew Bullock.

near Chicago. Frank and Dorothy Baker were among her guests
that evening in 1953. After dinner, as people were casually talk-
ing to one another, Mr. Furútan asked Frank about his wife, her
services, and their life together. Frank, who was usually a quiet
man, not one to express his feelings too publicly, looked into Mr.
Furútan’s warm, dark eyes and said, “First of all, she’s not just my
wife. She’s my queen. I would never consider myself her equal. As
far as her services go, my main recollections are of packing and
unpacking. I send her off on a teaching trip and when she returns
I help her unpack. Those moments when we’re home together are
the sweetest moments of my life.”
It wasn’t long after talking with Mr. Furútan that Frank again
saw Dorothy off on further foreign travels. The Third Interconti-
nental Conference in Stockholm, Sweden, had the bounty of
welcoming fourteen Hands of the Cause of God. Wednesday
morning, July 22, 1953, they were introduced to the almost four
hundred Bahá’ís in attendance. When Dorothy’s name was called
she said to the assembled Bahá’ís, “I begin to understand why
Europe has been considered the pulse of the world. If we regener-
ate its pulse, the world may be conquered.”1
On Friday morning Ugo Giachery,2 the Hand of the Cause of
God representing the Guardian at the conference, read the para-
graph of Shoghi Effendi’s cable setting forth Europe’s part in the

Quoted in “Report of the European Intercontinental Teaching Conference,” in
Bahá’í World, Vol. XII, p. 171.
Ugo Giachery was born and educated in Palermo, Sicily and received a
doctorate in chemistry from the Royal University of Palermo. He was appointed
by Shoghi Effendi as his personal representative for all the work in Italy associ-
ated with the erection of the superstructure of the Shrine of the Báb on Mt.
Carmel. Later he served in the same capacity for the construction of the Bahá’í
International Archives building on Mt. Carmel. In 1951 he was appointed as a
Hand of the Cause.

great “Global Crusade,” the sweeping Ten Year Plan that stretched
from 1953 forward to 1963, and would—though no one knew it
at the time—also usher in the Universal House of Justice. Dr.
Giachery listed the territories in which there should be pioneers
by the end of “the Jubilee Year,” the first year of the Plan, com-
memorating the hundred-year anniversary of the birth of the rev-
elation of Bahá’u’lláh in the Síyáh-Chál prison. The Jubilee Year
began in October 1952 and was to end at the New Delhi
Intercontinental Conference in October 1953. With the New Delhi
Conference hardly more than two months away, the hope of set-
tling pioneers in the thirty virgin territories scattered from Alba-
nia to the Hebrides seemed remote.1
Earlier in the Stockholm conference, in a touchingly humor-
ous talk about one goal—“little Spitzbergen”—Dorothy had moti-
vated many pioneers to volunteer for what must have seemed
obscure, out-of-the-way places. However, on this last day of the
conference, some goals remained unfilled.
None of the four National Spiritual Assemblies that had been
assigned goals had yet succeeded in fulfilling all of them. On Sun-
day afternoon Dorothy reported that, of the European goals as-
signed to the National Assembly of the United States, one virgin
territory was left to be filled: Andorra. The Bahá’í World records,
“As she spoke, a believer immediately offered to pioneer to that
country.”2
In turn various individuals spoke about the unfilled goals of
the three other National Assemblies. One by one, the same thing
happened until, at the end of that session, pioneers had volun-

Pioneers who arose during the first year of the Ten Year Crusade or who
arose in later years to go to territories previously unopened to the Bahá’í Faith
were known as Knights of Bahá’u’lláh. Their names were inscribed on a Roll
of Honor by the Guardian.
Bahá’í World, Vol. VIII, p. 177.

teered for all the territories remaining to be opened to the Faith in
Europe. The hope Dorothy stated at the start of the conference,
that Europe’s pulse be regenerated, had been achieved. The Guard-
ian’s pioneer goals were won.
In her room at the Hotel Malmen in Stockholm, the night
before the final resounding call for pioneers on the conference
floor, Dorothy wrote a letter to Gladys and Ben Weeden, reveal-
ing her secret hopes, unknown to her fellow believers who lis-
tened and arose.

July 25, ‘53
Dearest Gladys and Ben,
In the atmosphere of this wonderful conference it comes
strongly to me to send you greetings and also a hint of what
is in my heart about pioneering.
The West Indies area is just “ready to pop” and in most of
it you can live like a lord on a very few dollars! When we can
wriggle out of a few last affairs in Lima it might be that
Frank and I can be permitted settlement somewhere there.
We retired folk can wriggle, after all. Our Guardian says “No
exceptions!”
Now my heart simply jumps up and down at the thought
that you two might be interested. We might even go to the
same island or at least be neighbors. This is all secret consul-
tation, of course, and purely personal, as every single one
must use his own judgment and come to his own decision. I
just thought that if you were thinking of something of the
sort it would be so wonderful to be together or at least semi-
together. And our Western Hemisphere Teaching Commit-
tee could pay expenses to the island, I just know, if you can
manage to even partially get on after arrival. The Leewards
and Windwards are very inexpensive.
How I wish we could get the settlement angle finished

within the Holy Year, as our beloved in Haifa begs us to go
at least throughout the Western Hemisphere where we are
so free. In his message to Europe, in speaking of the 131
new virgin goals of the Crusade he says, “no act worthier, no
honor greater.”
If it should come to your hearts, dears, you can obtain
blanks immediately from Ms. Katherine McLaughlin, 73
College Rd., Princeton, New Jersey.
Now I will forget that I have written, and be sure that
only what is best for you will come to your hearts.
Dearest love,
Dorothy

Even a year would be marvelous and unexpected things
come along to help go on.
Island Paradises of the World would be nice to read. I for-
get the publisher.
If you act, act fast, for your names should be past the
committee and before the NSA by the time of its meeting
Aug. 28. Pray about it and you will know whether it is for
you.
Frank met Dorothy on August 1st, just home from a teaching
trip to Finland after the conference. Before he carried her off to a
favorite fishing haven, a cable went off to the Guardian: “OFFER
SETTLE ISLAND CARIBBEAN AFTER INDIA. AWAIT DECISION REVERED
GUARDIAN. DEVOTED LOVE FRANK DOROTHY BAKER.” On August 7th
they received their answer: “HEARTILY APPROVE LOVING PRAYERS AC-
COMPANYING YOU SHOGHI.” A week later Dorothy wrote to her
daughter and family.

59. National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United
States, 1953. This is the photograph the Guardian placed in his
room at Bahjí; five members resigned to go pioneering. Front row,
left to right: Mamie L. Seto, Elsie Austin, Edna True, Dorothy
Baker, and Matthew Bullock. Back row, left to right: H. Borrah
Kavelin, W. Kenneth Christian, Paul Haney, and Horace Holley.

August 14, 1953
Dearest Louise, Hubert, and Dodey,
Just in case you did not get my note written to Birre from
fishing camp, this is a little Bon Voyage and goodbye. We
are still thrilled and happy about the sale and feel so relieved
that it1 does not have to be rented.

Louise and Hubert’s house in Birre, near Lisbon, Portugal.

Well, all the world is on the move, pioneering, and I do
want you to have our wonderful news while you are on Eu-
ropean soil, that Dad and I are setting sail in January for the
Windward Islands, British West Indies, to settle as resident
pioneers. I thought you would like to know, to tell dear Char-
lotte and Hilda and Xavier and all the other dear ones, and
ask their prayers for us.
There always seems to be some test of sincerity at the
point of going. Bill Sears had longed to reach the point of
winning a contract for $1,000 a week on the radio, and just
as he was about to sail for Africa he received it! He sailed.
Your homecoming is ours. We shall have time together

60. Budd Lake, September 1953, four generations (from left to
right): Dorothy Baker, her mother Luella (Aunty Lou), grand-
daughter Dorothy (Dodey), and daughter Louise.

before January, however, and Dad must come home annu-
ally on business, so ours is not as “rugged.” We are just go-
ing to treasure every moment we do have and be grateful.
Aunty Lou is to go back with us next year, when we have
a more definite set-up in Grenada, in fact she is counting on
it. This year we feel it might be taking a chance for her to try
it. So the house will go on as usual here this year, as a Center
and as a home for Aunty Lou, who will be a hostess, busi-
ness manager, and inspiration, at one and the same time.
Thus you can come home just the same, and moreover, both
Junior families are to use the farm apartment to their hearts’
content. In fact we have a surprise for you in the shape of a
really good little guest house out back now, so that both Jun-
ior families can come at once and enjoy each other and the
farm.
We want to wait until we have lived in the islands a while
before we make any move toward a change here. We’ll know
better next summer the wisest thing to do. …
Well, we’ll tell you more about the island of Grenada in
the Windwards when we see you. It brings me still closer to
the Latins and puts us under NSA of South America. I think
Dad is going to love it; he is genial by nature and a better
mixer, and in the first stages at least I am certain he will
accomplish more, just by his presence and general personal-
ity. But we do not wish to make “in-a-hurry-Bahá’ís”; first
we make friends, and go slowly. Dad would like to add a
word to you all.
Love,
Mommie
Hi folks—
It seems too good to be true that we will soon all be to-

gether. Very much pleased about the house. Hope Hubert
got his money out of the export business too. Muz says the
best way to get to Budd Lake is by bus—get directions from
Addie.1
love from Dad
In 1953 five members of the National Spiritual Assembly of
the United States resigned to go pioneering. The first three were
Matthew Bullock, Dorothy Baker, and Elsie Austin, the woman
Dorothy had prayed for a few months before as she and Mrs.
Khadem drove to Chicago.
That NSA included two Hands of the Cause of God as well as
one future Hand of the Cause, three future Knights of Bahá’u’-
lláh, one future member of the Universal House of Justice, and
one future Continental Counselor. Altogether, five members re-
signed to become pioneers: the three Knights of Bahá’u’lláh—
Elsie Austin, who planned to go to Morocco; Matthew Bullock,
to the Dutch West Indies; and Kenneth Christian, to Southern
Rhodesia—and two others: Mamie Seto, who intended to go to
Hong Kong, and Dorothy Baker, who planned to go to Grenada
in the Windward Islands. The Guardian kept a photograph of
that 1953 National Spiritual Assembly in his own room at Bahjí.

A reference to Adelaide Beecher, wife of David Beecher, Dorothy’s brother.
David and Addie married and settled into the Beecher family lodge on Budd
Lake, where they lived for the rest of their lives.

Chapter 21
Conference & travel teaching in India, 1953
Before their much anticipated pioneering move to the Caribbean,
Dorothy prepared for her trip to the fourth and final Interconti-
nental Conference, in India. She wrote to Lenore Bernstein, one
of the Lima friends, who now continued her Bahá’í activity in
Florida, “How I wish you could go along. Lennie, this is going to
be the most wonderful trip of all.” On the first lap of her journey
to the Far East, Dorothy wrote home. Her daughter and family
had recently moved back to the U.S. from Portugal. As Dorothy
had said before, her greatest sacrifice was leaving her family.

September 29, 1953
Dearest Folks,
It seems impossible that I am on a train again, lurching
along to NY and off to India, on the other side of the world.
I keep holding on to the little details of back home, like
wondering whether there is an iron at the farm; Louisie may
have to carry hers back and forth, the iron, I mean. Or
whether Mother and Mrs. Scohy1 know there is cabbage and
lettuce in the downstairs ice box to be used up. And whether

One of the elderly women Dorothy arranged to have stay in her home,
primarily to cook dinners when she was away.

possibly Hubert and Louise moved on out tonight so Dodey
wouldn’t have to weep because of leaving the meeting again!
Etc. Etc. Can’t seem to really leave Lima, or sleep. And then,
too, I’m kind of worried about dear Mrs. Scohy who is so
frail. We have never had company before, except overnight
guests, and dinner guests, and you fellows will have to just
say “You do this and we’ll do that” and make her live up to
it. I find that if you can get her to lie down each day it’s all
right. Forbid desserts and just bring up fruit or ice cream;
that helps. We don’t need cooked desserts. She has a bad
heart, and could slip out very easily; that’s a fact.
Well, that sounds like Gloomy Gus, doesn’t it? But it’s
not that; it’s just Lima hanging on to my coat tails. I pre-
sume you have thought of all those things and more, by the
time this will have arrived. And my mind will turn eastward.
And I’ll write Dad a special letter for himself, next, when
he gets back from fishing. First I’ll see BOAC.1
For our dear young people a last hug and embrace for a
while. It seems so natural to have them around now that
they are here, and it seems so just right, too, about Detroit.
They have new worlds to conquer and they will do it with
that wonderful ease that always seemed to me so character-
istic of them in Birre. There will be tests and times of strain
of course, life is like that; but they will be OK always. They
both stand high in a large percentage of life’s “aptitude tests,”
and also they are happy. So I am thankful and happy riding
along, thinking about everything.
Best to everyone and deepest love to all my dear family.
Fondly,
Mommie
Excuse jiggle; I hope you can read this.

British Overseas Airways Corporation.

PS. Arrived safely and checked in at Lincoln. Can still see
my dear ones all waving at the depot in Lima. God bless
them, everyone.
The next morning, Dorothy wrote on the outside of the enve-
lope, “Little anxieties all gone this A.M. I guess I’ve left Lima now!
Love to you all.”
A few days later the Bahá’ís in and around London gathered to
meet her. Among them was Ian Semple, who would later serve as
a member of the National Spiritual Assembly of the British Isles,
then, beginning in 1961, as a member of the International Bahá’í
Council and, in 1963 as one of the First members of the Univer-
sal House of Justice. He recalled:
It was on the afternoon of Saturday, 3rd October 1953, when
the friends had gathered in the London Bahá’í Centre at 103
Earls Court Road, to meet Dorothy Baker who was on her
way to New Delhi. It was a smallish room with the door at
the back. I was sitting in, I think, the second row waiting as
the friends gathered before Dorothy should arrive. Suddenly
I had the most extraordinary sensation, as if pure joy were
pouring over me and I were “floating” in an ocean of love. I
looked round to see what on earth could be the cause of this
feeling, and there was Dorothy Baker standing in the door-
way, having just arrived. I am not given to having such expe-
riences, and I can only say that I had not the slightest doubt
that Dorothy’s presence was the source of it.
After a brief stay in England Dorothy traveled on, again re-
cording her feelings and impressions in a letter home.
Dearest Folks,
No place on “Jet” but never mind; they put me on an

61. New Delhi, October 1953: Bahá’ís who attended
all four Intercontinental Teaching Conferences.
Dorothy Baker is sixth from the left.

Australian liner and got me off. I’ll miss the Nehru affair
but will be in plenty of time for the Conference. I don’t know
what went wrong at BOAC office in Chicago. There were a
number of complications. But all’s well that ends well, and I
took off from London this A.M.
We had a lovely meeting yesterday in London and after
that Marion and David Hofman1 whisked me out to the

Founders of George Ronald Publishers, Marion and David Hofman later
moved to Haifa, Israel, where, from 1963, Mr. Hofman served as a member of
the Universal House of Justice. Since his retirement in 1988 he has traveled
and spoken all over the world. Mrs. Hofman, who was a member of the first
Auxiliary Board for Europe, continued her work as publisher, writer, and edi-
tor. She died in 1995 and is sorely missed by all who had the privilege of
working with her.

15th Century village of Wheatley for the night, a stone’s
throw from old Oxford. It was perfect; I wouldn’t have missed
that old bit of England for anything. And they have two
beautiful children, 6 and 4, who say little Bahá’í prayers in
the sweetest upper-class British you ever heard, and can’t
wait each day for the “family worship period” which David
and Marion have inaugurated. After little one-line-or-so
prayers by grown-ups and children alike, a short paragraph
is read and they tell one story only and that’s that. It’s won-
derful and I can’t wait to tell Bill and Pen. Dodey is prob-
ably a little young yet. Frank could do it. And Pen and Bill
are so anxious for those things. Also, the perfect English of
these children springs from the fact that their publisher
Daddy staves off just everything else from them, and feels
that background becomes at last the individual. I did learn
and realize a lot from them, and those children are so simple
and natural too, that I was impressed. They have an acre or
so of land, and the children pick up all the fruit in season
and receive a penny from each basket sent to market. The
family is a kind of “cooperative.”
Well, India next, and only cards from there, maybe, to
Lima and Lauderdale.
Love to old and young,
Mommie
The complications Dorothy mentioned in trying to leave En-
gland included almost not receiving permission to continue her
travels. When she and the Hofmans dropped her big bag at the
air terminal that evening, airline personnel told them the plane
she was scheduled to take the next morning was making a stop in
an Arab country where Dorothy could not be admitted because
her passport had been stamped in Israel. But by the time they

reached the Hofmans’ home in Wheatley, a BOAC official was
on the telephone assuring Dorothy she would be allowed to fly.
Then, as Marion Hofman later wrote to Frank Baker, Dorothy
could relax.
We put the children to bed, and then had scrambled eggs by
the fire, and such a lovely visit. After supper we begged Dor-
othy to pray for us, for as perhaps you know, business affairs
had prevented us from active service for almost two years.
She readily agreed, got herself ready, and said, “Now don’t
interrupt me, for I’m going to say as many prayers as I like.”
And she did, dearest friend and heavenly spirit, intercede
for us with prayer after prayer. And so to bed at midnight or
later, but not until I had sat on her bed in a short few mo-
ments during which I sought and she gave advice on some-
thing known only to the two of us. Our hearts met and were
opened to each other, and her wisdom altered my life.
The next morning David Hofman took her to the airport as he
recalled:
… we rose very early in the morning and I drove her to
London airport to catch the plane to New Delhi. There had
been quite a business getting her on it, but all was set. How-
ever, half an hour from home, with nice time, we ran out of
gas halfway up a hill … before 6 A.M. There was a gas sta-
tion there, but we could rouse no one. I admired Dorothy
so much; no fuss or reproaches; she just stood upright, and
I was sure was calling upon Bahá’u’lláh to help her fulfil the
Guardian’s command. I remembered a hotel with gas sta-
tion at the bottom of the hill, and so turned the car round
and coasted right into the yard. The night porter was mak-

ing some tea and gladly gave us the gas, and off we went,
but with no time to spare. We made it, just, and as Dorothy
turned from the official to say goodbye I gave her a big hug
and a kiss, said “God bless you” and off she went.
Dorothy’s grandson Frank called her Lou. Luella Beecher,
Dorothy’s mother, was always known as Aunty Lou, so Lou seemed
a good name for Dorothy. At the stop in Rome en route from
England to India, Dorothy mailed a picture postcard of an air-
plane to her youngest granddaughter. On the back she wrote,
Dear Dodey,
This picture is a ‘plane and Lou is taking a ride on this plane
today. When you get big, you can fly on a plane too! I send
you a kiss from Lou.
At the airport in Delhi about a hundred Bahá’ís greeted her,
and she arrived in time to meet with Jawaharlal Nehru, Prime
Minister of India. Hand of the Cause of God Mr. Furútan re-
called the meeting.
When she went to meet Nehru in New Delhi (all the Hands
were there) and he gave the very beautiful speech of wel-
come, she turned to me and with her eyes invited me to
answer Nehru, which I did. It was her initiative to invite me;
her silent invitation.
She loved everybody. She showed me many kindnesses.
At all the conferences the Hands gave public talks, or talks
to the Bahá’ís. When I was the speaker she always encour-
aged me afterwards, praising my speaking. Once she said,
“Come sit next to me, my brilliant speaker.”

62. Speakers at the New Delhi Town Hall, October 1953.
Left to right: Mildred Mottahedeh, Abu’l-Qásim Faizí,
Dorothy Baker, H. Collis Featherstone, and John Robarts.

During the New Delhi Intercontinental Conference Hazel Mori
was very aware of Dorothy’s presence. During one of the sessions
at which Dorothy spoke, Mrs. Mori watched her from the audience.
I sat off to the right as we faced the speakers’ stand in that
makeshift auditorium with its folding chairs, whirring fans,
dampened India prints draped to cool the large circus-sized
tent that held us. She was ever in my range of vision where
she sat almost motionless, her gaze directed to her left, slightly
past the speakers, with no flicker of emotion to show she
was listening. I wondered at the time if she was trying to
avoid showing any evidence of pain, since her fingers were

folded under, as though clenched, so much of the time, or,
because her face was so serene, if she were just communing
with the Abhá Kingdom. But the moment she rose to ad-
dress us she showed complete awareness of all that had been
said during the preceding consultation, and her poise, her
encompassing love, her vivid speech, radiated vitality to us.
A. Bashir Elahi, who worked at the Iranian Embassy in New
Delhi, wrote,
During the Conference she was the shining figure because
of her lectures. … The conference was scheduled from Oc-
tober 7 to October 13, 1953 and I remember she was talk-
ing nearly every day, explaining the goals of the Conference
and the directives of the Guardian. Her speeches were so
mesmerizing that everybody would try so hard not to miss
them. Moreover, she had the responsibility to contact the
Indian authorities and acquaint them with the principles of
the Cause and aims of the Conference.
In the meantime, some public gatherings were also ar-
ranged at various places for non-Bahá’ís and she lectured elo-
quently and convincingly. Her speeches in public meetings
were received so warmly, that they were reported by most of
the newspapers in town. …
As this was the last of the Intercontinental Conferences, Bahá’ís
attended from all over the world. Emma Rice was among them.
She later wrote:
The next time I was with Dorothy was in New Delhi, India
at the fourth and last of the four Intercontinental Teaching
Conferences, October, 1953. She was exhausted from the

heat and humidity and would often ride on the back of a
donkey cart to the conference tent on the hay stacked in the
back of the cart looking just like a young nature girl
with flowers ‘round her neck and in her hair. She was totally
unconscious of her station—Hand of the Cause of God—
Chairman of the NSA of the USA—newly declared pio-
neer to Grenada. After the Conference was over she asked
me to accompany her to a girls school nearby where she was
to give a talk. She was just getting over pneumonia and could
not speak a word. I wondered what was going to happen—I
just could not persuade her to rest some more. But nothing
doing, on she went through the long dusty desert drive. She
greeted the girls with cheers and smiles, stood up on the
platform and gave a magnificent talk in a firm, positive man-
ner, descended the stage, joined the teenagers, autographed
something for each one … that was Dorothy—nothing
could stop her.
Perhaps it was the same school where Shirin Boman’s eleven-
year-old daughter Ruhiyyih was a student. If so, the girls were
unaware of anything in Dorothy’s manner that would suggest
exhaustion. Ruhiyyih Boman Sanchez said,
I remember that she gave a beautiful speech at the little
school. It was inspiring; we were spellbound. I still remem-
ber her face. The way she spoke reminded me of Rúḥíyyih
Khánum. After the inspiring speech she took a handful of
what looked like coins and to our amazement, she just threw
them to us. We rushed to get the coins, and found they were
chocolates covered with silver foil.”1

From an interview by Gayle Woolson.

Frank waited at home, patient in anticipation of the day, quite
soon, when his wife would return and together they would travel
to the West Indies and away from her time-consuming responsi-
bilities of recent years. Then he received a telegram:

NEW DELHI

GUARDIAN CABLED URGING HORACE, MASON AND ME REMAIN
INDIA ADDITIONAL MONTH. APPROXIMATE ARRIVAL HOME LATE
NOVEMBER. ADDRESS BOX 19 DELHI LOVE
DOROTHY

By the end of November, more than a dozen Indian towns
received Dorothy, who was often accompanied by one or more
Indian Bahá’ís. Mrs. Shirin Boman, a close friend, traveled with
Dorothy for eighteen days. Mrs. Boman was elected to the Na-
tional Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of India the following
year and became a member of the Continental Board of Counse-
lors for South Central Asia. Her daughter Perin, the future Dr.
Perin Olyai, is a member of the Continental Board of Counselors
for Asia, and, at Dorothy’s request, named her own daughter
Dorothy.
Mr. Isfandiar Bakhtiari sometimes accompanied Dorothy. He
served for years on the National Spiritual Assembly of India and
later the National Spiritual Assembly of Pakistan, as well as an
Auxiliary Board Member for that region. He had also helped
Martha Root1 on some of her travels in the area. Other compan-

Journalist, indefatigable world-traveler and lecturer, teacher of the Bahá’í
Faith to royalty, the Hand of the Cause of God Martha Root spent fifteen
months in India during her last extended teaching trip before her death in
1939. It is interesting to note that she finished her book Ṭáhirih the Pure, Írán’s
Greatest Woman (Karachi: Bahá’í Publishing Trust of Pakistan, 1938) in Karachi,

ions in Dorothy’s Indian travels were Mrs. Monira Sohaili, who
later pioneered in New Caledonia for seven years and in Australia
for thirteen; Bahiya Sohaili, a pioneer to Laos, Bangkok, and Zim-
babwe; and Sheriyar Nooreyazdan, who later taught at the New
Era School in Panchgani. In each town Dorothy spoke one or
two, even five or six times, in the few days she was there.*
Monira Sohaili wanted to join Dorothy on her travels, but feared
she would not be able to. Her wedding had taken place during
the New Delhi Conference, and she assumed it would be best to
stay with her new husband. When Monira explained this, Dor-
othy said, “Don’t worry, whatever happens is the Will of God.
You will accompany me if you are meant to.” This made Monira
think again about going. She talked it over with her family, who
had no objections, and a few days later, when Dorothy passed
through Bombay, Monira joined her. Dorothy said, “Now your
husband has joined the club my husband belongs to, whose wives
go on teaching trips and are gone most of the time.” Monira,
Dorothy, and two other youth, Bahiya Sohaili and Sheriyar
Nooreyazdan, set out from Bombay with Dorothy. Monira later
recorded some of the events of the trip.
The first stop, I think, was Surat, where the Vakil family
lived. … Their father, a very devoted and dedicated Bahá’í,
had passed away. His wife and two daughters took us to the
guest-house. As Dorothy was about to enter the room she
stopped and from her face it seemed she was aware of some-
thing, and then she turned to us and said, “Dear Martha

*
Dorothy’s last teaching stop. For more information on Martha Root, see also
M. R. Garis, Martha Root: Lioness at the Threshold (Wilmette, Ill.: Bahá’í Pub-
lishing Trust, 1983).

63. Dorothy Baker with friends in Kanpur, December 5, 1953

64. Dorothy Baker addressing Sanskrit College,
University of Banaras, December 10, 1953.

Root has been in this room.” We were very surprised. The
Vakil sisters told us that dear Martha Root had spent some
days in that very room facing the water and written portions
of her book Ṭáhirih the Pure. Dorothy was very quiet and
had such a thoughtful look, as though she could see dear
Martha there in that room.
We then went to a place called Baroda. Most of the time
we travelled by train. On one of these train rides a man

approached us and started asking many questions. Dorothy
did not answer him and we were surprised why she did not
wish to talk with him about the Faith. She then asked him
to look up at her and tell her if he sincerely was seeking or
only wanted to argue about God. With this the man looked
down, and walked away, and left us in peace. We wondered
how she knew he was not a seeker and only wanted an argu-
ment. She said she could see in his eyes he was not sincere.
Now our trip to Baroda was really a memorable one. We
arrived there tired from the trip, and wondering what to do
as the few Bahá’ís there were not seen and were not at the
Bahá’í Center. Dorothy turned to us and said, “Here we will
have a public meeting.” We three were very surprised as to
how we would inform the public and get it all together in
one day. We decided the only way was to print handbills
announcing the meeting at the Bahá’í Center and hand them
out in the street to people, so each of us took different sec-
tions and started distributing a few thousand of these hand-
bills. People just took it and some asked us to give them, but
of course as with all public meetings we did not expect more
than a couple of people would come.
When it was time for the public meeting we were late, as
we were still handing out the invitations, and when we came
to the Center what a surprise awaited us. There were so many
people that the stairs were also filled and we were not able to
go to the room to hear dear Dorothy, who was already speak-
ing to them. After one-and-a-half hours of speaking she told
them that those who wanted to leave could, and should not
feel bad as she would turn her back so they could leave. Well,
not one left and the meeting continued till late at night.
They were just enraptured and the whole center was packed.
Some of the Bahá’ís who heard also came and we were able

to meet them, and as a result they became deepened and
active.
Well, I can even now see her dear face, so happy, and she
told us, “I am going to write to the beloved Guardian and
tell him what you three youths did today in this place.”
Many times she expressed the wish to be with Frank Baker
and told us that she was counting the days when she could
join her husband to go pioneering, but as the Guardian had
asked her to continue a little longer her teaching trip she
was staying longer. She taught us by her example. …. Her
obedience to the Guardian was “exact and complete.”
Though her heart longed to join Frank, she stayed on. …
Her great devotion to the Guardian was evident; so many
times a day she said his name. … During dinner time [at
a hotel] we were served with the most delicious custard pud-
ding. Dorothy expressed how delicious it was, but would
not take a second helping. We could see she was thoughtful.
Then she exclaimed, “I wish the Beloved Guardian were here
to enjoy it.” This was typical of the way dear Dorothy
felt … anything she saw that was beautiful, she would ex-
claim in the same way and then would say, “May my life be
a sacrifice for the Beloved Guardian.”
Many times she would repeat to us and tell us how to
teach these people of the Hindu background. Here I would
like to explain that until that time, teaching in India was
very slow and the Bahá’ís were mainly Persians from Iran
and not Hindus (native Indians). She would tell us that the
best way to teach them was to attain the station of a lover to
his beloved, only then would we get results. She told us that
the Hindus had a great heritage as they were taught religion
and were spiritually inclined through the religious beliefs of
prayer and meditation and it would not be difficult to bring

many of the Hindu people into the Faith. How many times
she would say, “I wish I could give my life for these people
of India so that they can come into the Faith.”
Finally we said our goodbyes with many tears. Dorothy
called the three of us to her and held our hands and prayed
for us to go pioneering and told us that if she did not meet
us here, if we would pioneer and teach the Faith, we would
meet with her in the Abhá Kingdom.
Another request came from Haifa asking Dorothy to travel in
India for one more month. While she was away, Frank had been
preparing to leave for their pioneer post in Grenada, West Indies.
To establish credit in their new post, Frank asked for and received,
on October 10, 1953, a letter of recommendation from the vice-
president of the Metropolitan Bank of Lima, Ohio. It stated,
“The Baker family enjoys an excellent reputation in this commu-
nity and their dealings with us have always been most satisfactory.
Any courtesies extended them will be appreciated.” Frank wrote
letters to his old friend from Lima, Ed Miessler, at Ed’s pioneer
post in South America, expressing his hopes and feelings:

November 9, 1953
… Dorothy, Aunty Lou and I are going to go down to
Grenada about January 15th as pioneers. … If we stay in
Grenada most of the time we may eventually sell our home
here and just use the apartment at the farm when we come
back each year. We will probably spend eight or nine months
of the year in Grenada and probably will buy a home there.
Keeping up three places runs pretty steep and if the group
here can find a suitable place to meet I will probably sell our
home here in Lima.

Since I sold the business Bill has gone back to college. …
He is taking a course in food engineering and was first in his
class last year, only one B. All other grades were As. …
Dorothy is in India and will be home about Dec. 14th or
15th. She is speaking at the schools and colleges there and at
a lot of public meetings beside. This will probably be our
last long separation—hope so at any rate as I miss her more
this time than on any of her other trips. …

Nov. 20
My dear Ed and Muriel,
Received your nice letter this morning. Have not been
sleeping more than eight or nine hours a night since I made
you that loan—now I can get back to normal. …

65. Dorothy Baker at Lady Irwin College for Girls, New Delhi, 1953.

I got quite a shock yesterday. We had made our plans to
leave Miami for Grenada Jan. 15th. Got a letter from Dor-
othy yesterday saying that the Guardian had asked her to
stay in India another month so she will not get home till
about Jan. 14th. Guess we will get away early in February
now unless the Guardian asks her to do something else be-
tween now and then. I have not sent her any extra cash and
since she expected to come home about Nov. 2nd when she
left I’m wondering what she is using for money. She has re-
ally been doing quite a job over there, good audiences and
good results, stays about two days in each place. She spoke
before several Rotary Clubs and other organizations as well
as regular Bahá’í and public meetings. Thank goodness this
is one trip where she will get in a little sightseeing whether
she wants it or not. She has visited Taj Mahal and some of
the ancient caves. They just cannot imagine a person not
wanting to see the sights so arrange little visits for her on
their own.
Hubert has made a connection with General Motors in
the Insurance end. … He would like eventually to get into
the export end but his immediate interest is to get into the
company and stay in this country till he gets his citizenship.
…
Sunday he started in the school that G.M. conducts in
Flint. … Until he finishes the school about Dec. 19th
Louise and Dorothy (Dodie) will stay with us here. …
I wouldn’t be surprised if we get a home in Grenada some
of these days, most likely not this year however but I feel we
will get a lot further along there if we look like permanent
fixtures than we would if people got the idea we were only
there as temporary residents.
Everyone is well here—we are all around the Pullman

table reading and writing letters but I guess in about a minute
we will just be reading.
Love and best wishes to the whole family from
The Frank Bakers
Aunty Lou and Louise send their love.
F.A.B.
Dorothy spoke at three colleges in Agra. Years after her trip to
India, Eunice Braun traveled there to teach. Mrs. Braun said in an
interview:
An interesting thing happened in Jaipur, at the University
of Rajastan. An Indian man, I think the head of the English
Department, had been invited. He translated my talk that
night into Hindi. He told me about himself. He had been a
young student at the University of Agra when Dorothy had
come. He had a program from that meeting. He carried it
with him, strangely enough. It had a picture of Dorothy
Baker in it. He had not become a Bahá’í , but he had been so
deeply touched, he had never been able to forget her, and he
still carried that program, nearly twenty years later. He had
made a pact with himself that he would never forget what
she had said, and sealed that pact by pricking his finger and
marking the program with his blood. He said it was a sec-
ond chance for him. The fact that I had known Dorothy
seemed to mean a great deal to him.
Among the towns Dorothy visited in November was Gwalior,

where her schedule, as usual, was packed. The Bahá’í News Letter
of India records the activities of her two days there.
Mrs. Dorothy Baker arrived in Gwalior on the 20th Novem-
ber 1953. She was received at the station by a batch of stu-
dents who garlanded her with flower garlands.
The same day at 1:30 P.M. she delivered a lecture in the
Victoria College on “Real Internationalism.” From there she
went to Kamalraja Girls College and addressed the faculty
and the students at 3 P.M. on the Bahá’í Faith. At 6 P.M. Mrs.
Dorothy Baker delivered a public lecture in the Hall of the
Chamber of Commerce which is in the heart of the city.
Rani Rajwade, a very prominent lady, was in the Chair. She
has read extensively of our Faith, so she opened the meeting
with a very impressive speech on the Bahá’í Faith including
short history and a reading from the Guardian’s message to
the first All India Woman’s Conference in India. The audi-
ence consisted of the cream of the city and dear Mrs. Dor-
othy Baker carried them to the Seven Valleys of Bahá’u’lláh
during her talk. All heard her spiritual discourse with wrapt
attention and all seemed to be deeply impressed.
Next morning Mrs. Dorothy Baker met the representa-
tives of the Press at a Conference and spoke to them on the
history of the Faith. At 11 A.M. Dorothy Baker met on invi-
tation Rani Rajwade and her daughter-in-law at their resi-
dence. Rani Rajwade has promised to study more about the
Faith.
At 12 noon an interview with Her Highness the Maha-
rani Scindia was arranged in her Palace. During the inter-
view Mrs. Dorothy Baker had free discussion with her on
the Bahá’í Faith for about an hour. Photos and films were

taken and three books were presented to her by Mrs. Shirin
Boman on behalf of the Spiritual Assembly of Gwalior.
At 3:30 P.M. Mrs. Dorothy Baker gave a talk on the Faith
at the Agriculture College. Questions were answered and all
were greatly impressed.
At 4:30 P.M. some distinguished ladies were invited to tea
at the Bahá’í Centre to meet Mrs. Dorothy Baker. After the
party she spoke to the local Bahá’ís in her own inspiring way
about our beloved Faith. “No words can express the heav-
enly atmosphere in which we found ourselves.” The friends
joyfully discussed the occasion and shared their feelings of
joy in the Nineteen-Day Feast. At 6 P.M. she dined with the
Rotarians and addressed them for more than 20 minutes.
That day Rotarians had come from different parts of India
[so] dear Dorothy Baker could give the message to all. At 11
P.M. she left Gwalior.

Half a dozen cities later, on December 5th, Dorothy was in
Kanpur. The Local Spiritual Assembly of that city wrote to the
Guardian on January 14, shortly after her visit,
… We particularly remember her brief memorable 2-day
visit to Kanpur during which she spoke at no less than 20 places
without any rest or even the time to gather her breath.
She left her spiritual imprints in Kanpur not only on the
Bahá’ís but also on the pressmen and the people of Kanpur
at large. The send-off meeting in the train’s compartment
was a never-to-be-forgotten meeting of prayers and tears,
after which she gave her parting message to the people of
Kanpur which was published, along with her group photo-
graph in no less than a dozen English and Hindi newspapers
of Kanpur. …

In a letter written to David and Marion Hofman in early De-
cember, Dorothy described her travel plans. She closed the letter
saying, “For the trip to London there will be no complication. If
God wills, I’ll be on Jet plane Jan. 7. Much love, Dorothy.” At the
same time she wrote home:
Dearest Family,
When you write, please tuck in a copy of the pamphlet
“Religion Returns.”
What do you think of me in a sari?? These were given to
me. The entire thing is one piece, you know, wrapped around

66. “What do you think of me in a Sari?”

by a special method which I’ll show you. And there I am in
the navy dress which is my regular college attire. Some say
to wear a sari for colleges and “be one of them.” I might try
it around Benares, the 100% Hindu center of all Asia, and
incidentally the world center of Theosophy. It is the ancient
“Sacred City.”
The enclosed is my proposed new routing, which takes
the east side as previously planned and leaves time open af-
terward for Hindu centers like Banaras and the Indore re-
gion in central India where the second holiest city is. I assure
you we are now attempting the impossible. Don’t be sur-
prised if you hear that I have bathed in the Ganges, sacred
river of all Hindus, and come forth singing verses from the
Vedas.

Later
Another wonderful batch of mail here at Delhi, and how
I did eat it up! The meeting with Longs must have been so
wonderful, and never mind if pioneers could not further
arise; Ohio still needs lots of help! How lovely for Lima to
have been blessed with such a meeting. And I’ll bet Frank’s
breakfast was par excellent! [sic]
For Frank—there are no gold coins left in India. They are
forbidden in banks, and I have asked the best antique col-
lectors and they say you just have to stumble on one but
they have really been snapped up. They will let me know if
any do turn up, but they shake their heads doubtfully.
Now the Guardian’s cable regarding remaining another
month brings me to Jan. 6 when I fly as follows:
Jan. 6 Jet to London, arriving Jan. 7. Jan. 8 leave
London 8:00 P.M., arriving New York (Idlewild) at 8:15
A.M. Jan. 9.

They have it worked out at BOAC here in Delhi for
me to write them from anywhere I happen to be, and
cancel the second half of that trip (London to NY),
and instead, fly London to Trinidad, via Jamaica. I
would be in Jamaica the 9th instead of New York, that’s
all, and transfer after visiting a day or two with the
friends there, to Trinidad where I would remain and
meet your plane on the 15th. I could meet that fine
young chap there in Jamaica, who might be a great
help to us in teaching later. You would save at least the
price of my ticket from Miami as well as a trip home
from New York. I can get clear to Trinidad for about
the London–NY trip, and it does seem sensible. Just
turn back my round trip to Edna and get it back, if
you decide to do this. Write me when you decide. As
for you, Mother darling, you are as safe as rain with
Frank on that big liner, and I’ll be at the airport at the
other end. Take one of my capsules at the Miami Air-
port.
Thanks, Louise dear, for sending the trunk. I’m so
grateful. It will be no time before I see you in the Spring,
dearest, if the family decides to go and meet me. Stick
in a couple of my summer dresses if trunk has room
and if I go direct.
Personally, I am against changing our timing. You
might pick me up in NY though, and drive on south.
Let me know.
Love,
Dorothy
Mommie

In Benares, having delivered ten talks in the previous five days

in Benares and Patna, and preparing to continue her schedule
with a visit to the village of Rampur the next day, Dorothy wrote
to her daughter and son-in-law:

Dec. 12, 1953
Dearest Louisie and Hubschi,
News on your front sounds so good, both as to housing
and dear friendships, and as to Hubschi’s work which is in
the first stages of very fine things. I can just see old Hubschi
getting his teeth into that study job! Just born for it.
Funny thing; I have not heard a word about Bill’s studies
this year, and last year I felt so close to it all, going up to
NSA meetings as I did and stopping off to see them. Tell
Pen my India address and see if she will send me a good old-
fashioned bulletin of the Bill Baker Bunch. I feel kind of
homesick about them because of so suddenly being cut off
after being so close to it all.
And when I think of my two young families I have a little
sinking feeling anyhow, missing the holidays and big reunion,
but I did have it all at Budd Lake and did see you all to-
gether, and that’s a lot. I wish there were a way for you to
keep an arm around Dwight and Ann1 spiritually; maybe
you will find you can as time goes on. They need Bahá’í
association very much, and Marge too. You seem to me,
Louisie, to be the one who can especially help them along;
just pray about it and see.
Now we have to begin planning a summer reunion, when
the family can get together somewhere again, and take ac-
count of stock. With the super-duper little guest house, that
should be easy. You two younger families can manage nicely

Children of Conrad Baker, Dorothy’s stepson who died in 1948.

67. Dorothy Baker with the Maharani of Scindia at the Palace,
Gwalior, November 1953. Shirin Boman is on the Maharani’s left.

and we’ll have dinner for all at night. Tell dear Mrs. Scohy
I’ve been thinking already about next summer when she, I
hope, will be back with us, and of what extra help I am
going to have to do all clearing up, dish-washing, and er-
rand-running, so that she can be just the preparer of the
dinner. A school girl can come in and clear up and we can
spend every minute with each other and Mrs. Scohy. Either
that, or the three of us (you, Pen, and I) are going to take
over the after-dinner business and lift her bodily out of the
kitchen! Tell her now so she can get her water wings out,
because we might toss her way down into the august Ottawa
River if she objects! And you say a dear goodbye to Mrs.
Scohy for me right now, Louisie, as it seems I’ve really left
home.
When I get to the island I’ll write you all more often, and
you and Pen can mail back and forth our family epistles. We
really are not far away, you know, and from Trinidad it’s a
non-stop, 13-hour flight to NY (if you choose the right day).
Hug my little namesake too. Dad says she is a wonderful
bundle of energy. Well, any child that lifts up her head at
the age of two hours, and quietly takes a look around, gets a
fair start on that, for sure. She has remarkable potentialities
stored up within her, that baby, and life will be a great ad-
venture. Teach her to live for others, to serve others, to love
others, for her nature is strong; what she does she will do
100%. Not to possess, but to give is the key; she will live
throughout history if this is her foundation and the Cause
of God her passion.
Send my love also to my boy Frankie, and his little sister,
“Crissel” and hug that dear Hubschi. All my love to you
both—
Mommie

Dec. 20
Train to Nagpur
and Indore
Dearest Family,
This is the last letter home that you will be able to answer
while I am in India, for transportation out on Jan. 6 is as-
sured, and from there to London, one night there, and there
to Jamaica, one night there, or even two, and there to Trinidad
to await you. Yes, I may stay two nights in Jamaica, or even
look in at the Weedens or the St. Lucia folks or Edie Rice-
Wray en route to Trinidad, according to where the local plane
stops. I will get to Trinidad by the 13th or 14th, though, and
have everything in hand, including reservations at a Grenada
hotel, through the Air Co., and at Trinidad.
Now I need to know the following, so as to sit in right
with you from Trinidad on.
1. Day and hour of departure from Trinidad to Grenada
so I can get a seat when I get to Trinidad, or even get it
ordered from this office, to be sure of it.
2. Please send me three “paper mate” ball point pen fillers.
I want to give two away in Delhi and use one myself. Rush
this. Name store in Lima where they can be further pro-
cured, and price.
3. Please tuck in my Harper Hair Ointment. It will stop
my hair from falling out before I become a hard-boiled egg.

I cannot give addresses except the following:
1. Box 19, New Delhi, India, up to Jan. 6.
2. c/o David Hofman, Wheatley, Oxon, England, up to
Jan. 8.
3. c/o Miss Marie Brown, 190 Orange St., Kingston, Ja-
maica, Jan. 9 and 10.

4. c/o British Overseas Airways, Trinidad after that. I am
flying strictly with this company and they will save my mail.
England is close to you and Jan. 1 you can mail c/o Hofman
easily, even Jan. 2–3. That Kingston secty. is also safe.
But send fillers here to Delhi by return mail, please, as it
is a promised gift to one who has done many favors for me
here. Bring along some fillers to Grenada, too, as I did not
pack mine, thinking to come right back.
A bit of news to say that the Hindu capital of Banaras
[Benares] seems to be still alive and breathing. One of the
friends in Calcutta, owner of quite a big store there, said he
dreamed that some lovely children from Banaras were build-
ing a beautiful, clean structure and I was directing them. He
climbed to the top and looked out and there he saw also a
Hazira. God grant it.
Then, arrived in Patna I found to my consternation not
one living Bahá’í. But I had an invitation to speak to Rotary
Club (a member heard me back in Gwalior). It was confirmed
by a great spirit and the next day I had breakfast tea with
one, luncheon at the home of another, and evening tea with
still another. And believe it or not, five “New Eras” are en
route for a self-propelled study circle. Friends in Calcutta
promise to run up and look into the nursery from time to
time if these new offspring are found still breathing. Patna is
the ancient capital of King Asoka.
Please thank dear Gert and Floyd; also my Mil and Dolly,1

Gertrude and Floyd Spahr were some of the first Bahá’ís in Lima, Ohio. It
was Floyd and Frank Warner who originally spoke with Frank Baker about the
study classes on unity, which led to the first firesides Dorothy gave. Milly and
Dolly Clark were sisters and early Bahá’ís in Lima.

for their lovely birthday cards. I will not write them, but
they will know how I loved receiving them, I know.
My work in India is almost finished. There is one more
hard pull; the second sacred city, Ujjain, near Indore, and if
four days in Banaras could effect a start, let’s pray for Ujjain
now, as Central India has absolutely nothing. Indore had an
Assembly, now blown away, and this too should be restored.
Miracles have to happen again, and ask a few of the friends
to pull along for this victory.
Oh, and thank Elisabeth1 for her wonderful letter. I read
it many times.
All my love to you as you sit around the dear pullman
table—It’s my birthday now, and I give thanks to God for
permission to live in such a time in God’s moving drama.
Love, D.
Her birthday past and the Christmas holidays beginning back
in the United States, Dorothy moved on to Indore. Her schedule
for the final week of December and the response to her presence
during that last week of 1953 was intense. The following account
of those incredibly busy days is from the Bahá’í News Letter of
India:
MRS. DOROTHY BAKER AT INDORE
Mrs. Dorothy Baker reached Indore at 5 P.M. on December
23, 1953. Immediately on her arrival she gave a discourse at
6:30 P.M. at the Gita Samiti in Bara Rawla, Juni Indore on

Elisabeth Cheney.

“Journey of the Soul.” The speech was so inspiring that a
pressing request for another talk was made by the members
of the Samiti but the same had to be declined for want of
time.
On December 24, at 6:30 P.M. she addressed members of
the Rotary Club at the Lantern Hotel on “Victorious Liv-
ing.
On December 25, at 9:30 A.M. Mrs. Dorothy Baker ad-
dressed a press conference at the Lantern Hotel. Invitations
were sent to 35 [who] attended and received the Divine
Message of Bahá’u’lláh from her.
At 7 P.M. the same day Mrs. Dorothy Baker addressed a
public meeting at the Vikram Lodge in Madhavnagar, Ujjain
under the auspices of the Theosophical Society of the place.
The subject of her talk was “Victorious Living.” The people
became so pressing to know more that it was announced
then and there that Mrs. Dorothy Baker would visit Ujjain
again and would meet all interested persons in the Grand
Hotel, Ujjain on the 29th–30th December.
On December 26 Mrs. Dorothy Baker addressed the stu-
dents and staff of the Gujrat College, Indore in their hall at
1:45 P.M. Principal Yajnik, who had already heard about the
Cause when he was in Lahore, was in the Chair, and spoke
very favorably about the Faith.
The subject of dear Dorothy’s talk at this College was
“The New Civilization.” After the lecture, the Principal took
the guests to his room for refreshments and also showed them
the entire College.
On the same day at 4 P.M. Mrs. Dorothy Baker and Bahá’í
friends were invited by the Organizers of the “Balodya Samaj”
of Indore to meet the children at their Children’s Welfare
Centre located in the garden of Narhar Kothari Balodan on

Mahatma Gandhi Road, Indore. She addressed the children
and distributed sweets among them.
At 6:30 P.M. Mrs. Dorothy Baker spoke on the “Trends of
Social Work in America” at the Maharashtra Sahitya Sabha
Bahvan, Indore under the auspices of the Indian Confer-
ence of Social Work. Her talk evoked so much interest that
some members of this society expressed their desire to at-
tend Bahá’í Study Circle which would meet at the Bahá’í
Centre every Sunday morning at 9:30 A.M.
On December 27 at 9:30 A.M. Mrs. Dorothy Baker spoke
on “A Modern Avatar” at the Theosophical Lodge, Indore.
At 12 noon the same day she visited on invitation the
Manick-Bagh Palace of the Maharaja of Indore and took
lunch with Princess Usha Raja and other members of the
Royal Family of Holkar. Dear Dorothy Baker presented some
Bahá’í books to the Princess who has received good educa-
tion and is the heiress-apparent to the throne of Indore.
At 5 P.M. a public meeting was held at the Gandhi Hall,
Indore, under the Chairmanship of Prof. D. M. Borgaonkar.
Mrs. Dorothy Baker spoke on a Programme for Peace.
On December 28 at 11:45 A.M. Mrs. Dorothy Baker ad-
dressed the students and staff of the Holker College Indore.
Principal Ghose was in the Chair and the subject of her talk
was “Pride and Prejudice.” The audience numbering about
400 persons were very much impressed.
At 6 P.M. she spoke at the YMCA on “The Eternal Christ.”
Prof. G. W. Kaveeshwar presided. The lecture was much ap-
preciated by all those present and a small group was inter-
ested to know more of the Bahá’í Faith.
On December 29, Mrs. Dorothy Baker went to Ujjain
and spoke to a group of about 25 persons at the Grand Hotel.
On December 30 Mrs. Dorothy Baker spoke at the Maha-

rajwada School at Mahakaleshwar, Ujjain City. Her talk was
translated into Hindi by Mrs. Shirin Boman.
Mrs. Dorothy Baker accompanied by believers left in a
car for Makshi and Shajapur which are places about 25 and
45 miles from Ujjain on the Agra Bombay Road. At Makshi
she spoke about the Faith to a group of about 200 persons at
the Dak Bungalow. A Christian Doctor named Dr. Saresh
presided. It was a wonderful meeting for many were heard
to say that they find great truth in the Faith. We then left for
Shajapur. On our way Mrs. Dorothy Baker addressed a small
group which was collected by Mr. Gauri Shankar Sahrma to
pay respects to dear Dorothy.
The biggest meeting which Mrs. Dorothy Baker had was
in the Vikram Talkies at Shajapur when about 2000 persons
listened with wrapt attention to her inspiring talk. Mr.
Kamlakent Dubey, the District Magistrate and Collector of
Shajapur presided and spoke highly of the Cause. Mrs. Shirin
Boman translated Mrs. Dorothy Baker’s talk in Hindi. Lady
volunteers who stood as guard of honour gave salute to Mrs.
Dorothy Baker as she passed through them. This meeting is
indescribable for it was her great spirit which seemed to speak
to the hearts of all those present. She returned to Ujjain late
in the evening of December 30.
On the morning of December 31 Mrs. Dorothy Baker
was invited to tea by Dr. and Mrs. Kapoor who are ready to
declare themselves as Bahá’í s. She left for Delhi at 11 A.M.
It was not possible to give details of the great teaching
victory achieved by Mrs. Dorothy Baker. But friends are
hopeful to establish a few good Assemblies by April 1954
as a direct result of her visit to these parts. She has moved all
the friends to action. She has taught them the secret of suc-
cessful teaching. She visited every Bahá’í home and gave a
spiritual touch to it.

In Agra Mrs. Boman thought she and Dorothy could rest and
bathe at the Bahá’í Center, but when they arrived everything had
been stolen from the building. Mrs. Boman found that there was
no fan and it was very hot:
Dorothy said she would like a sponge bath. But there was
nothing there to hold water. Then she came in with two
soup plates and a small towel. She tried to take a sponge
bath with this. I was wondering how a lady from the States
could be satisfied with that. This is how I learned one should
not be attached. I was worried about her comfort—she was
not in the least interested. I learned two things from her.
One is detachment and the other is obedience.
Eighteen days continuously we were together from New
Delhi, Agra, Gwalior, Indore, Ujjain. … I arranged meet-
ings for her. [At one, when] the hall was packed, no one
imagined so many would come. The priests of Zoroastrians
were there, too.
Several days later Dorothy and Mrs. Boman were still together in
Indore. In 1983 Mrs. Boman recalled the impact of Dorothy’s
visit there.
We now have a Bahá’í Institute in Indoa, Central India, the
first Bahá’í Institute in India. When she came we had noth-
ing. It was purchased by the NSA when Dr. Muhajir en-
couraged us to buy a place for deepening.
Suddenly the government wanted land for factories and
wanted to take our land. Notice was sent to us. My daugh-
ter, Ṭáhirih, was asked by the NSA to see if she could save
this property. She went to the highest authority. When the
man heard the word Bahá’í he said, “You speak of the Bahá’í
Faith; when I was a student a lady spoke of it and the whole

speech was impressed upon my heart.” My daughter asked
who that lady was and he said, “Her name was Dorothy
Baker. I will see that you keep the land.”
Dorothy’s passionate hope still burned. She had written home
on her birthday, December 21, 1953, “let’s pray for Ujjain now,
as Central India has absolutely nothing. Indore had an Assembly,
now blown away, and this too should be restored. Miracles have
to happen again, and ask a few of the friends to pull along for this
victory.” This hope took a first step towards coming true, in the
words of Mrs. Boman,
We were still in Ujjain when she expressed her wish to go
to some village and as we had some Bahá’ís in one of the
villages of the Ujjain area, we took a taxi and went to the
village of Harsodan. My husband had visited several times,
but I had never been. In this village she went with her high
heels and walked in the dust because the car could not carry
us right to the village. We had to leave it on the roadside.
When we went in the village she embraced the women folk
who were all in dirty village dresses, and she spoke to them
about Bahá’u’lláh. She poured all her love on them and won
their hearts. Later on they brought some tea for us which
was really difficult for us to drink as it was very smoky, but
seeing how quickly dear Dorothy sipped the tea, we also had
to swallow it up. This village is of course one village where
we have at present got an LSA and again when mass conver-
sion was started many friends in this village volunteered to
teach the Faith and they are like torch-bearers. Almost the
whole village is now Bahá’í.
During her travels in the area of Indore, Ujjain, and Shajapur,

Dorothy was becoming much weaker. Mr. M. B. Írání was present
in those cities and noted her condition:
During the whole trip she was feeling sick and running tem-
perature but at the time of speaking and teaching the Faith
she would become all right. …
She was eating very little food only once a day. She liked
tea and coffee and a little toast and butter. She was feeling
weakness and when all alone would break down, even run-
ning a temperature. She had no strength to say her prayers
sitting which she would say lying down in bed. But while
talking on the Cause and Teaching she would become a li-
oness. Her great spirit was felt when she was talking on the
Cause—at the time of teaching there was no fatigue or fe-
ver.
But in Indore, even while speaking, the physical strain became
too much for her. In a public hall she suddenly had to sit down on
a chair near the podium and ask that the microphone be brought
to her so that she could finish her lecture.
At the Intercontinental Conference, before the cable came from
Haifa asking the Hands of the Cause to travel teach, Dorothy
had been talking with Hazel Mori.1 Hazel recalled,
I asked her her plans, for I knew she had resigned from the
National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United
States in order to pioneer abroad. Would it be Latin America,

Hazel Mori served as a pioneer and devoted teacher in the Philippines
from 1973 to 1995.

or Europe, I asked, knowing of her tremendous service in
both continents, and the pull she must be feeling toward …
each … or the islands of the Pacific?
“The Pacific?” she said, “Or this part of the world! I would
give my life to rouse India. … Yes, it is already planned. We
have chosen a spot close to both Central America and the
Caribbean, and to South America as well. … My husband
and mother are already proceeding to the Windward Isles,
and I shall wing my way there and touch down to meet them,
so we can cable the Guardian we are all three of us
Knights of Bahá’u’lláh.” Her eyes traveled past me for a
moment. Then with a sigh she said, “But it will be only
‘touch down,’ because I must go quickly to Chicago for
medical treatment, and I’m afraid this time it will have to be
surgery.”
I was startled into silence by the sad resignation in her
voice. She pushed her plate with most of her food uneaten
away from her, chuckled at me and ended, “I cannot bear
the thought of inactivity! I want to be teaching full speed
every day till the day I report to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in person!”
A. Bashir Elahi noticed that when Dorothy arrived at the air-
port, her first day in India, “I saw a smiling, healthy, charming
lady, intoxicated with the love of God, chatting and laughing
with all the friends ….” But when she finished her travels and
returned to New Delhi, he said, “I noticed that she had become
frail and physically weak; yet her ardor and zeal had increased.
….”
Toward the end of her trip, in Delhi, Dorothy ran into other
difficulties. At the Constitution House where she and Shirin
Boman were staying, Dorothy’s suitcase was stolen. Mrs. Boman
was very upset for her and wanted to approach someone to com-

plain about the theft until Dorothy said, “Well, Shirin dear, some-
body needed it more than I did, so let it go.” That was on one of
the first days of 1954.
In Indore Dorothy said to the Bahá’ís, “This is the heart of
India. Let the heart of India beat with the love of Bahá’u’lláh.”
Mrs. Boman found her words prophetic when, almost ten years
later, “the whole of the mass conversion did start from the Indore
area.” She later recalled,
In two things where I did not obey Dorothy I am still
suffering. She said, “Shirin, take the first chance and go and
meet the Guardian.” From 1954 to 1957 I was planning to
go. When suddenly the shocking news of our beloved
Guardian’s death came I wished I had obeyed Dorothy. The
second: You know she went with us and showed us the way
to teach in the villages. Unfortunately we did not understand.
In 1976 Hand of the Cause of God Dr. Raḥmatu’lláh Muhájir1
spoke about Dorothy Baker in India:
The Guardian told Dorothy Baker to go to India and dis-
cover why we could not teach the masses there. She went to
several villages and then said, “This is the heart of India.
Mass teaching will start in these villages.” Mrs. Boman (later)
wrote the Guardian …. He wrote her to go to the villages
and teach the people. Go to the easy places—not the hard
ones. At a conference Mrs. Boman said, “I have the key.

For more information on this devoted world traveler and Hand of the
Cause of God, see Dr. Muhájir: Hand of the Cause of God, Knight of Bahá’u’-
lláh (London: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1992).

Now I know what to do.” She went from one village to an-
other, and as she went, whole villages became Bahá’í. … It
began in the very villages where Dorothy Baker had taught.
Dorothy spoke at forty-four colleges and in thirty-seven lo-
calities in India. She presented a long and detailed report on her
trip to the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of India. By
that time Mrs. Boman was serving on the Assembly. When she
replaced a previous member in a by-election during Dorothy’s
visit, Dorothy pressed an anointed handkerchief into her hand
and said, “My prayers have been answered. Now I send you to
this NSA to act as its mother.”
At one point in her travels through India, Dorothy visited with
Hushmand Fatheazam and his family. Only ten years later Mr.
Fatheazam would be serving at the Bahá’í World Center as a mem-
ber of the Universal House of Justice; when Dorothy met him he
was pioneering in an Indian village. A step in the transition from
one kind of service to another may perhaps be attributed to Dor-
othy Baker’s influence:
She was with us for one week. Toward the end of the stay
she said the possibility to serve the Cause was greater in the
capital than in a village and rather insisted that we go to
New Delhi although it was not a pioneering goal. A few
months later when I had finished the scholarship—I was on
a two-year scholarship—I left. There was an opportunity to
go to Panchgani to serve in the New Era school, but instead
we did what she said because she came on the instruction of
the beloved Guardian and knew what was best.
In Gwalior Dorothy admired the surroundings of the palace as
she stood at its gate after her visit with Queen Vijyaraja Scindia

and said, “One day the banner of the Greatest Name will be raised
at this palace gate.” In the Five Year Plan given to the National
Spiritual Assembly of India, the Universal House of Justice asked
that a National Bahá’í Conference be held in Gwalior. Over nine
hundred believers passed through the gates of the chosen site: the
palace Dorothy had visited twenty-three years before. Dr. Perin
Olyai, during her speech, reminded the friends that Dorothy Baker
foresaw their presence there. But Dorothy could not forsee her
own future.

Chapter 22
BOAC Comet Flight 781 crash & aftermath, 1954
Dorothy Baker reached Karachi, Pakistan, on the evening of Janu-
ary 8. Ed and Muriel Miessler had probably just received Frank
Baker’s letter of December 24. “The time for my trip is getting
closer right along and I’m going to be mighty glad to see my girl
friend again—It will have been over 15 weeks since Dorothy left,”
the longest they had ever been separated.
On January 9 Dorothy met the local believers in the Bahá’í
Hall Garden. At 10:30 A.M. the meeting began. Dorothy described
her experiences in Haifa, the hopes of the Guardian for the suc-
cess of the Ten Year World Crusade, and she briefly recounted
her experiences of the previous year. She spoke of pioneering and
of her mother who was in her eighties but would be meeting
Dorothy, with Frank, in the Antilles. She called for pioneers, ask-
ing that nine persons volunteer. She shared the experiences and
sacrifices of American pioneers, and then her strong voice rang
out to the gathering, “Go out, ye conquerors of hearts, deter-
mined never to return, if need be. In particular I call upon the
Bahá’ís of Zoroastrian background to pioneer. The Guardian has
willed it. Nearly one year has passed since the Ten Year Plan came
into force and pioneers have not gone to many of the goals. What
face shall we show to the beloved Guardian?”
Nineteen people stepped forward from among the Bahá’ís lis-
tening. Since Rustam Jamshidi’s parents were pioneers to Paki-

stan, he grew up in Karachi. As a youth he took the photograph
of Dorothy Baker standing in the gardens of Bahá’í Hall, speak-
ing to the gathering. Years later in Northern Ireland, he and Beman
Khosravi, also a pioneer from Iran to Pakistan, recalled the day
and the evening with Dorothy Baker. When the volunteers stepped
forward, she turned to them and said, “Oh, dear! I have nothing
to give you! I give you my life. I give you my love. You will all be
blessed.”
At 4 P.M. Dorothy attended a party given in her honor in those
same gardens. The guests included the city magistrate, civil judges,
ulama, and the editors of English and Urdu newspapers. Dorothy
spoke for half an hour. When she finished, a tax officer in atten-
dance said, “If for nothing else than for the conviction with which
she speaks, I am convinced of the truth of the Bahá’í Faith.”
At dusk the gathering in that Pakistani garden dispersed. Many
of them came together again at the airport in a large room filled
with flowers, news reporters, and friends. There was one prob-
lem. Dorothy did not have the British papers required to board
her flight. At the airport, as her departure time neared, she and a
few others retired to an adjoining room. There she strode up and
down, repeating the Remover of Difficulties.
The flight was announced. As she returned to the departure
lounge, the other passengers were preparing to board. Then the
Bahá’í entrusted with the task of arranging Dorothy’s documents
came running in, waving the papers over his head. Minutes later
the friends watched as the jet “Comet” took off.
In Africa at the Intercontinental Conference in Kampala, Isobel
Sabri had talked with Dorothy about several things, among them
teaching and Dorothy’s favorite airplane, the Comet:
One of my most memorable experiences with Dorothy was
in Africa where she accompanied my husband, Hassan, and

me “on safari” by road from Kampala, Uganda, to Nairobi,
Kenya, after the first Intercontinental Conference in 1953.
She then continued her journey to Tanganyika by plane,
and we met her again there as Dar es Salaam was our pio-
neer home at that period.
During the tiring, dusty two-day journey to Nairobi by
car she shared with us her pilgrims’ notes and her impres-
sions of the beloved Guardian. She told us that she had ex-
pected the Guardian to give her clear directions for her fu-
ture services as a Hand of the Cause, but he had not done so
and this had greatly perplexed her.
One evening I was visiting her in her hotel room in
Nairobi. I told her that I was not happy about our teaching
work in Africa, as we weren’t getting the results we wanted.
She gave me the pamphlet The Spiritual Potencies of that
Consecrated Spot. Her advice to me was to study the life of
Bahíyyih Khánum if I wanted to learn how to serve the Cause.
Dorothy had a great love of the new Comet jet aeroplane
on which she had travelled to Africa and which had just been
put into service by the British. In this connection she spoke
of the wonders of modern science and related this plane to
Shoghi Effendi’s statement regarding the perfect regularity
and speed of future travel. She always seemed to see the
significances in world affairs which related to statements con-
tained in the Bahá’í writings. In Entebbe, Uganda, we had
bidden farewell to a sizeable group of the Hands of the Cause
who were travelling out of Africa by Comet. We had spoken
of being worried that so many Hands were on the same plane.
Dorothy had turned to us joyfully and said reassuringly, “You
needn’t worry—it’s a wonderful plane.”
On the tenth of January, almost a year after the Kampala Confer-

ence, Dorothy was on board a Comet again. The flight left Karachi,
stopped in Beirut, then Rome, where Dorothy mailed her final
reports to the Guardian. She reboarded with the other passengers
traveling to London; at 9:31 A.M. the plane lifted off the runway.
A fisherman from the Italian island of Elba, Giovanni di Marco,
was on his boat, just south of the island when he heard the whine
of a plane. “It was above the clouds. I could not see it. Then I
heard three explosions, very quickly, one after the other.
“For a moment all was quiet. Then several miles away I saw a
silver thing flash out of the clouds. Smoke came from it. It hit the
sea. There was a great cloud of water. By the time I got there all
was still again.”1
On the beach a few days later a reporter found a handbag be-
longing to another of the Comet’s twenty-eight passengers. In-
side was a pamphlet on the Bahá’í Faith. Even in her last mo-
ments Dorothy was teaching.

Dreams float in another reality. In that realm Dorothy lived.
Around the world Bahá’ís dreamed of her that night and nights
before and after. To one she said, “I never went down. I stepped
straight into the arms of my Lord.”
In Jamaica a teenage boy named Hopeton Fitz-Henley heard
about the Bahá’í Faith from his father, Randolph. The family and
the community were thrilled when the news came that Dorothy
Baker would be visiting Jamaica on her way to Grenada.
The spirit of loving expectation was such, was so moving
that my own spirit, young and curious, was ignited. … I
was not then a believer. The waiting community was shaken
with the tragic news. Really, I don’t remember dreams much
but that night she said to me, “Don’t worry Hopeton. I was

The Daily Telegraph and Morning Post, no. 30, 736, London, January 11, 1954.

not in that plane. Thanks to Bahá’u’lláh, I took another plane
and went away.” Her words were warm, loving and reassur-
ing.
When I told my father about the dream he said that once
he had expressed to Dorothy Baker that none of his children
had become Bahá’í. She had told him not to worry, that one
of them would some day.
Rosemary Sala dreamed that she saw Dorothy dressed in silvery
white, standing on resplendent shining shores. “The rolling waves
separating her shore from mine changed into ripples of Arabic
writing and I seemed to receive an impression of Dorothy saying,
‘the waves of the ocean may divide but the Word of God unites.’”

68. Dorothy Baker in Karachi, January 9, 1954, in the gardens of
Bahá’í Hall. Her last public appearance, the day before her death.

Gloria Faizi—a writer, wife of Hand of the Cause Abu’l-Qasím
Faizí, and an active teacher—was pioneering in an Arabian coun-
try with her family at the time of Dorothy’s death, a country
where teaching was not possible. Shortly after the accident Mrs.
Faizi called on a friend whose daughter died on the same flight.
Mrs. Faizi told her friend that she had also lost someone precious
to her on that flight, and mentioned the name of Dorothy Baker.
To Mrs. Faizi’s surprise the grieving mother looked up through
her tears and asked “What does Bahá’u’lláh have to say about life
after death?” Mrs. Faizi was shocked as she had never mentioned
to her friend that she was a Bahá’í, nor was she aware that her
friend knew of the Bahá’í Faith. She then reached into her purse
and gave her a pamphlet called “Life After Death.” She also told
the lady, “I dreamt of the next world. There I saw Dorothy Baker
with your daughter and Dorothy was guiding her.” These words
were a source of great comfort to her friend. She began to inves-
tigate the Faith and later became a Bahá’í.
In January 1954, at the time when she heard of Dorothy’s death,
Florence Mayberry was in Montreal at the Maxwells’ home.
I went upstairs to pray in ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s room, not specifically
about her, although I had this on my mind. I never knew
Dorothy, although I once sat in an audience and heard her
speak. I never met her. I had a strange feeling in that room
(which could be total imagination) that Dorothy Baker was
telling me that when there is a spirit existent, and there is an
open channel, almost like a sieve that water can pour through;
this water of the spirit doesn’t care where it goes because it’s
in movement, in flow, and will flow wherever the opening
is. I had a strange feeling that she was saying that she was
going to help me. I thought to myself, “You crazy woman,
you. You never knew her. She doesn’t know you. She never

heard of you. This is ridiculous.” But I couldn’t forget it,
nor have I ever forgotten it. It was comforting, as though I’d
be helped by some quality that she had.
Many years later, when I had been appointed an Auxil-
iary Board member and had served in that capacity for many
years, I was at a convention in Wilmette. A woman from
Lima whom I had seen and knew by sight, but not by name,
came to me and said, “Oh, Florence Mayberry, I have to speak to
you. I have a message for you from Dorothy Baker.”
I told her, “I wish that were true, but it can’t be, because I
never knew her and she didn’t know me.”
The woman said, “Indeed she did,” and I said, “How could
she? Because I never met her. I was merely once in an audi-
ence when she spoke.” She said, “I don’t care. It’s you. It’s
your name. Dorothy Baker said to me, ‘There’s a girl in Cali-
fornia we have to keep an eye on. We have to watch her
because she’s going to accomplish something in the teaching
field. That girl’s name is Florence Mayberry.’”
I insisted that it could not be I. “Are you sure it wasn’t
some other name?”
“Yes,” she said, “I know you, it’s you. It was your name.”
Immediately, I thought back to that day in Montreal.

Florence Mayberry was later appointed to the first Continental
Board of Counselors for North America and later served as a mem-
ber of the International Teaching Center in Haifa for ten years. A
writer, she has been active in many areas of Bahá’í life, notably as
a lucid and moving speaker.
On January 11, 1954, Marion Hofman wrote to Frank Baker,
describing the delight Dorothy’s October visit had given her fam-
ily and the events of the last days:

Then came a cable about a week ago which we did not quite
understand, but took to mean she would be in England only
five hours and would fly out the same day. It said she was
arriving January 10, “bring coat or blanket, need five hours
rest.” I was bitterly disappointed, as the NSA had asked me
to speak at Teaching Conference in Liverpool on January
10th, and I really felt unable to change this. So after talking
over her cable, we decided to invite a lovely Bahá’í, our local
secretary, Miss Jean Campbell … to accompany David and
the children by car to meet Dorothy’s plane at 10 A.M. They
were all filled with eager anticipation. …
For my part, I went off to Teaching Conference on Satur-
day morning (the 9th). I had it in mind to suggest Dorothy
might telephone the Conference if she felt equal to it, but
in the rush of departure I forgot. When I found that the
Conference Room had a telephone in it, I felt impelled to
get up early and call David at 7:30 on the 10th, before they
left home, and I gave him times to call, suggesting 3 P.M. as
perhaps the most propitious on the Conference agenda. (You
will perhaps recall that Dorothy came to a Teaching Confer-
ence in Birmingham a few years ago, and was its heart and
soul.)
That morning, as Conference was convening just after ten
o’clock, I felt moved after the prayer to ask to announce
Dorothy’s expected arrival in England (at 10:00 A.M. that
very hour), and the possibility she might call. I spoke of the
blessing her very presence on English soil would bring to
the Conference. The friends were all very excited and happy.
Now I know, after seeing the newspapers, that our dearest
one must have flown away, perhaps even as we spoke her
name amongst the friends, for the hour of the crash is said
to have been 10:15 A.M.

At that time David Hofman and his small party were waiting at
the airport. In a report of January 10 and the days following, he
wrote,
Jean Campbell, May, Mark and myself, went to the London
Airport to meet Dorothy, Marion being at the Teaching Con-
ference; we expected five hours with her and hoped she would
come home for the night.
On arrival at the airport we were told the Comet was due
at 12.10 (we had come for 10.40).
At 12.55 we were told it had been changed to 12.40, but
no signal had yet been received as to its approach.
At 1.20 an officer (lady) came to the spectator’s enclosure
where we were waiting and asked if I would go to see the
flight manager, and she would escort Jean and the children
to the lounge. I thought he was apologizing for the long
delay and was going to give us a “ringside” seat.
The Manager (Mr. Irwin), much perturbed, showed me a
map and said the plane was down in the Tuscan Sea. Wreck-
age had been sighted and they could offer very little hope for
anyone. He asked for Mr. Baker’s address and I said I could
provide it when I got home. We exchanged telephone num-
bers and he promised to telephone me at the Bull Hotel in
45 minutes. He confirmed that Dorothy was aboard. …
At the Teaching Conference, Marion Hofman awaited the call
she thought would come from Dorothy. She described this time
in a letter to Frank Baker.
As 3 P.M. came and went, and no call, I wondered what had
happened. We were hearing reports of the four Conferences,
and were in the midst of New Delhi, when the phone rang.

Instead of asking for John Ferraby, the NSA Secretary, as I
had suggested, the call was for the NSA Chairman, Hasan
Balyuzi. We knew it was David, for he spoke his name. And
then nothing except, from Hasan in a very low voice, four
times repeated: “Oh dear … oh dear …” Then Hasan
called me and I went to the phone. David said: “I have just
sent this cable to the Guardian.” And he read it. [“BOAC AD-
VISE COMET CARRYING DOROTHY BAKER MISSING TUSCAN SEA ONLY
VERY FAINT HOPE WILL ADVISE. …”] I could think of no words,
but asked him to read the cable again slowly, while I re-
peated it aloud to the friends. There were sixty of us present.
As I left the phone and walked half the length of the room,
I heard no sound but my own footfalls. In this silence of
shock and grief, the Conference Chairman, Richard
Backwell, said the “Remover of Difficulties” nine times.
Dear Frank, it was indeed the propitious moment—
Bahá’u’lláh’s very chosen moment—for all the depth of our
collective love and sorrow to bring to the friends that di-
mension of dedication which the NSA had earnestly hoped
would be the result of this Conference. It was just before the
final talk, the summation of the Conference, which I had
been asked to give. I spoke of Dorothy, dear Frank,—that
whatever her fate, it had come to her in the path of our
Guardian’s service; that if she had indeed been taken, it was
God’s mystery, for she was and is in her prime. … You will
guess what spirit of unity and devotion was attained in the
closing hour of the Conference, with this mysterious heart-
rending event throbbing in every consciousness.
I did not reach home, by train and coach, until 2 A.M.—
and all the while she lived in my heart, and has been there
all day. This morning we received a beautiful letter from her.
I attach a copy, for we cannot bear to part with her own
handwritten words.

My very dears,
I have just telegraphed about arriving Sunday morning
January 10th by Comet, and requesting five hours rest be-
fore having to meet anyone.
Also, if you receive this in time, I wonder if you would
mind sending along to the airport an enormous old wool
coat (David’s maybe, but not dainty Marion’s!) or a blanket
in which to bundle? I came prepared only for summer and
my family planned to meet me on my return to NY at the
end of OCTOBER with something fairly warm. Isn’t this a
scream? I keep getting cables to stay on, and the enormous
wisdoms of it are only now coming home to me, I assure
you, but meanwhile I freeze. So save me as best you can. I’ll
be wearing the purple wool suit, and that is all you will be
seeing me in at any time; I know the friends won’t mind. On
arrival in the West Indies I shall gradually thaw out, feet
first, I hope.
Save time for “just us,” too. I go right back out on the
eleventh but cannot tell you the time at the moment. I would
make no appointments for the eleventh for me unless we do
it on the spur of the moment.
You can’t imagine how much I am looking forward to our
cozy visit. That is if no more cables come! I will share with
you some ecstasy and tears, some love and laughter, and a
real from-the-heart prayer—
Dearest love,
Dorothy

The morning after the Comet went down, Mr. Furútan sat at
breakfast at the home of the Hand of the Cause Clara Dunn—
Mother Dunn, as she was called. After the New Delhi Confer-
ence, the attending Hands had been asked to visit various areas;
he was traveling in Australia. Reading the paper, as he often did

to absorb a feeling for the concerns of the people in the countries
he visited, Mr. Furútan came upon a small article about a tragic
accident involving a BOAC Comet after its safe flight from Karachi
to Rome. His eyes scanned the list and stopped. D. Baker. He
knew she had been asked to travel through India and Pakistan, as
he had been asked to travel to Australia.
“Could it be Dorothy Baker this article mentions?”
Then one Hand of the Cause reassured the other. “Why would
that ‘D. Baker’ be our Dorothy? There must be hundreds, thou-
sands of ‘D. Bakers’ in the world.”
Comforted by Mother Dunn, Mr. Furútan caught his flight to
Jakarta, Indonesia, and forgot the sharp pang of fear that had
touched him. As the plane neared Jakarta the air hostess called his
name. There was an urgent cablegram from Haifa.
In Jakarta dear Mr. Furútan went alone and mortified to his
hotel room, where his weeping could not release the desolate sad-
ness of the loss. “Why such a young beauty, such a teacher? It was
a very great shock to me,” he told pilgrims at Bahjí twenty-seven
years later, tears coming again to his kind, dark eyes. “For several
months after I couldn’t come to myself.”
In Haifa that night, the Guardian did not come to dinner.
Unannounced, his car arrived at Bahjí. As he opened the car door
for Shoghi Effendi, Salah Jarrah, the custodian of Bahjí, was sur-
prised to see his evident grief. Alone, the Guardian walked the
gardens he had begun to plant just a year and two months before.
Salah saw him then enter the Mansion and followed to see if he
could be of any service. Shoghi Effendi was in his room. He said
to Salah, “I have come tonight specially to pray for Dorothy Baker.”
His cable from Haifa to the United States read,
HEARTS GRIEVED LAMENTABLE, UNTIMELY PASSING DOROTHY
BAKER, DISTINGUISHED HAND CAUSE, ELOQUENT EXPONENT ITS

TEACHINGS, INDEFATIGABLE SUPPORTER ITS INSTITUTIONS, VAL-
IANT DEFENDER ITS PRECEPTS. LONG RECORD OUTSTANDING SER-
VICE ENRICHED ANNALS CONCLUDING YEARS HEROIC OPENING
EPOCH FORMATIVE AGE BAHÁ’Í DISPENSATION. FERVENTLY PRAY-
ING PROGRESS SOUL ABHÁ KINGDOM. ASSURE RELATIVES PRO-
FOUND LOVING SYMPATHY. NOBLE SPIRIT REAPING BOUNTIFUL RE-
WARD. ADVISE HOLD MEMORIAL GATHERING TEMPLE BEFITTING
HER RANK IMPERISHABLE SERVICES. …
SHOGHI

Haifa, Israel
January 13, 1954

“I beg you to pray that God will accept my life as ransom for
our beloved in Haifa,” Dorothy had written to Agnes Alexander
in 1952, “and assist me, in whatever service he chooses to confer,
to fill that cup to overflowing, with joy that will uplift his over-
burdened heart. Deepest loving appreciation, Dorothy Baker.” She
wrote to others in a similar vein, among them Amatu’l-Bahá
Rúḥíyyih Khánum: “When next you have the privilege of enter-
ing the Tomb of the Blessed Beauty, dearest Rúḥíyyih, will you
pray that my life may be a ransom to the Guardian?”
Though Dorothy had longed to sacrifice her life for him, she
felt, a year before her death, that the Guardian was the ransom for
the believers, not the other way around:
He is at times a servant and again a King; and he is at once
the point of all joy and again the nerve center of suffering. …
He is alas, a ransom; we are his beneficiaries. He suffers the
grief of the Prophets and yet is the “true brother.” And as he
casts himself into the sea of sacrifice, he is willing to cast us,
one and all, into that shining sea also.

Willing though he may have seemed, losing Dorothy Baker into
that “shining sea” caused him great pain. To Hermann Grossmann,
another Hand of the Cause of God, he wrote on February 8,
The sudden passing of dear Dorothy Baker is indeed a great
loss to the Faith, and leaves a sad gap in the ranks of the
Hands of the Cause. She was exemplary in so many ways,
and her services can ill be spared at this important period in
Bahá’í history.
No doubt there is a wisdom in such calamities; and
through her death others may feel moved to become more
consecrated to the service of the Faith. Surely such a soul’s
influence will continue to be felt in this world.
When Loulie Matthews spent a day with the Guardian in Haifa
in February 1954, they talked about Dorothy’s death and about
Loulie’s book, Not Every Sea Hath Pearls. Shoghi Effendi’s gaze
wandered out toward the sea. He grew quiet, then said, “Now the
Mediterranean has the blessing of the pearl that was Dorothy.”

Epilogue

Frank A. Baker
615 West Elm Street
Lima, Ohio
March 26—54
My dear Muriel and Ed—
I didn’t get back to Lima till March 17th and find stacks
of wires and letters to be answered. Many thanks for your
nice letter. We were on our way to meet Dorothy in Grenada
when we got word at Fort Lauderdale, Florida about the ac-
cident. Bill and Louise met Mother and me in New York
and we went on to Rome. Dorothy’s body was not recovered
and we held funeral services at sea on Jan. 18th. Mother and
I went on to Haifa—returning to Rome where we waited
for a month to see if they could bring up any part of the
plane containing passengers but I do not believe now that
there were any large pieces left.
The explosion took place twenty minutes out of Rome
and everyone was killed instantly. There was no suffering
and for this at least I am thankful.
While Dorothy’s life was not long I do not know of any-
one who has accomplished as much in a full lifetime as Dor-
othy in her short span of years. We had thirty-two wonder-
ful years together.

We are going to erect a memorial for Dorothy on the
temple grounds in Rome.
Thank you so much for your sympathy and prayers.
Love from all of us
Frank
The Hand of the Cause of God Ugo Giachery
I received a cable from Shoghi Effendi to go at once to the
scene of the disaster and went, alone. My wife … later
escorted the Baker family there. …
The fishermen were picking up the pieces of the airplane.
They picked up a pamphlet and gave it to a newspaperman—
a tall fellow, I don’t remember his name. It was An Early
Pilgrimage by May Bolles. He saw “Bahá’í” and threw it back
into the water. When he realized what he had done he hired
a boat to go out and look for it. He found two or three
traveler’s checks, but nothing else. …
Louise Baker Matthias
When the family went to Porto Ferraio, on the island of
Elba, it was thought that Mother’s was one of the bodies
recovered from the sea. It was quickly determined that this
was not true. In Italy Ugo and Angelina Giachery and in-
deed all of that dear community took us to their hearts and
sustained us with their love.
We travelled north on the train toward the port of
Piombino. From there we took the ferry across to Elba, land-
ing at Porto Azzurro. On the quay a large crowd had gath-
ered. Ugo told us that the local people knew when we were

to arrive and had come to show their sympathy. I saw that
the women, all dressed in black, and some of the men as
well, were weeping. No one said a word, and they parted
quietly to let us through. Across the island in Porto Ferraio
we encountered the same quiet, supportive sympathy.
The next day before the memorial was to be held I be-
came distraught when I realized that we had no flowers. I
searched the town and asked officials and the hotel person-
nel where flowers might be purchased, but none were to be
found on the island. But the next day, just before the me-
morial service, Dad was handed a large bouquet of red car-
nations.
Two ships were provided by the Italian navy, one much
larger than the other. The larger ship’s deck was crowded

69. Elba, 1954, on route to the spot where funeral services
were held at sea for Dorothy.

with mourners, clerics, reporters, sailors and officers. Only
we were on the smaller ship, with a handful of reporters and
the ship’s own crew and officers. I suppose the officials didn’t
quite know what to do with a family whose faith they thought
might be non-Christian, or at least different and unfamiliar.
When we arrived at the site where the debris of the Comet
had disappeared into the sea the two ships lined up facing
each other, a rather narrow expanse of water between them.
On the larger ship across from us there was considerable
ceremony. I believe a mass was said and a huge wreath was
carried to the ship’s rail and ceremoniously slid over the side
to drop into the sea.
On our ship we said prayers: those for the departed, the
Tablets of Visitation, and the Tablet of Aḥmad. As we finished
each of us dropped a few carnations into the sea. The cap-
tain and other officers and sailors stood nearby and again we
felt their sympathy. Later several of them spoke to Ugo and
told him how touched they were by our simple ceremony.
They asked about the Faith that was so new to them but
whose spirit they felt so deeply.
As Dad, Aunty Lou, Bill and I sat in a small sala in the
Hotel Massimo, feeling as though this were somehow the
ultimate deprivation, I suddenly recalled a day almost twenty
years earlier. Dad and I sat at the pullman table when Mother
came in after taking some friends to the train who had come
to Lima to visit Mother Beecher’s grave. Mother dropped
into her chair at the end of the table and after talking for a
few minutes about the visit, suddenly said, with consider-
able heat, “I hope people don’t make a shrine of my grave
after I’m buried!” Dad chuckled and asked, ‘And how can
you make sure they won’t?” Mother considered a moment
and then answered, “If I could really have my choice, I would

be buried at sea.” Later Mother added, “And if I could choose
the sea, then it would be the Mediterranean, whose waves
will lap eternally on the shores of ‘Akká.”
In the course of the next forty days, I often found Dad
with his Bahá’í prayer book in his hands, open to the prayers
for the departed. “It’s the last service I can render her,” he
told me. It wasn’t, he felt, that she needed his prayers. It was
he who needed the ‘mingling of their spirits’ that Bahá’u’-
lláh promised when He enjoined a forty-day period of prayer
for the progress of a beloved soul who leaves this world.

* * *

Haifa, Israel
December 9, 1954
Mr. Frank A. Baker.
Dear Bahá’í Brother:
The beloved Guardian has received your letter of Novem-
ber 19th, and has instructed me to answer you on his behalf.
The news that dear Mrs. Beecher1 and you have arrived in
Grenada rejoiced his heart. He hopes you may soon find a
suitable house, so that you can get settled there.
The Guardian feels confident, if you will put forth an
effort, and then persevere in your task, you will succeed in
attracting a few receptive souls whom you can teach, and
finally win to the Faith. Everyone who arises for this service
in a spirit of true dedication finds himself assisted in ways
that seem truly miraculous.
You can be sure that your beloved Dorothy from the realms
on high will watch over you and guide you in your teaching

Dorothy’s mother, Luella.

efforts. She is no doubt very proud of your having gone to
that foreign land to spread the Faith of which she was such
an able exponent, and to which she was so devoted.
Please convey his kind greetings to Mrs. Beecher. He as-
sures her and you of his prayers for the abundant success of
your labours for the Cause.
With loving Bahá’í greetings,
R. Rabbani
May the Almighty bless keep and sustain you and Mrs.
Beecher, cheer your hearts, guide every step you take, and
enable you to win great victories, and rejoice the soul of
your dear and departed wife in the Abhá Kingdom,
Your true brother,
Shoghi
Elisabeth Cheney was utterly disconsolate when she heard the
news of Dorothy’s death. She had loved Dorothy deeply since
learning about the Bahá’í Faith from her in Lima, Ohio. The third
night after the crash Elisabeth was asleep when she heard her
friend’s voice direct her to get out of bed. Without turning on the
light Elisabeth did as she was told. In the dark she walked to the
dresser and pulled open the drawer Dorothy’s voice indicated.
Under some clothing was a letter written by Dorothy on the eve
of Elisabeth’s departure to pioneer in Paraguay sixteen and a half
years before. Elisabeth opened it and read.

June 13, 1937
Beloved Elisabeth:
This is one of those tremendously busy mornings, but a
letter came which was of great importance to me. I read it
with tears in my eyes, and said to myself again and again,

“There are a few; there are! You have thought that there never
would be those who could give all, everything, but there
are!” And this amazing fact sent me to the typewriter for a
stolen moment.
Elisabeth, all that you have been through, all that you
have learned, all that has passed in swiftly changing pictures
before you on the screen of your life, all this has led up to
the place where you now stand. You have been born in the

70. Monument erected in memory of those who lost their lives in
the crash of January 10, 1954.

Day of God, heralded for centuries. Others, hearing of it,
oppose it or stand idle while knowing its advent. You are
conscious, and you have bowed down before its splendor,
saluting its mighty King, and risen up to call in His Name
to the sleeping nations. … That you may have the greatest
joy in every passing moment. … I want to make sure. I have
only two rules to give you. One is this: Look not to the
creatures. Let your heart be supremely attached to our Be-
loved; then you can serve all of His children with detach-
ment and joy, and never fail any of them, no matter what
they do. When people make mistakes, you are only witness-
ing moments that are hook-ups between states of conscious-
ness. It does not matter. The second rule is this: Make a
joyous thing of the little services, because you can never tell
which is little and which is big in God’s sight. Bahá’u’lláh
said: A single deed done in My Name is equal to the deeds
of a hundred thousand years; nay, I ask pardon of God for this
limitation, for such a deed is without limited reward. So
when you speak His Holy Name, rejoice, be quiet in your
heart, and know that this is a Very Great Occasion, an occa-
sion of pure joy. He verily is the Lord of Hosts, and will
assist you at all times.
And now, dear Elisabeth, let me put my arms around you,
because there will not always be time in this world. If I never
see you, touch you, speak alone to you again in this world,
soldier, know now the comfort you have brought me, and
know that the march is all that matters; the march is all that
matters! And when the march is over, through all the Worlds
of God, the miracle of it all will be continuously unfolded
before us, and there will be no separation. …
With tenderest love …
Dorothy

71. Luella Beecher and Frank Baker on the porch of their house
in Grenada, West Indies, 1956
Louise Baker Matthias
I have wondered if, when he pioneered in Grenada, Dad
ever had an experience similar to mine. For more than two
years after Mother’s passing, whenever I taught the Faith
and particularly when I gave a prepared, public talk, I would
no sooner begin than I would have an incredibly strong sense
of Mother’s presence and it seemed that she spoke through
me.
That first night it happened I had scarcely finished two or
three sentences when I suddenly felt as though Mother were
standing behind my left shoulder. The sensation was so strong
I turned and looked behind me, but saw nothing. I turned

back to the room full of people and continued to speak, but
did not in any way follow the subject I had prepared.
I had always prepared a speech with great care, with notes
so I wouldn’t forget any major points. After that experience,
however, I tried to follow ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s advice to Lua
Getsinger. I immersed myself in His words, and when I be-
gan to speak I turned my heart to Him.
This happened repeatedly over the next two years or a bit
more … At those times I felt infinitely close to Mother.
Needless to say I sought out every teaching opportunity I
could find. Before each meeting I spent an hour or two read-
ing the words of Bahá’u’lláh and/or ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. I thought
about what I might want to say on whatever subject I had

72. Some of Dorothy Baker’s legacy, circa 1955: (back row, left to
right) her daughter-in-law, Annamarie Mattoon Baker, and
daughter, Louise Baker Matthias; (front row, left to right) her son-
in-law, Hubert Matthias, grandchildren, Frank Baker, Dorothy
Matthias, and Crystal Baker, and son, Bill Baker.

been asked to speak and reviewed stories I might want to
recount to illustrate points. Still, I knew I would probably
not be using any of the material. It was a period of particu-
lar sensitivity and perception. I began to understand what
people meant when they said that the “mantle” of a great
soul who leaves this world can fall on the shoulders of some-
one still here.
The episode ended gradually and naturally. I never felt
any sense of loss as it waned. I was simply deeply grateful for
the experience. She had always been my spiritual as well as
my physical mother, but even during her lifetime I only rarely
felt as close a connection with her as I did during those two
years following her death.
I think Mother’s granddaughter, my niece Crystal Louise
Baker Shoaie, expressed it best when she recounted a recent
dream she had. Cris dreamt she was in Mother’s bedroom in
Lima, Ohio. In actuality the closet there is very shallow, but
in her dream it was a commodious walk-in affair. She walked
into the large room where a few people were trying on clothes
that had belonged to Mother. She, too, tried on several outfits
and found that some fit her well, while others she could not
use. She kept and wore those that fit her and left the rest.
Each of us, both Mother’s physical and her spiritual chil-
dren, of whom there are thousands throughout the world,
share that spiritual kinship with Dorothy Baker. We have all
“tried on her garments” and wear those that seem to fit us.
As we touch her spirit and try to emulate her we all become
her spiritual heirs.

* * *

The bounty of Bahá’u’lláh was first conferred through the

faith and generosity of a paternal grandmother, “Mother
Beecher,” with whom I visited His Holiness ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in
the city of New York. It is a blessed thing to remember the
child who sat entranced at the feet of her Lord and received
His all-merciful love. In that hour all fear was replaced by a
passion for all people. Beside this, only one thing remained;
that Bahá’u’lláh is the All-Glorious redeemer and His power
is equal to all things. This fixed principle became, and still is
the fulcrum and pillar of an otherwise impotent life.
Faithfully, in the service of the Guardian,

Dorothy Baker
1952

73. Hand of the Cause of God, Dorothy Baker, 1953.

Appendix I:
Selected works by
Dorothy Baker

Hear, O Israel
by Dorothy K Baker1
The theme song of the Jews, the singleness of God, has lived
through four thousand years. Where can history match this?
The term Israel, Ferdinand Isserman asserts, means Champion
of God. In Ur of Chaldea, the Semitic people first championed
this Cause, led by Abraham, son of Terah, maker of idols. Abraham
is reputed to have been born in a cave and kept in hiding through
his early years, because of the wicked designs of the idolatrous
king, Nimrod, who was warned by the stars of the coming of a
Great One, whose power would encompass heaven and earth. To
Abraham, as to the Prophets long before him, it was given to
know the indivisible nature of God. A story that is something of
an allegory comes down to us concerning his childhood. Coming
forth from his cave one day and seeing the sun, he said: “This is
surely the Lord of the universe. Him will I worship.” But the sun
set and night came, and seeing the moon with her silver radiance,
he said: “This then is the Lord of the world, and all the stars are

Originally published in The Bahá’í World: A Biennial International Record,
Volume VIII, 1936-1938. Comp. National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of
the United States and Canada (New York: Bahá’í Publishing Committee, 1939),
pp. 754–756.

His servants; to him will I kneel.” The following morning, when
moon and stars had disappeared, and the sun had risen anew,
Abraham said: “Now I know that neither the one nor the other is
the Lord of the world, but He who controls both as His servants
is the creator and ruler of the whole world.”
One day Terah found his gods burned, and going to Abraham,
he asked: “Who has burned these?” Abraham, replied: “The large
one quarreled with the little ones and burned them in his anger.”
“Fool,” cried Terah, “how canst thou say that he who can not see
nor hear nor walk should have done this?” Then Abraham made
answer: “How canst thou forsake the living God to serve gods
that neither see nor hear?”1
Nevertheless, Abraham was given charge of his father’s idols to
sell them. One day, tells the Talmud, a customer came, and
Abraham asked: “How old art thou?” “Lo! So many years,” re-
plied the man. “What!” exclaimed Abraham, “is it possible that a
man of so many years should desire to worship a thing only a day
old?”2
Then Abraham again destroyed the idols and was arraigned
before Nimrod, who said: “Knowest thou not that I am God and
ruler of the world?” Abraham said: “If thou art god and ruler of
the world, why dost thou not cause the sun to rise in the west and
set in the east? … Thou art the son of Cush, and a mortal like
him. Thou couldst not save thy father from death, nor wilt thou
thyself escape it.”3
After this, Abraham was cast into a fiery furnace and suffered
many things, that he might become “a stream of blessings to pu-
rify and regenerate the pagan world.”

Jewish Encyclopedia, Vol. 1
Jewish Encyclopedia, Vol. 1
Shalsheleth Hakkabalah—Talmud. Translated by M. H. Harry.

At the hour of Abraham’s appearance, the Semitic people were
reborn. Around the early camp fires the first academics of learn-
ing came into being, schools whose central teaching was the single-
ness and majesty of God. As late as the day of Alexander of
Macedon, these academies remained the most effective centers of
truth in the world. Alexander himself, coming incognito to con-
quer Jerusalem, was himself conquered by the wisdom of the
Rabbis. The Revelation of Abraham was so potent that its effect
lasted many centuries, and so universal that a later writer testifies:
“It is particularly Abraham—the friend of God, upon whom are
founded alike the Synagogue, the Church and the Mosque.
Abraham was not a Jew nor a Christian, but a believer in one
God.—When God said: ‘Let there be light,’ He had Abraham in
view.”
Centuries after the passing of Abraham, Moses the Interlocu-
tor arose to champion the Cause of God. He found his people
fallen into bondage and unfaith. Because they knew nothing of
self-government, Moses laid down mundane laws as well as spiri-
tual, and Israel became a theocracy, a nation rightly proud of a
government founded on divine justice. So to the heritage of faith
was added an extraordinary ideal of obedience, righteousness, and
respect for law. The story of Rabbi Yossi Ben Kisma relates: “I
once met a man in my travels—he offered me a thousand golden
denari and precious stones and pearls if I would agree to go and
dwell in his native place. But I replied, saying: ‘If thou wert to
give me all of the gold and silver, all the precious stones and
pearls in the world, I would not reside anywhere else than in a
place where the law is studied.’”1 This amazing respect for law
gave rise to high ethical morality, and when the foot of the people

Avoth—Translated by M. H. Harry.

slipped, inspired men arose again and again to renew the moral
suasion of Abraham and Moses. Rabbi Isserman, in his graphic
little volume, “Rebels and Saints,” recalls them to us, every one
of them a champion. A Nathan who could rebuke a king’s injus-
tice; Amos, the shepherd of the desert who cried out that the
famine was “not a famine of bread or thirst for water, but of hear-
ing the words of our Lord”; Hosea, who warned: “My God will
cast them away because they did not hearken unto Him, and
they shall be wanderers among the nations”; Isaiah, who proph-
esied peace and an Iranian Redeemer to end suffering; Daniel,
whose visions spanned twenty-three hundred years to the “time
of the end.” These were champions indeed. Long after the Jews
ceased to be a political nation, the amazing loyalty to God, the
Single, the One, remained. At one time the law of the Jews and
the idea of the God of Israel was displeasing to the Romans, and
the famous Rabbi Akiva was forthwith put to death. On his lips
were the words that had become the theme song of Israel: Sh’ma
Yis-ro-ayl A-do-noy E-lo-hay-nu A-do-noy E-chod. (Hear, O Is-
rael, the Lord thy God, the Lord is One.) From the Talmud, “—
and as they tore him with currycombs, and as he was with long
drawn breath sounding forth the word One, his soul departed
from him. Then came forth a voice from heaven which said:
‘Blessed art thou, Rabbi Akiva, for thy soul and the word One,
left thy body together.’”1
Now to every discerning one, it must be evident that the im-
portance of Divine Unity was very great among the Jews, since
their Odyssey is marked by an ever recurring aria of such strength
and beauty. Bahá’u’lláh has revealed the true meaning of Divine
Unity. Its explanation has two parts. First, God is single and un-

Berachotch—Translated by M. H. Harry.

attainable in His Essence. “Regard thou the one true God as One
Who is apart from, and immeasurably exalted above, all created
things.”1 Second, that the true matter hidden in the song of the
Jews is the continued manifestation of this singleness, as revealed
through the great Prophets. “It is clear and evident that all the
Prophets are the Temples of the Cause of God.” The early Jews
evidently recognized that Revelation was progressive and recur-
rent, for we find in Jewish lore: “Adam’s book, which contained
celestial mysteries and holy wisdom, came down as an heirloom
into the hands of Abraham, and he, by means of it, was able to
see the glory of his Lord.” In brief, Abraham received Divine
Knowledge identical to that of the Prophets before him. Why,
then, can we not go farther and say that one God revealed the
Torah, the Gospel, and the Qur’án? Bahá’u’lláh proclaims that
loyalty to one must include loyalty to all, for God and His law
are indivisible. Bahá’u’lláh has brought to a close the Adamic cycle,
a period of evolution covering five hundred thousand years. He
writes: “I have been preceded in this matter by Muḥammad, the
Messenger of God, and before him by the Spirit (Christ) and
before him by the Interlocutor, Moses.—This is the Father of
whom Isaiah gave you tidings, and from whom the Spirit received
his covenant.” Isaiah wrote: “The government shall be upon his
shoulder, and he shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty
God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his
government and of peace there shall be no end.”
Spiritual unity can come only out of Revelation. It was Revela-
tion that created the ancient unity, Judaism; created Christianity,
a later unity; created Islám. Each has had a potency beyond the
ken of men and of angels, has purified life, made progress, and

Bahá’u’lláh, Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, trans. Shoghi Effendi,
1st ps ed. (Wilmette, Ill.: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1983), p. 166.

taught truth. Each, in its primitive period of growth, has exer-
cised the greatest influence and held its world together. In its later
days, each has fallen into disunity and been all but lost to its
adherents. The desire of Bahá’u’lláh is that these courts of maj-
esty become one court, and that God be worshipped as One Lord.
Today He is as torn by idle fancies as in the days of Nimrod. His
Cause is again in need of champions. The ancient Cause of God
has reached the most dramatic point in its history, for evolution,
side by side with Revelation, has brought man to the age of ma-
turity. A Revelation containing the seed of the Most Great Peace
has appeared, and once more a divine government will be born, a
government with powers to subdue the warring forces of the planet
and organize its resources. Bahá’u’lláh calls the world from clan
to superstate, from sect to spiritual solidarity.
This is a challenge to Israel, the champion of God. Can the
clan spirit today prevent a great people from stepping into the
court of a world religion? Never will they be willing to stand cling-
ing to the shadowy past, failing in the greatest adventure of his-
tory. The voice cries in the sacred vale: “Here am I! Here am I!”
Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God, the Lord is One!

The Victory of the Spirit
by Dorothy Baker1
Revelation, the Path to God, has been progressive. Early man
could understand a little truth; later he could assimilate great truth.
Fundamentally the truth was one. With each appearance of truth,
a rebirth of powers has attended it; man has been imbued with
divine ideals, and an ever-advancing civilization has taken new
steps forward. The miracle of new social power is accompanied
by the appearance of a Master Teacher. The lettered Jews sprang
from the spiritual genius of Moses; the glory of ancient Persia
reflects the fire of Zoroaster; unfolding Europe lifts her spires to
the glorious Nazarene; the architecture, astronomy, and poetic
genius of the Muḥammadan world in the middle centuries be-
speak the gift of Muḥammad. “He hath ordained,” writes Bahá’-
u’lláh, “that in every age and dispensation, a pure and stainless
Soul be made manifest in the Kingdoms of earth and heaven.”
To the individual, this is always an invitation to sit at the feet
of the Master Teacher and renew his own powers. Laying aside
the fears imposed today by tradition, the seeker on the Path fear-
lessly looks for the stainless mirror of his age. The Jew who knows
of the majesty of Moses, the Christian who longs to touch the

Published by the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United
States and Canada in 1943.

garment hem of Jesus; these are the souls schooled in adoration.
The illumined Writings of Bahá’u’lláh will bring to these, and to
the untutored millions, the light of renewed faith, and the means
of traveling with sovereign power the immeasurable distances of
the Path to God.
The Words of Bahá’u’lláh, coming as a part of the unending
outpouring of the Word of God through the ages, act as the wa-
ter of life upon the thirsty soul, refreshing, cheering, and bring-
ing forth the powers of the seeker. Every life needs the emphasis
of the love of God, but some cast about for a lifetime, failing to
find this Holy Grail of spiritual health and joy. Just as bodies are
sometimes lacking in the food elements that produce health, the
soul sometimes stands in need of a divine physician who can pre-
scribe the missing elements for spiritual success. The few thoughts
given here are chosen from the unlimited mine of wisdom and
explanation offered in the Bahá’í Writings. Space permits men-
tion of only a few.
Power through prayer
Faculties long allowed to rust must be called into activity. Man
becomes like a stone unless he continually supplicates to God.
Prayer is the great quickener. There is no human being who is not
in need of prayer. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá said, “O thou spiritual friend!
Thou hast asked the wisdom of prayer. Know thou that prayer is
indispensable and obligatory, and man under no pretext whatso-
ever is excused from performing the prayer unless he be mentally
unsound, or an insurmountable obstacle prevent him.” The sin-
cere seeker, however, often asks, “Why pray, since God knows
our needs?” In response, Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá mention
many of the benefits of prayer.

1. Connection with God
“The wisdom of prayer is this: That it causeth a connection
between the servant and the True One, because in that state man
will all heart and soul turneth his face towards His Highness the
Almighty, seeking His association and desiring His love and compassion.”
2. Divine Companionship
“Verily He responds unto those who invoke Him, is near unto
those who pray unto Him. And He is thy Companion in every
loneliness, and befriends every exile.”
3. Joy
“Know thou that supplication and prayer is the Water of Life.
It is the cause of the vivification of existence and brings glad tid-
ings and joy to the soul.”
“Know that in every home where God is praised and prayed
to, and His Kingdom proclaimed, that home is a garden of God
and a paradise of His happiness.”
4. Healing
“There are two ways of healing sickness, material means and
spiritual means. The first is by the use of remedies, of medicines;
the second consists in praying to God and in turning to Him.
Both means should be used and practiced …. Moreover, they are
not contradictory, and thou shouldst accept the physical rem-
edies as coming from the mercy and favor of God ….”
“O thou pure and spiritual one! Turn thou toward God with
thy heart beating with His love, devoted to His praise, gazing
towards His Kingdom and seeking help from His Holy Spirit in a
state of ecstasy, rapture, love, yearning, joy and fragrance. God
will assist thee, through a spirit from His Presence, to heal sick-
ness and disease.”
“Continue in healing hearts and bodies and seek healing for

sick persons by turning unto the Supreme Kingdom and by set-
ting the heart upon obtaining healing through the power of the
Greatest Name and by the spirit of the love of God.”
5. Protection
“Besides all this, prayer and fasting is the cause of awakening
and mindfulness, and conducive to protection and preservation
from tests.”
6. Removal of difficulties
“Is there any Remover of difficulties save God? Say: Praised be
God! He is God! All are His servants, and all abide by His bid-
ding!”
“Say: God sufficeth all things above all things, and nothing in
the heavens or in the earth but God sufficeth. Verily, He is in
Himself the Knower, the Sustainer, the Omnipotent.”1
7. Increased capacity
“By these attractions one’s ability and capacity increase. When
the vessel is widened the water increaseth and when the thirst
grows, the bounty of the cloud becomes agreeable to the taste of
man. This is the mystery of supplication and the wisdom of stat-
ing one’s wants.”
8. Effect upon the World
“Intone, O My servant, the verses of God that have been
received by thee, as intoned by them who have drawn nigh unto
Him, that the sweetness of thy melody may kindle thine own
soul, and attract the hearts of all men. Whoso reciteth, in the
privacy of his chamber, the verses revealed by God, the scattering

Prayers revealed by the Báb, often used in times of difficulty. See Bahá’í
Prayers: A Selection of Prayers Revealed by Bahá’u’lláh, the Báb, and
‘Abdu’l-Bahá, new ed. (Wilmette, Ill.: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1991).

angels of the Almighty shall scatter abroad the fragrance of the
words uttered by his mouth, and shall cause the heart of every
righteous man to throb.”
9. Intercession
“Those who have ascended have different attributes from those
who are still on earth, yet there is no real separation. In prayer
there is a mingling of station, a mingling of condition. Pray for
them as they pray for you.”
“Asked whether it was possible through faith and love to bring
the New Revelation to the knowledge of those who have departed
from this life without having heard of it, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá replied,
“Yes, surely! Since sincere prayer always had its effect, and it has a
great influence in the other world. We are never cut off from those
who are there. The real and genuine influence is not in this world
but in that other.”
“He who lives according to what was ordained for him—the
Celestial Concourse, and the people of the Supreme Paradise,
and those who are dwelling in the Dome of Greatness will pray
for him, by a Command from God, the Dearest and the Praise-
worthy.”
“O Lord! In this Most Great Dispensation Thou dost accept
the intercession of children in behalf of their parents. This is one
of the special, infinite bestowals of this Dispensation. Therefore,
O Thou kind Lord, accept the request of this Thy servant at the
threshold of Thy singleness and submerge his father in the ocean
of Thy grace ….”
The science of going about prayer is so little understood that
we find ourselves, in the words of Tennyson:
“A child crying in the night,
A child crying for the light,
And with no language but a cry.”

‘Abdu’l-Bahá suggested that there were four wonderful qualities
that could help us to pray. The first is a detached spirit. It is a little
like closing a window to the noises of the street, that the strains
of the violin within the room may not be lost. The second is
unconditional surrender of our own wills to the Will of God.
This is very subtle and very difficult, for the self is inclined to
argue with God and to rationalize its own desires, putting them
always first. How few have the singular purity of the child who
wanted a horse more than anything else in the world, and decided
to pray for it. After a time her father said, “God did not answer
your prayer, did He?” “But of course He did,” she said simply,
“He said no!” Concentrated attention is the third quality, and the
fourth, true spiritual passion, that ardor and devotion which dis-
tinguishes the apostle from the multitude. Surely God will raise
to His very Presence the least peasant who whole-heartedly casts
himself at His feet, in preference to the kings of the earth who are
complacent. In the highest prayer, man prays only for the love of
God.
The actual words help concentration. It is good to repeat the
words so that the tongue and heart act together and the mind is
better able to concentrate. Then the whole man is surrounded by
the spirit of prayer. The communes of Bahá’u’lláh are like invigo-
rating breezes; there is great power in using them aloud, for the
exalted pen of a Manifestation of God is a source of power in the
world. Prayer may be likened to a song; both words and music
make the song.
If prayer is to become a guiding force, a protection, a joy, and
the source of divine companionship, it must become a habit. How
often a human being waits for the vicissitudes of life to drive him
Godward when in reality harmony, health, and full victory lie in
continual praise and supplication. One needs to be in a perennial
state of prayer. “The greatest happiness for a lover is to converse
with his beloved ….”

Victorious living
A man’s goal is God. He is born to tread the Path to God. In
the words of Bahá’u’lláh, “The purpose of God in creating man
hath been and will ever be to enable him to know his Creator and
to attain His Presence.”
Success depends upon surrender to God at every turn. “O thou
who hast surrendered thy will to God,” wrote Bahá’u’lláh, “By
self-surrender and perpetual union with God is meant that men
should merge their will wholly in the Will of God, and regard
their desires as utter nothingness beside His Purpose.” This is the
secret of happiness. “The liberty that profiteth you is to be found
nowhere except in complete servitude unto God, the Eternal Truth.
Whoso hath tasted of its sweetness will refuse to barter it for all
the dominion of earth and heaven.”
Those on the Path are conscious of this joy. They have a sense
of victory that no circumstance, however ruthless, is able to de-
stroy. When the earliest Bahá’í pilgrims found their way to the
prison city of ‘Akká, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá would often call on such radi-
ant souls as the aged Ḥaydar-‘Alí, who, because of his great
suffering and saintly character, was called the angel of ‘Akká. When
the American visitors seemed discontented with their lot, ‘Abdu’l-
Bahá would say that Ḥaydar-‘Alí had also suffered; that he had
been dragged across a desert with his head in a sack! But Ḥaydar-
‘Alí made always the same reply, “I have known only the joy of
serving my Lord.”
Lady Blomfield, foremost early Bahá’í of England, records the
tender moments when ‘Abdu’l-Bahá made His journey through
the West, and interviewed under her own roof, so many of the
thoughtful of that land. When, people said, “We are glad, oh so
glad that you are free,” He said:
“To me prison was freedom.
“Troubles are a rest to me.

“Death is life.
“To be despised is honor.
“Therefore I was full of happiness all through that prison time.
“When one is released from the prison of self, that is indeed
freedom! For self is the greatest prison.
“When this release takes place, one can never be imprisoned.
Unless one accepts dire vicissitudes, not with dull resignation,
but with radiant acquiescence, one cannot attain this freedom.”
Martha L. Root, greatest of the Bahá’í teachers in ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s
era, knew the secret. On her last historic journey through the
West, she was asked the secret of her success and happiness. This
plain little woman who had stood before queens and emperors
with such undeniable power, replied thoughtfully, “It is impor-
tant to find out God’s first choice about everything. Then the
bounties flow, the hearts are made happy, and the spirit of attrac-
tion is at work.”
Such a soul has nothing to fear. There is no circumstance that
cannot be used for progress on the Path to God. “Nothing save
that which profiteth them can befall My loved ones,” testified
Bahá’u’lláh. “The sea of joy yearneth to attain your presence, for
every good thing hath been created for you, and will, according
to the needs of the times, be revealed unto you.”
Radiant acquiescence to the Will of God means obedience to
His Commands and contentment in all that befalls, but it never
means inertia, laziness, and slothful living. Activity in God’s Will
is the law of victory. God can no more guide an inactive soul than
a man can guide a car while it stands by the side of the road.
“Pray and act,” Martha would say. Action attracts the answer to
the prayer. That is the reason for the importance of deeds in vic-
torious living. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá wrote, “By faith is meant, first, con-
scious knowledge, and second, the practice of good deeds.” These
deeds are the wealth of the friends of God.

Those who have arisen to teach these truths have all experi-
enced the confirming power of assistance which Bahá’u’lláh prom-
ised to His sincere servants. “A company of Our chosen angels
shall go forth with them, as bidden by Him Who is the Almighty,
the All-Wise …. If he be kindled with the fire of His love, … the
words he uttereth shall set on fire them that hear him. Verily thy
Lord is the Omniscient, the All-Informed. Happy is the man that
hath heard Our voice and answered Our call. He, in truth, is of
them that shall be brought nigh unto Us.”
Even daily work done in the spirit of service is an important
part of victorious living, for it is accounted by Bahá’u’lláh as wor-
ship. He writes, “We have made this, your occupation, identical
with the worship of God, the True One.” Living apart for pious
worship is therefore discouraged. As Jesus gave His life to men in
the market places, so must our spirituality find practical expres-
sion among the people.
No life is victorious that cannot live with its fellows. “Blessed is
he who mingleth with all men in a spirit of utmost kindliness and
love.” A Bahá’í drops away all forms of arrogance. His door is
open to black and white, rich and poor, fellow countrymen and
foreign born. “Ye are the fruits of one tree, and the leaves of one
branch. Deal ye one with another with the utmost love and har-
mony …. So powerful is the light of unity that it can illuminate
the whole earth.” The practice of social unity by a mere handful
of the champions of God must slowly give rise to the harmony of
the race.
Immortality
The Path to God is a stream of upward consciousness; it does not

end with this small world. Our existence here may be likened to
an acorn which, if quickened with life, becomes an oak. Or it
may be likened to a child in the matrix of the mother as it devel-
ops its faculties of sight, hearing, and the like, for use in this
world. So does the soul treat this world as a place of beginning in
which it develops its spiritual faculties for use in all the worlds of
God. Many are the assurances of Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá
concerning this journey for the soul who faithfully sets out on the
path to God.
First we must know that there is continuance. The true believer
will “eternally live and endure. His spirit will everlastingly circle
round the Will of God. He will last as long as God Himself will
last. … It is evident that the loftiest mansions in the Realm of
Immortality have been ordained as the habitation of them that
have truly believed in God and in His Signs. Death can never
invade that holy seat.”
The other world is a world of knowledge and memory. “Un-
doubtedly the holy souls who find a pure eye and are favored with
insight will in the kingdom of lights be acquainted with all mys-
teries, and will seek the bounty of witnessing the reality of every
great soul. Even they will manifestly behold the Beauty of God in
that world.” The mysteries of which man is heedless in this earthly
world, those will he discover in the heavenly world, and there will
he be informed of the secret of truth; how much more will he
recognize or discover persons with whom he hath been associ-
ated.”
Not a static heaven, but a busy, active condition, bright with
growth and progress, is visualized for us by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. Those
who have passed on through death have a sphere of their own. It
is not removed from ours. Their work, the work of the Kingdom
is like ours but it is sanctified from time and place. “It is as if a
kind gardener transfers a fresh and tender shrub from a narrow

place to a vast region. This transference is not the cause of the
withering, the waning or the destruction of that shrub, nay rather
it makes it grow and thrive, acquire freshness and delicacy and
attain verdure and fruition.”
Bahá’u’lláh speaks of the power bestowed upon the faithful in
the world of continuance. “The soul that hath remained faithful
to the Cause of God, and stood unwaveringly firm in His Path
shall, after his ascension, be possessed of such power that all the
worlds which the Almighty hath created can benefit through him.
Such a soul provideth, at the bidding of the Ideal King and Di-
vine Educator, the pure leaven that leaveneth the world of being,
and furnisheth the power through which the arts and wonders of
the world are made manifest. Consider how meal needeth leaven
to be leavened with. Those souls that are the symbols of detach-
ment are the leaven of the world. Meditate on this, and be of the
thankful.”
And again, joy is the keynote! “O Son of the Supreme! I have
made death a messenger of joy to thee. Wherefore dost thou grieve?
I made the light to shed on thee its splendor. Why dost thou veil
thyself therefrom?”
“Death proffereth unto every confident believer the cup that is
life indeed. It bestoweth joy and is the bearer of gladness. It
conferreth the gift of everlasting life. As to those who have tasted
of the fruit of man’s earthly existence, which is the recognition of
the one true God, exalted be His glory, their life hereafter is such
as We are unable to describe. The knowledge thereof is with God
alone, the Lord of all the worlds.”
“O my servants! Sorrow not if, in these days and on this earthly
plane, things contrary to your wishes have been ordained and
manifested by God, for days of blissful joy, of heavenly delight,
are assuredly in store for you. Worlds, holy and spiritually glori-
ous, will be unveiled to your eyes.”

The greatest gift of all, bestowed in the worlds of light, must
be the gift of companionship with the holy souls of every age. The
heart is immediately stirred by such a possibility. The grandeur of
Moses comes close to us; we sit again at the feet of Jesus the
Christ! In short, we come to the conclusion that the true believer
of this illumined time is the associate and intimate of the apostles
of former times. “Likewise will they find all the friends of God,
both those of the former and recent times, present in the heav-
enly assemblage.” “Blessed is the soul which, at the hour of its
separation from the body, is sanctified from the vain imaginings
of the peoples of the world. Such a soul liveth and moveth in
accordance with the Will of its Creator, and entereth the all-highest
Paradise. The Maids of Heaven, inmates of the loftiest mansions,
will circle around it, and the Prophets of God and His chosen
ones will seek its companionship. With them that soul will freely
converse, and will recount unto them that which it hath been
made to endure in the path of God, the Lord of all worlds. If any
man be told that which hath been ordained for such a soul in the
worlds of God, the Lord of the throne on high and of earth be-
low, his whole being will instantly blaze out in his great longing
to attain that most exalted, that sanctified and resplendent sta-
tion.”
An American friend who had enjoyed the privilege of more
than one visit to ‘Akká during the days of the exile of ‘Abdu’l-
Bahá, related an incident that took place at His table. With her
sat persons of varied races, some of them traditional enemies who
had now grown so to love one another that life and fortune would
not have been too much to give if called upon to do so. As the
reality of their love gradually became plain to her, there was born
a ray of the knowledge of the intimacy of the near ones in the
world beyond. When the meal drew to a close, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá spoke
of the immortal worlds. As nearly as she could remember, the

Words he spoke were these: “We have sat together many times
before, and we shall sit together many times again in the King-
dom. We shall laugh together very much in those times, and we
shall tell of the things that befell us in the Path of God. In every
world of God a new Lord’s Supper is set for the faithful!”
The secret of so great a fulfillment is intimacy with God through
His Messenger. Revelation, the open door to God, is forever linked
with the Revelator. With one gracious gesture God bestows upon
the world a divine physician, a lawgiver, a perfect pattern, and a
point of union with its God. Happy is the heart that experiences
fusion with the Manifestation of God’s Perfection. Paul would be
made alive in Christ Jesus. Stephen, radiant even as the excited
mob hurled him from the cliff, cries, “Behold, I see the Son of
Man sitting on the right hand of God the Father.” ‘Alí, youthful
disciple of this day, proclaims as he offers his life, “If I recant,
wither shall I go? In Him, I have found my paradise.” The Word
of God is the Water of Life, one Word throughout cycles and
ages. The soul, refreshed by new waters, finds itself yet on the old
Path, the ancient, eternal Path. To tread that Path with dignity
and joy, through this world and hereafter, is every man’s birth-
right. Therefore, once in about a thousand years, God, in His
great compassion, clears the Path of superstition and division,
that the way may be made plain once more for the sincere seeker.
And so Bahá’u’lláh has come.
Today the stage is set for the greatest spiritual drama of history,
for the rebirth of the powers of the human race will be for the first
time worldwide and in proportion to infinitely higher develop-
ment. The coming of Bahá’u’lláh marks the close of a great cycle,
the beginning of one infinitely greater. Man has come of age; a
world unity will appear, enjoyed by a new race. Bahá’u’lláh is the
Father promised by Isaiah, the Michael spoken of by Daniel, the
Spirit of Truth prophesied by Jesus, the Mihdí foretold by Muḥam-

mad, the Friend promised by Gautama, the Sháh Bahrám of
Zoroaster. His coming is the bow of promise in the sky. “The
universe is wrapt in an ecstasy of joy and gladness.” “Peerless is
this Day, for it is as the eye to past ages and centuries, and as a
light unto the darkness of the times.”

Religion returns
by Dorothy K Baker1
And when Thou didst purpose to make Thyself known unto
men, Thou didst successively reveal the Manifestations of Thy
Cause, and ordained each to be a sign of Thy Revelation among
Thy people.
—Bahá’u’lláh
Religion is progressive
Religion is progressive, rushing forward like a giant river
from God to the ages, watering the arid centuries to produce flowering
civilizations and holy lives. God speaks, and the merciless opposers
of His truth are swept into the limbo of the forgotten, while out
of the lives of the martyr-revelators moves the age-old, twofold
process of the fall of an old order of things, and the rise of a
believing people, endowed with the power to carry forward an
ever advancing civilization.

This essay was published as a pamphlet by the National Spiritual Assem-
bly of the Bahá’ís of the United States and Canada in 1945. It was then re-
printed in 1947 and 1953.

The Manifestations of God
There has never been a prophet of a religion who has not been
doubted. Through under-emphasis they have become dim his-
toric figures who can be judged only by the results apparent in
the world after them. In the light of the Bahá’í Faith, the shadowy
forms of the world’s great Master Teachers stand out again in bril-
liant relief against the mediocrity of their times. Their wisdom is
deathless. They stand alone against the world, arch-types, on a
mount of vision, foreshadowing the perfections of an unfolding
race. Bahá’u’lláh aptly calls them Manifestations of God. As heat
manifests fire, as a ray manifest the sun, these pure and stainless
souls manifest the Will of God whose plan for spiritual evolution
is written, chapter by chapter, in their lives and utterances. They
are despised, mocked, imprisoned, crucified, but out of the cru-
cible of their suffering religion is born again; they are proofs of
the power of God.
The power of the Prophets of Israel
Abraham was a Manifestation of God. The son of a pagan priest
in Ur, He was exiled because He taught the Oneness of God. He
came over into the region of the holy land, a man alone against
the world. By the power of religion, His exile became glorious.
His descendants produced the prophets of Israel, and most of
Europe and Asia came under the influence of the God of Israel.
At a later period Moses appeared, a man who was a stammerer,
known among men as a murderer, who through fear had for a
long time remained in concealment, shepherding the flocks of
Jethro. Yet Moses, standing one day on Mt. Horeb, heard the

voice of God, directing Him to free the Jewish nation. What could
a stammerer reply? Would He be convincing, even to His own
people? How could He command a Pharaoh?
“Oh my Lord, I am not eloquent,” He lamented, “but I am
slow of speech and of a slow tongue.” And the Lord said, “Who
hath made man’s mouth? I will be with thy mouth and teach thee
what to say.”
After this Moses went into the market places of the Egyptians,
teaching the children of Israel. He revealed the plan of God for
the Jewish people and the people listened with increasing eager-
ness. Only when Pharaoh’s lash descended more brutally they
became afraid and turned away from Moses, for how could they
believe in a single man, alone against the world, against Pharaoh’s
chariots, against starvation and cruelty and poverty? How could
they know that Moses, whose staff was His only companion, would
lead the Jews, six hundred thousand strong, into the wilderness
and the promised land?
By the power of religion Moses fed, housed, and taught the
people, purified their lives, gave them back their faith, brought
them under His civilizing law, and bestowed upon them knowl-
edge and love of God. Moreover, He set in motion a great civili-
zation for those times. The children of Israel became the envy of
the pagans. The civilization of the Pharaohs went down to utter
loss. Literacy, government, and moral values continued for many
centuries to make Jerusalem, the city of the Jews, the cultural
center of the ancient world. To such a development did they at-
tain that the sages of Greece came to regard the illustrious men of
Israel as models of perfection. An example is Socrates, who vi-
sited Syria and took from the children of Israel the teaching of the
Unity of God and of the immortality of the soul. A man found
his highest tribute in the words, “He is like the Jews.” The power
of religion had raised the lowest tribes of the earth to greatness.

Revelation progresses to Christ
Revelation is progressive, sweeping onward with the natural evo-
lution of the race. Jesus Christ appeared, the living Word of God,
flashing like a giant meteor through the musty period of decline
that marked His generation.
Born of Mary, nurtured in the Jewish church, assisted neither
by His own people, nor by the military powers of Rome, nor by
the intellectual supremacy of the Greeks, Jesus of Nazareth brought
into being, in a mere three-year span of ministry, a Faith destined
to cross seas and continents and enter at last every known coun-
try on the planet. Today hospitals, cathedrals, universities, and
governments testify to the power of religion through Jesus Christ.
Alone against the world, healing, blessing on the one hand,
hurling fierce accusation into the very teeth of a hypocritical and
dormant society on the other, Jesus became the primal point of a
vast civilization. So great was His power, born of God, that Bahá’-
u’lláh in recent times wrote of it: “The deepest wisdom which the
sages have uttered, the profoundest learning which any mind hath
unfolded, the arts which the ablest hands have produced, the
influence exerted by the most potent of rulers are but manifesta-
tions of the quickening power released by His transcendent, His
all-pervasive, and resplendent Spirit. … He it is who purified the
world.”
His was a strange sovereignty. The stars were His lamps; He
had no place to lay His head. Yet His was the sovereignty that
could scourge the money changers! His was the power to say,
“Pick up thy bed and walk!” His was the power to utter the divine
words, “Thy sins are forgiven thee; go and sin no more!” All power
in heaven and earth was given to Him, the humble carpenter.
God does not prove His power by exalting the already exalted.

From the upper chambers of communion with this Immortal
Beauty, a handful of lowly fishermen conquered the world.
The great Prophet of Arabia
Islam leaves no less a proof that religion is progressive. The
Arabic civilization in the sixth century was sunken into degen-
eracy. Drunkenness and moral profligacy abounded. Mecca, cen-
ter of worship for the pagans, boasted no less than three hundred
and fifty idols, including effigies of Abraham, Moses and Jesus.
Muḥammad denounced the idols, preached against the practices
of the people, and declared the singleness of God.
Muḥammad never fought against the Christians; on the con-
trary, He treated them kindly and gave them perfect freedom. A
community of Christian people who lived at Najrán were under
His care and protection. Muḥammad said, “If anyone infringes
their right, I myself will be his enemy, and in the presence of
God I will bring a charge against him.”
How appalling were the misfortunes that befell Muḥammad!
Alone against the world He preached the truth, and all the pow-
ers of Arabia leagued themselves against Him. That He dared to
bless a girl child was pretext enough for stoning Muḥammad.
When He prayed much in the desert alone, the people flung refuse
at His holy person. A thousand injuries He sustained in meek-
ness, a man against the world.
The scene changes. We find the Arabians emerging to scientific
and moral heights under the refining laws of Muḥammad. Gam-
bling and drunkenness disappeared. The protection of women
was established. The arts flourished, the mathematics, astronomy,
and literature of Cordova and Salamanca became world-famous.

Moral life was purified. Political unity from Arabia to Spain drew
tribal life upward to national sovereignty. In short, from the low-
est human condition, the people of Islám formed for a time the
most powerful center of civilization. Such is the power of reli-
gion.
Religion moves in seasons
But all religion moves in seasons. Cycles of civilization move
slowly upward, rising and falling with the faith of man. With the
coming of each religion a springtime appears, accompanied by
storms of opposition. The stormy spring passes into summer; re-
ligion bears its fruit, and sinks at last into the cold winter, a petty
tyranny of forms with little vestige of the master passion.
The nineteenth century bore the stamp of a spiritual winter.
Gone was the fervor of the apostles; gone the summer heat of
earlier faiths. Decay, intrigue, and division had swept away the
very foundations of Islám; division and lassitude had eaten into
the fibre of Christendom; Judaism, a thing hunted, presented
neither a strong nor united front.
Into such a world came Bahá’u’lláh1 preceded by the youthful
forerunner and prophet, the Báb.2
The age in which they appeared was to unfold a story so tragic,
yet so full of promise as to challenge every God-fearing soul.
Dynasties were to fall, religious systems collapse, and moral stan-
dards sag to the breaking point. The earth, careless of inventions
inviting a neighborhood of closely-knit human interests, was to
witness wars of gigantic proportions, more terrible than any known

The Glory of God.
Door or Gate.

to history. Out of such abysmal depths, mankind, chastened and
despairing, would need, more than at any time previously, the
wisdom of a Moses, the preciousness of Christ, and in the progres-
sive experience of such recurring bestowals, a Physician for the
specific ills of a new and travailing age. Someone has said, “In
such times great religions perish and are born.”
The Dawn of a New Day
It was one hundred years ago, on May 23, 1844, unheralded by
the world’s leaders, that the Bahá’í Faith was born. The Báb re-
ceived on that day His first disciple, and announced to him the
dawn of a new religious cycle. The scene of the announcement
was a humble dwelling in Shíráz, Persia.
The Báb Himself was a radiant young Persian of some two and
twenty years. He was a merchant by profession, practicing a trade,
as had the Carpenter of Nazareth, two millenniums before Him.
On that eventful day He went, a little before sundown, to the
gate of the city. His tranquil beauty must have arrested even the
heedless, as He stood scanning the faces of the passing multi-
tudes. Among those in the vicinity of the gate that day was a
Shaykhí student, a young man of great inner perception, whose
own heart promptings had irresistibly drawn him to Shíráz, in
search of a great Master. Ḥusayn, like the Magi of old, knew that
a time pregnant with divine power was again at hand. With what
sudden inrush of joy he must have gazed for the first time upon
the countenance of the Báb. Still uninformed, however, of the
reason for his ecstasy, he accompanied His Lordly host to the
modest dwelling chosen to become the scene of the proclama-
tion. An Ethiopian servant opened the door, and the gentle voice
of the Báb addressed His youthful visitor saying, “Enter therein,

in peace, secure.” On that night the Báb announced to Ḥusayn
His own mission and likewise the coming of a mighty prophet,
“Him whom God would make manifest,” whose coming would
introduce the foretold age of unity and peace.
Except for the fragmentary reports of Ḥusayn, the first dis-
ciple, little is known of the hours that flew in quick succession
from sundown to dawn in the upper room of that house. The
apostle is one of the mysteries of every religion. He attains the
miracle of faith a little before his world, unable to see the end
from the beginning, yet melting, flame-like into the heart of the
Revelator. The commentaries that fell from the lips and pen of
the Báb filled His listener with extreme inner excitement. “All the
delights,” records Ḥusayn, “all the ineffable glories, which the
Almighty has recounted in His Book, as the priceless possessions
of the people of Paradise—these I seemed to be experiencing
that night.”
The Ministry of the Báb
The holy and transforming power of the Báb is the first proof of
our time that religion has come again to mankind. Through the
pen of a chronicler we walk with Him on the lonely road to Shíráz,
whence He has come to meet the armed guards who have been
sent to seize Him; we hear the pleading of the captain of the
guard that He escape to a place of safety lest He be delivered to
His death; we listen to His soft-spoken reply, “May the Lord,
your God, requite you for your magnanimity and noble inten-
tion. No one knows the mystery of My Cause; no one can fathom
its secret … Until My last hour is at hand none dare assail Me;
none can frustrate the plan of the Almighty.”

We follow His path of exile as far as the city of Tabríz; a thou-
sand excited citizens come out to meet Him. They kiss the stir-
rups that His feet have touched, and offer their children to be
healed. His mercy is like the mercy of Christ; it is given freely,
without hope of reward.
We further watch through the eyes of chroniclers the long
months spent in the prison fortress of Máh-Kú, situated in the
northern mountains. The rough tribesmen crowding at the gate
are Kurds, wildest natives of Persia, and bitter traditional enemies
of the people of the Báb. They listen to His chanted prayers; they
learn to take their oaths in the name of the Holy One within the
walls of the prison; they yearn to attain His presence; their lives
struggle upward.
A glimpse of His martyrdom is likewise witness to the power
of God. He is sentenced to death. A Christian colonel whispers a
plea for forgiveness. “Enable me to free myself from the obliga-
tion to shed your blood,” he entreats his noble Prisoner. “Follow
your instructions,” the Báb replies, “and if your intention be sin-
cere, the Almighty is surely able to relieve you from your perplex-
ity.” The Báb is suspended on ropes, to be shot. Seven hundred
and fifty men led by Sám Khán, the Christian colonel, fire a vol-
ley of shots. The cords are severed by the shots but the Báb re-
mains untouched. The soldiers of Sám Khán flee in terror and he
thankfully retires from his ignoble task. Strangers are brought to
commit the odious deed and the spirit of the Báb takes its flight.
It is high noon. A dust storm from that hour to the going down
of the sun awes the ten thousand witnesses of the scene. One is
reminded of the passing of Christ. The strange paradox of suffering
and sovereignty are again evident, marking a springtide in the
affairs of men. The effects of the martyrdom of the Báb are far
reaching. The Báb is dead but religion marches on.

Bahá’u’lláh, The Glory of God
More than twenty thousand preceded the Báb to a martyr’s grave;
a bare handful survived Him. Among the few was Bahá’u’lláh,
son of a Persian Vazír of high station and reputation.
As a young man, Bahá’u’lláh showed remarkable capacities,
coupled with innate wisdom. In refusing the highest positions of
State, He won the admiration of a generation steeped in bribery
and petty ambitions, and the wisest men of the realm came to
regard His destiny as above and distinct from others. “All that we
can hope to achieve,” explained one dignitary of the nation to his
own son, “is but a fleeting and precarious allegiance which will
vanish as our days are ended. … Not so, however, with Bahá’u’-
lláh. Unlike the great ones of the earth, whatever be their race or
rank, He is the object of a love and devotion such as time cannot
dim nor enemy destroy. His sovereignty the shadows of death
can never obscure nor the tongue of the slanderer undermine.
Such is the sway of His influence that no one among His lovers
dare, in the stillness of night, evoke the memory of the faintest
desire that could, even remotely, be construed as contrary to His
wish. Such lovers will greatly increase in number. The love they
bear Him will never grow less, and will be transmitted from gen-
eration to generation until the world shall have been suffused with
its glory.”
Bahá’u’lláh spread far and wide the teachings of the Báb and
for a time wisely withheld His own identity as the One foretold.
In 1852, following the martyrdom of the great forerunner and
prophet, Bahá’u’lláh Himself was seized and imprisoned as a Bábí
in the underground dungeon of Ṭihrán.
En route to this loathsome pit, He was stoned and derided by
a populace incited by His enemies to acts of violence. An aged
woman begged to be permitted to cast her stone. “Suffer the

woman,” said the holy Prisoner. “Deny her not what she regards
as a meritorious act in the sight of God.” With such calm resigna-
tion Bahá’u’lláh took up His toll of sacrifice for a Cause in which
the Báb was the dawn and He was the noonday sun. With a few
companions He was placed in the dungeon in stocks. His words
of endearment continued day by day to cheer their hearts, and no
day passed without singing. “God is sufficient unto me,” ran their
glad refrain, “He verily is the all-sufficing. In Him let the trusting
trust.”
In later years Bahá’u’lláh, with His family and over seventy
followers, was exiled to ‘Akká, Palestine, a fortress city situated at
the foot of historic Mt. Carmel. Here, in barrack rooms, the little
band of first believers lived in such joy as to make them a source
of wonder to all. In these days Bahá’u’lláh wrote to some friends,
“Fear not. These doors shall be opened. My tent shall be pitched
on Mt. Carmel, and the utmost joy shall be realized.”
This indeed was the case; His last years were passed at Bahjí on
the plains outside of the city. Here He wrote and taught, and
often in the summer, the cypress trees of Carmel offered shade to
the world’s greatest Prisoner. This was a fitting fulfillment of the
writings of Judaism, Christendom, and Islám, which had so of-
ten extolled Mt. Carmel. Here the Christian world was wont to
look for the return of the Spirit, Christ, and the fulfillment of the
Kingdom of God.
Here Bahá’u’lláh wrote many of the Tablets to the kings, be-
gun earlier in the exile, enjoining upon them the peace of the
world and advising them of the ways to attain it. Here, in a land
where women were often little more than chattel, He taught the
equality of men and women. Here, in a world removed from
science, He proclaimed the harmony of science and true religion.
Here, in a despotic monarchy He espoused the cause of represen-
tative government, world language, a world tribunal, and federa-

tion of the nations. Here, in the midst of fanaticism and bigotry
He proclaimed, “Consort with the people of all religions with joy
and fragrance.”
Bahá’u’lláh counted all of the revealed religions as one and the
same. “I have been preceded in this matter,” He wrote, “by
Muḥammad, the Apostle of God, and before Him by the Spirit,
Christ, and before Him by the Interlocutor, Moses.” Recognizing
the differences of emphasis from time to time in God’s revealed
religion, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá said, “In every Dispensation the light of divine guid-
ance has been focused upon one central theme. … In this won-
drous revelation, this glorious century, the foundation of the Faith
of God and the distinguishing feature of His Law is the con-
sciousness of the oneness of mankind.”
The final proof
The final proof of a religion is its survival and its triumph over
opposition. Were the walls of ‘Akká to obscure forever the hal-
lowed light of Bahá’u’lláh? Could such a community outlive its
founders? The rise of such a Cause out of the obscurity of an
eastern prison gives promise indeed of a power beyond the ken of
men. In a single century the newborn Faith encircled the earth;
invaded sixty countries and seventeen dependencies; numbered
within its ranks no less than thirty races and tore down the barri-
ers between them; published and broadcast its writings in more
than forty tongues; and established a worldwide spiritual com-
monwealth, indivisible by its very nature and universal in its goal.
Through the unpaid missionary efforts of its adherents it has swept
from dungeon to royalty, from Shíráz to far-flung outposts, and
from the first humble disciples to the scholars and statesmen of
the earth.

The succession
The walls of the prison city closed around Bahá’u’lláh in 1868. At
the time of the rise of the Young Turks in 1908, they opened to
His Son, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, the appointed Center of His Covenant,
who subsequently journeyed to England, France, Germany, and
the United States. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá entered the prison city in His
youth and left it an old man. The days of this noble successor
among the western friends were marked by striking victories, for
churches, synagogues, and peace societies everywhere opened their
doors to Him. He who had never faced a public audience, nor
attended a western school, nor moved in western circles, became
“all things to all people,” a universe of kindness, a loving father to
high and low alike, to churchmen and layman, lord and com-
moner. Though broken in health and aged by suffering, His teach-
ing, characterized by brilliant simplicity and kingly humility, was
as bountiful as the rain, and offered to the west the mirror of His
illustrious Father, whom it would never know. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá gave
to the west a profound message of social unity, and there ap-
peared in His lifetime a world community dedicated to the prin-
ciple of racial, national, and religious oneness.
In His Will and Testament ‘Abdu’l-Bahá appointed His grand-
son, Shoghi Effendi, as interpreter and first Guardian of the Bahá’í
Faith. Today the Faith of the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh has moved out
of its apostolic period into a formative era, in which its world
administration is slowly taking shape. Haifa, now a flourishing
seaport across the bay from ‘Akká, is the chosen residence of Shoghi
Effendi, whose World Order Letters have already made an indel-
ible impression upon the stream of international life. Mt. Carmel,
whose cypress trees once sheltered the holy Prisoner, now boasts
the shrines of His family. On its terraces a Temple is destined to
be reared, and the future Bahá’í International House of Justice

will overlook the Mediterranean, a House dedicated to the ser-
vice of that world community which must remain for all time
inclined “neither to east nor west, neither Jew nor Gentile, nei-
ther rich nor poor, neither white nor colored; its watchword the
unification of the human race; its standard the ‘Most Great Peace.’”
“For our of Zion shall go forth the law,” sang the prophets.
The holy land of Abraham, Moses, and Jesus is again glorious
with religious aspiration. The religion of our fathers returns, open-
ing a new chapter of revelation, and revealing a newly ordered
world, to which the prophetic welcome of the Báb calls every
soul; “Enter therein, in peace, secure.”

Appendix II:
Selected radio
talks given by
Dorothy Baker

Bible Prophecies of Today
Again and again we are asked: “Does the Bible confirm the Bahá’í
teachings?” This morning I would like, in part at least, to answer
that question. I suggest that the radio listeners take a paper and
pencil, and write down some of the references used, so that they
may check them over at their leisure. And while you are finding
your pencils, let me answer question number 1 asked by so many
of our fellow Christians: What is the Bahá’í attitude toward the
Bible? When ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, the son of Bahá’u’lláh, visited Lon-
don, he was taken by his devoted friend, Archbishop Wilberforce,
to visit the Old City Temple, where he wrote in the Bible the
following words: “This book is the Holy book of God, of celes-
tial inspiration; the Holy book of salvation, the noble Gospel. It
is the mystery of the Kingdom and its light; it is the Divine bounty
and the sign of the guidance of God.”1 These words clearly indi-
cate the belief in the Holy scriptures shared by every Bahá’í the
world over, whether of Christian, Jewish, Moslem, Hindu, or
Pharsee birth and background. Thousands of human beings on
the other side of the world, who have for centuries repudiated the
Christian scriptures, have found complete reverence for these scrip-
tures through Bahá’u’lláh, and have been awakened to the Divine
station of the Christ himself, through the Bahá’í message.

The quotations in these radio talks that come from the writings of Bahá’-
u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá are not always exact.

The second question is this: Does the Bible promise us a Day
of fulfillment, an age of permanent peace such as the Bahá’ís be-
lieve will appear at this time? Such a Day is predicted in various
forms. Sometimes it is called “the time of the end.” Again it is
“the last days,” “the latter day,” “the Day of His Preparation,” or
simply, “in that day.” Let us write down a few references to that
Day.
Psalms 72:7–8. In His days shall the righteous flourish; and
abundance of peace so long as the moon endureth. He shall
have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto
the ends of the earth.
Isaiah 2:2–4. And it shall come to pass in the last days that
the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the
top of the mountain, and shall be exalted above the hills;
and all the nations shall flow unto it. … And he shall judge
among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they
shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears
into pruning hooks: Nation shall not lift up sword against
nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
Hosea 2:18. And in that day will I make a covenant for them
with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven,
and with the creeping things of the ground: and I will break
the bow and the sword and the battle out of the earth and
will make them lie down safely.
Haggai 2:6–9. For thus saith the Lord of hosts; Yet once, it is
a little while, and I will shake the heavens, and the earth,
and the sea, and the dry land. And I will shake all the na-
tions, and the desire of all nations shall come, and I will fill

this house with glory, saith the Lord of hosts. The silver is
mine, and the gold is mine, saith the Lord of hosts. The
glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former,
saith the Lord of hosts; and in this place will I give peace,
saith the Lord of hosts.
The third question is this: Are there actual signs given in the
Bible by which we know that this is the dawn of that same Day?
Isaiah 11:11–12. And it shall come to pass in that day, that
the Lord will set his hand again the second time to recover
the remnant of his people. … And he will set up an ensign
for the nations, and will assemble the outcast of Israel, and
gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners
of the earth.
This sign is fulfilled in the mass movement of the Jews toward
Palestine today. Hosea refers to it again: Ch. 3:4 and 5, “For the
children of Israel shall abide many days without king, and with-
out prince, and without sacrifice, and without pillar, and without
an ephod or teraphim: afterwards shall the children of Israel re-
turn and seek Jehovah their God, and David their king, and shall
come with fear unto Jehovah and to his goodness in the latter
days.”
In chapter 2, verses three and four, Nahum reveals a clear flash
of vision in the words, “the chariots flash with steel in the day of
his preparation … the chariots rage in the streets: they rush to
and fro in the broad ways; the appearance of them is like torches:
they run like the lightning.”
Daniel in his last chapter 12, the first four verses, gives perhaps
the clearest signs of all: “and at that time shall Michael stand up,
the great prince who standeth for the children of thy people; and

there shall be a time of trouble such as never was since there was
a nation even to that same time: and at that time the people shall
be delivered every one that shall be found written in the
book. … But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the
book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and
knowledge shall be increased.” Daniel has here given us four signs;
first, a princely leader, second, a time of great trouble, third, a
running to and fro, and four, an increase of knowledge. The first
is fulfilled in Bahá’u’lláh, prince of Núr, the second in the present
national and economic struggles, the third in modern travel and
transport, and the last in the great strides of science and educa-
tion.
Jesus lists certain signs also. Some of them are war, famine,
earthquake, tribulation, persecution, false prophets, indifference,
the spread of the Gospel to all nations, the coming of the Prophet
from the east, and riotous living as in the days of Noah. In the
24th chapter of Matthew, the disciples asked: “What shall be the
sign of thy coming and of the end of the world?” Jesus replied:
“For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against king-
dom; and there shall be famines and earthquakes in diverse places.”
The condition of Europe today testifies to the hostility of na-
tions; famines have been plentiful, for in China alone, in 1930,
two million people literally starved; and earthquakes abound; the
Lisbon earthquake at the end of the century just preceding the
life of Bahá’u’lláh cost 6,000 lives. “Then shall they deliver you
up unto tribulation, and shall kill you,” continues Jesus. This
cannot apply any longer to the Christians, since they are in full
power today[;] but may it not be fulfilled in the slaughter of the
20,000 who gave their lives in the last century for the cause of
God, as renewed by Bahá’u’lláh. To continue, “Many false prophets
shall arise, and shall lead many astray.” Just before the days of
Bahá’u’lláh, a long line of leaders arose in Jerusalem itself, trying

to seize political power in the name of Christ. Redpath, in his
history of the world, states: “Christ after Christ arose, leading
revolt.” This sign is amply fulfilled. And further, “the love of many
shall wax cold.” The sweep of atheism and indifference today is
startling in its wide spread, fulfilling this sign to a most sorry de-
gree. “And this gospel shall be preached in the whole world for a
testimony unto all the nations.” This sign was fulfilled when the
Christian missions carried Christianity at last to the very out-
posts of civilization at the close of the last century.
Reading on, “For as the lightning cometh forth from the East
and is seen even unto the West, so shall be the coming of the Son
of Man.” Bahá’u’lláh appeared in the east, and His teaching is
only now, after seventy years thoroughly permeating the west.
Many other signs Jesus gives, though we do not have time to use
them. He closed with the warning “For as in the days of Noah
they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage …
and they knew not until the flood came and took them all away,
so shall be the coming of the Son of Man. … Watch therefore;
for ye know not on what day your Lord cometh.”
“Immediately after the tribulation of these days shall the sun
be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars
shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be
shaken.” The former light of religion has indeed been darkened
by materialism and ignorance and the powers of religious institu-
tions like great luminaries are shaken and are falling everywhere.
“But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the
Son of Man be for as in the days that were before the flood they
were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage until
the day that Noah entered into the ark and knew not until the
flood came and took them all away; so shall the coming of the
Son of Man be … therefore be ye also ready; for in such an hour
that ye think not, the Son of man cometh.”

So we list the signs given by Jesus in somewhat the following
order: wars, famines, earthquakes, persecutions, false prophets,
preaching of the gospel to all nations, shining of the new light
from east to west, darkening of the spiritual sun and moon, fall-
ing of the stars, and the heedlessness as in the days of Noah.
Sum these up and add to them the tribulations, the running to
and fro, the increased knowledge, spoken of by Daniel, and the
chariots in the streets; here is the startling discovery that all un-
aware we are living in THAT DAY!
This amazing discovery leads to the natural question: Is it pos-
sible that Bahá’u’lláh is the One promised? Bahá’u’lláh appeared
in Persia, part of which in ancient days was known as Elam.
Jeremiah, Ch. 49, verses 38 and 39, tells us that in the latter day
God would set his throne again in Elam. Daniel also prophecies
Elam as the place of fulfillment, and Hosea proclaims that in the
day that Valley of Achor will be a door of hope to the people; the
valley in which Bahá’u’lláh was exiled. Sharon and Mt. Carmel
are also places of His exile, and of these Isaiah in the 35th chapter
says, “The wilderness … shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice
even with joy and singing; the glory of Lebanon shall be given
unto it; the excellency of Carmel and Sharon, they shall see the
glory of the Lord, and the excellency of our God.”
I want to leave you with the final and most joyous promise of
all the holy scriptures; the last of John’s Revelation: “And I saw a
new heaven and a new earth. I John saw the holy city, the new
Jerusalem coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a
bride adorned for her husband. … And God shall wipe away all
tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither
sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain; for the
former things are passed away. And he that sat upon the throne
saith: ‘Behold, I make all things new.’” Can there be any clearer
prophecy of the passing of injustice and mass poverty?

Yet even this age of peace and plenty, ushered in by the Glory
of God, does not mark a final end of revelation on this planet.
“Know of a certainty,” writes Bahá’u’lláh, “that in every dispensa-
tion, the light of Divine Revelation has been vouchsafed to men
in direct proportion of their spiritual capacity. … The rise and
setting of the Sun of Truth will indefinitely continue.”
So a new Testament opens, and all previous ones become the
old. The covenant of God with man is renewed, and a new cycle
of human power begins. The prophets of old have sung of this
day, and ours is the high adventure of possession. Bahá’u’lláh has
said: “Verily thou wilt see the earth even as a most glorious para-
dise.”

* * *
The uses of prayer
Down the corridor of time humanity has always been known to
pray in one way or another—always to something higher than
themselves. Pascal the philosopher has said: “Thou wouldst not
seek me, hadst thou not already found me.” A great Rabbi, visit-
ing a famous cathedral, looked with admiration upon the beauty
of the place, but as he walked slowly along the aisle toward the
chancel, his eye fell upon the crucifix, before which a lone figure
prayed. “What idolatry!” he thought. When he had come close,
he found that the kneeling figure was a boy, a crippled lad—
whose face, tear-stained, had become transfigured in its pain. The
great Rabbi thought then: “How small I am, and how great is this
child who feels so deeply the healing Presence of my God.” Sud-
denly he knelt beside the little lad, lost in the union of a common
reverence; knowing that they worshipped One Source.

Prayer is the birthright of every man, woman and child of the
new day. The masses, who are immersed in the business of keep-
ing body and soul together, must be liberated. Watching men fire
a ship for twelve hours a day, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, greatest of Bahá’í teach-
ers, said sadly: “These men do not have time to be spiritual.”
Prayer is a great necessity in the life of the world. Thomas Edison
said during his last illness: “I do not set myself up as an authority
on religion, but I do say this; that if the spiritual life of man does
not catch up to his material development the result will be a terrific
crash!” Bahá’u’lláh, founder of the Bahá’í Faith, said that in the
next century prayer would be united and effective, the very heart
of community life. It would change not only the individual but a
whole civilization. The trends of the twenty-first century will be
spiritual as definitely as the trends today are material. Steinmetz
tells us that beside the power of prayer when it is known, the
power of electricity will seem dwarfed.
Now how can you make prayer real amidst the clamor of your
world’s demands? First, prayer should become a habit. ‘Abdu’l-
Bahá said: “Be in a perennial state of prayer.” It is like saying: Be
in harmony with the Will of God all the time! Now the question
is; do you think it is really worth the struggle? No-one in this
radio audience this morning should feel justified in entering upon
such a difficult task unless and until he is assured that it could be
one of the most powerful factors for good in his life. Yet I am sure
that a few minutes a day can mean to you, joy, guidance, power,
peace, companionship! A child of my acquaintance was struck by
a truck and taken to a hospital with a concussion and a fractured
hip. She tossed feverishly a night and a half a day, until at two
o’clock she lay back in her pillows and was still. Her mother
thought she slept, but suddenly the child turned starry eyes to her
and said: “Mother, why am I so happy?” It was some time before
the mother knew that friends, hearing of her distress, had sent

the blessing of some of the simple Bahá’í prayers at that very
time. Prayer begets joy!
Miss Olive Jones tells of a child who had learned the science of
prayer. Her mother said: “Why do you pray for guidance? Do
you not have conscience?” The little girl thought a moment and
then replied: “Conscience tells us the difference between right
and wrong, but guidance tells which of the six right things to
do.” Prayer begets guidance.
Jesus walked with His disciples toward a high hill and listened
quietly as they disputed and complained among themselves. When
they came to the hill, he looked to the top of it, and then again at
them. “If ye had faith,” he said, “Ye could remove this moun-
tain.” Prayer begets power!
And peace! What is more difficult than this to attain today?
Wherever we look people are in trouble. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá said: “Prayer
and supplication are the wings of spirit.” We could not walk above
the world any other way. Prayer begets peace.
There is an Arabic supplication that goes straight to my heart:
“Rabba Arani! I want to see my God.” Prayer gives us sharpened
perceptions and intuitive powers; a sense of Divine Companion-
ship. We walk with God; talk with God; seek His Will; trust His
Will; commune with His Spirit. Prayer begets companionship.
A few minutes a day can accomplish all this! But the great thing
to realize is that it is not fitting to wait for the occasional sorrow
to drive one to his knees. It is true that insanity, illness, and dis-
tress often disappear before quick and imperative prayer, but your
life may still be out of the orbit of the continuous flow of God’s
protection and love. You need to become God-conscious; any-
thing else is insecurity. Prayer is like food and drink, we cannot
be anything but emaciated if we take it only spasmodically. A
Bahá’í teacher recently told of her experience in a college town
where a number of young men attended lectures. After she had

gone home she received a letter from one of them saying, “My
room-mate and I are trying to live up to the things you talked
about; that is, all except prayer. We want you to know, though,
that if we get into trouble, we’ll pray.” The Bahá’í1 penned a single
line from the bottom of her heart: “Dear friend, you are in trouble;
start praying.” Mrs. Lua Getsinger, one of America’s earliest
Bahá’ís, had a little experience during her visit at the home of
‘Abdu’l-Bahá in Haifa, Palestine. She had been in a great hurry
that morning, and was scurrying to breakfast without having had
her usual morning prayer. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá met her in the hall and
looked at her with a penetrating glance. Then he said: “Lua, you
must never eat material food in the morning until you have had
spiritual food.” So we must come to love God enough to
wish to associate with him a great deal.
Of course there will be times when it is the counsel and guid-
ance of God in some specific problem rather than only a com-
munion that we seek. Three steps may be followed to achieve the
desired results. First, be quiet; meditate on the problem from all
angles, and turn to God with a sense of listening. If possible, use
one of the beautiful prayers of Bahá’u’lláh for guidance. The sec-
ond step is to take hold of a definite conclusion with the full help
of reason, facts, and, above all, the sense of being assisted by
God. Sometimes this step comes in a clear flash; sometimes not.
I have often risen from a prayer for guidance without a sense of
having achieved the answer, only to find that every door opened
for the right fulfillment. The third step is to proceed courageously,
knowing that it is answered. Banish all fear or anxiety and walk

Dorothy herself.

confidently; act as if the desired results have already been accom-
plished. If you fail to do this, your prayer is perhaps like a beauti-
ful child still-born, and therefore of no avail to this world.
If, in spite of technique, your prayers do not seem effective, try
to acquire the four attainments of which ‘Abdu’l-Bahá speaks, for
in these are found the spiritual qualities that are the true basis of
prayer. He said: “The worshipper must pray with a detached spirit,
concentrated attention, in unconditional surrender of the will to
God, and spiritual passion.”
If we listen to a soft violin and a hurdy gurdy begins to play in
the street below, we need to close the window. Sometimes one
has to close the window of the soul to the clamor of the world in
order to hear the soft strains of the desire of God. This is the
detached spirit.
Concentrated attention is closely akin to this. When ‘Abdu’l-
Bahá was in New York, he called to him Mr. M., a successful
businessman, saying: “If you will come to me at dawn tomorrow
I will teach you to pray.” Now Mr. M. held prayer to be little
more than a worthy sentiment. Yet he was delighted with such an
opportunity, and even greeted it with exultant enthusiasm. He
arose at four and crossed the city, arriving at six. He found ‘Abdu’l-
Bahá already at prayer, kneeling at the side of his bed. Mr. M.
followed suit, taking care to place himself directly across. Seeing
that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was quite lost in his own reverie, Mr. M. began
to pray silently for his friends, his family and finally for the crowned
heads of Europe. No word was uttered by the quiet man before him.
He went over all the prayers he knew, then, and repeated
them twice, three times—still no sound broke the expectant hush.
Mr. M. rubbed one knee and thought about his back. He began
again, hearing as he did so, the birds singing outside the window.
An hour passed, and finally two. Mr. M. was quite numb now.
His eye, roving along the wall, caught sight of a large crack; then

traveled on until it rested once more upon the still figure across
the bed. The ecstasy he saw arrested him, and suddenly he wanted
to pray like that. Even his immediate surroundings were forgot-
ten. Closing his eyes again, he set the world firmly aside, and,
amazingly, he became cleansed by humility and lifted by a sense
of peace. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had at last taught him to pray! In a trice
the teacher had arisen and was standing near him. “When you
pray,” he was saying, “you must not think of the birds outside of
the window, nor of the cracks in the wall!” He became entirely
serious, then, and added: “When you pray, know first that you
are standing in the Presence of the Almighty.”
The surrender of the will depends upon perfect trust in the
rightness of the Father to know. Mr. Fosdick describes some prayer
as being guilty of making a God a Cosmic Bell-Boy! How few
have the simple faith of the child who prayed for a horse without
apparently success until one day a friend said: “Mary, God did
not answer your prayer, did He?” Mary said quickly: “Yes, He
did! He said ‘No.’”
But if surrender is difficult, spiritual passion is perhaps even
more so. Spiritual passion is devotion to God; pure, selfless dedi-
cation. Sometimes we first touch it through suffering. Personal
hurt may be at the near end of the journey; spiritual passion at
the far end. Verily I believe that God will choose to lift into His
very presence the least peasant who hurls himself upon the breast
of God in fiery supplication in preference to the kings and learned
men of the whole earth, if to the latter the smug complacency of
a dulled age is sufficient. In the book of Revelations it is said, “So
because thou art luke-warm and neither hot nor cold, I will spew
thee out of my mouth!” ‘Abdu’l-Bahá said: “In the highest prayer,
you pray only for the love of God.”

* * *

The spiritual life of man
One day a businessman said to me, “Secretly I wonder about
myself. I arise in the morning, eat, keep shop, sleep and then do it
all over again. I begin to feel like that person who said, ‘Man
matters only to himself; he is fighting a lone fight against a vast
indifference.’”
What a strange creature man is! He stands at the very apex of
creation and forgets his own preciousness in the sight of God.
Sometimes we go into dark closets of our own building and stuff
up the keyhole and the cracks. Then we say, “The sun is not shin-
ing for me.” We build the closets of our own odd variety of mate-
rials—envy, fear, selfishness, sadness and sometimes just a sense
of frustration and futility. And there we stay, mainly because we
have not thought out our position there and so we are not doing
anything about it. Often we hear the sighs of others in nearby
closets and we wish we could liberate them, but not having freed
ourselves, we find it pretty hard to tell them what to do.
Now the first thing that is probably needed is a larger perspec-
tive. I had the good fortune to have a remarkable grandmother.
How well I remember hearing her say, “If anything troubles you
very much now, look at it terms of five years from this time, or
twenty-five, or fifty, and if it still looms pretty large, measure it
in terms of eternity. Now that is my theme this morning—mea-
sure your life and everything in it in terms of eternity. Then look
back, if you will, and wonder what became of your darkest closet.
The great thing is to find for ourselves the purpose of being,
and to hold to that thru everything. Bahá’u’lláh said, “O God, I
testify that thou hast created me to know Thee and to adore Thee.”
There is God at the far end and here are we at the near end, on
this lonely little island, the earth, needing to discover in that brief

flash, an enormous purpose like that! And it is brief! He also said,
“Count all the days of thy life as less than a fleeting instant.”
To know and adore God! Think of the things we deplore every
day that all the while may be really speeding us on our way! Take
the matter of trouble, for example. Bahá’u’lláh, in His tablet to
the Sháh of Persia, wrote, “I am not impatient of calamity in His
way nor of affliction for His love. God hath made afflictions as a
morning shower to His green pasture, and as a wick for His lamp,
whereby earth and Heaven are illumined.”
A morning shower! Often trouble opens the heart to God. And
after that it becomes purified, little by little, so that the self or
Satan of the heart dies out and makes room for the Divine Be-
loved. I came just this morning upon these words, “Purify thy
heart for My descent. The Friend and stranger cannot dwell here
together.” Trouble is often just the testing ground of the soul.
There is a real freedom in it. As a Kreisler after difficult years of
drudgery is free in the work of music, as an athlete after long
discipline of the body has supremacy in the world of sports, so
does your soul win a sovereignty thru a life that challenges it to be
at grips with the world. Tests often come again and again to teach
a single lesson, until at last there is a victory and a former weak-
ness is replaced by strength. Every time this happens, it marks a
milestone on the path to God.
The picture of our whole destiny comes more clear when we
realize that as ‘Abdu’l-Bahá once said, “This is only a matrix world.”
Measuring life in terms of the eternal is easy for one who knows
this. As unborn babes, thru the long months preceding their birth,
form organs and features for their life here, so do we build our
spiritual statures toward that new starting point that is called death.
“I have made death glad tidings for thee,” wrote Bahá’u’lláh. Is it
anything more than dread of the unknown that makes us fear the
angel of death? To the Museum of National History of New York

came ‘Abdu’l-Bahá one day, accompanied by a number of the
early Bahá’ís of that city. Near one of the entrances of the great
building, he seated himself and waited. A moment or two passed
and there came to the door the caretaker, a kindly old Jew who
wore a skull-cap and looked with beaming countenance upon
‘Abdu’l-Bahá. To one of the friends he whispered, “Who is he?
He looks like one of the old prophets.” The friend answered, “Go
and speak to him.” Very shyly, the kindly old man went to meet
‘Abdu’l-Bahá, saying, “Won’t you come into the museum and see
my fossils and stuffed birds?” ‘Abdu’l-Bahá smiled and replied, “I
did not come to see dead things, but to tell you about a place
where everything is alive.” A shadow passed the face of the care-
taker. “I know,” he said, “you are speaking of death. I am afraid to
die. All this I know; I am used to it.” ‘Abdu’l-Bahá said, “I have
come to tell you that when you die you just go to a room upstairs.
This is still here; you are just above it.” The old man watched his
face keenly as he spoke and gradually a most surprising thing
happened. He began to take hold of the thing that he heard, and
his eyes began to shine happily. “I understand,” he said, “I under-
stand.” The friends left him there looking after them with a great
light in his countenance. One of them came back a few days later
to find him, but he had gone to the room upstairs. We have to
sense the joys and adventures of that room upstairs, every one of
us, before it can seem a reality. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá writes, “The myster-
ies of which man is heedless in the earthly world, these will he
discover in the heavenly world, and there will he be informed of
the secrets of truth; how much more will he recognize or discover
persons with whom he had associated. Undoubtedly the holy souls
who find a pure eye and are favored with insight will in the king-
dom of lights be acquainted with all mysteries, and will seek the
bounty of witnessing the reality of every great soul. They will
even manifestly behold the beauty of God in that world. Like-

wise will they find all the friends of God, both those of the former
and recent times, in the heavenly assemblage. The difference and
distinction between men will naturally become realized. But this
distinction is not in respect to place, for the Kingdom of God is
sanctified from time and place: it is another world and another
universe. A love that one may have entertained for anyone will
not be forgotten in the worlds of the kingdom, nor wilt thou
forget there the life that thou hadst in the material world.”
One day seated with a number of friends who had come thou-
sands of miles to see him, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá intimated that he too
would soon be going into that room upstairs. He said, “We have
sat together many times before and we shall sit together many
times again. We shall recount the things that befell us in the path
of God, the Most High.” Then he smiled and added, “And we
shall laugh together very much!” Again a little party of pilgrims
who had come to him in Haifa during those last days of his im-
prisonment, caught a fresh glimpse of the joy of our eternal pan-
orama when he said, “In every world of God a new Lord’s supper
is ordained.” New Knowledge!—New realization! New bounty!
How could we dread that?
In the book Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh we find
this remarkable statement: “Know then of a truth that if the soul
of man hath walked in the ways of God, it will assuredly return
and be gathered to the glory of the Beloved. It shall attain a sta-
tion such as no pen can depict or tongue describe. The soul that
hath remained faithful to the Cause of God and stood
unwaveringly firm in His path, shall after his ascension, be pos-
sessed of such power that all the worlds which the Almighty hath
created can benefit thru him. Such a soul provideth, at the bid-
ding of the ideal King and divine educator, the pure leaven that
leaveneth the world of being and furnisheth the power through
which the arts and wonders of the world are made manifest. These

souls that are the symbols of detachment are the leaven of the
world. Meditate on this and be of the thankful.”
Now by this we see that we are in training to become effective,
not just in this world but thru every world. This opens the door
of the highest adventure to us. Gone is the old idea of the harp
and the golden-paved street, and in its place is the idea of normal
continuation of whatever we have begun of the discovery of all
mysteries, of magnified powers of service extending to unnum-
bered worlds and of unimaginably glorious companionship. A
sense of great joy pervades the whole. A young mother came to
‘Abdu’l-Bahá mourning the loss of a beautiful little daughter. He
said very gently, “Be happy, be happy. If you know the joy of a
little child or of any soul who goes out in light, you would not
have the will-power to remain here for twenty-four hours.”
But what has become of the old ideas? They are still true. As an
unborn child could not conceive of rivers and clouds and moun-
tains which are completely beyond its experience, so we cannot
think in terms of forms never experienced. In teaching us, God
has always had to use symbols, pictures with which we are famil-
iar; and we discover that that which we have customarily called
heaven or hell is really a state of being and exists here as well as
beyond. For example, the Eskimo believes in a hell. To him it is a
wandering ice-flow [sic], cold, desolate, forever cut off from lov-
ing companionship. This to the Eskimo is the greatest degree of
deprivation he knows. The Arab believes in hell, too. To him it is
boiling oil. This in his hot country is the greatest degree of depri-
vation that he knows. Christian scriptures depict a hell of fire and
brimstone. The fastidious ancient Greek believed in hell. To him
it was a place of refuse outside the city bountiful. And they all
speak truly. I have sometimes thought that it would be a very
good idea each morning to say: “Good morning, Mrs. Baker. Are
you living in heaven? Or have you fallen into desolate loneliness,

cut off from God; or into the burning fire of hate, or into the
refuse heap of some carnal desire.” We who know and love the
Prophets of God have a short cut to heaven thru the harp of God’s
word and by traveling the streets of His command. It is a strange
thing how often we try to escape law, and yet we need a great
friendliness with law. Moses said, “Ye shall diligently keep the
commandments of the Lord, your God.” Jesus said, “If you love
me, keep my commandments.” Bahá’u’lláh said, “My command-
ments are the lamps of my loving kindness unto thee.” A young
man said to Harry Emerson Fosdick, “I have never been so happy
in my life as now that I am rid of God.” Mr. Fosdick replies, “You
may be rid of God, but you are not rid of a moral universe; you
are not rid of a universe that is run by law.” The young man
succeeded only in putting himself out of balance with that law
and out of harmony with life. Bahá’u’lláh writes, “To be in heaven
is to live and move in the atmosphere of God’s holy will.” This is
the only harmony. The streets of his command run straight to his
door. We collect our wealth as we go. Bahá’u’lláh further writes,
“The good deeds of the friends are written in the guarded tablet
of God and constitute their true wealth. Come not into My court
with empty hands.” Sacrifice in the service of God and man is so
great a wealth that the pure souls finally see in it only joy. Steven,
spat upon, lied about, and stoned, cried, “Lo, I see the heavens
opened.” A missionary among lepers, who contracted the dread
disease, said, “This hut is radiant with His presence, and here I
live in heaven.” ‘Abdu’l-Bahá wrote for one who grieved for him,
“Though I stay in prison it is just like paradise; afflictions and
trials in the path of God give me joy; troubles rest me, death is
life, to be despised is honor. … Seek, O servant of God, this life
until you remain in limitless joy.”
So there is God at the far end, and He is here at the near end,
and we come to see that all life, both here and hereafter, is the

expression of one thing and cannot be divided. Throughout His
kingdoms, one increasing purpose runs: know God, and love Him.
The habit of prayer
Is prayer a habit with you—not a formal habit or repeating empty
words but a deep, energizing force in your daily life? Of course
you may not be able to answer this off hand, because it is possible
that you actually pray many times without knowing it. I know a
fine young man who said to a Bahá’í teacher, “I never pray.” The
Bahá’í looked intently into his clear young eyes. “If you will tell
me what you do, I will tell you how you pray.” Indeed, Bahá’u’-
lláh teaches that work done in the spirit of service is worship, and
that every thought, word and deed devoted to the glory of God
and the good of one’s fellows is prayer in the truest sense.
In the little volume “Doa—The Call to Prayer” we find listed
nine attitudes that indicate our common urges to prayer. Perhaps
you have been conscious of all of them; perhaps of a few.
One is SUPPLICATION. This is humble, earnest entreaty, with a
sense of dependence on what is greater than ourselves. We re-
member the words of Paul, “God is an ever-present source of
help in time of trouble.” “The heart of man is like a mirror which
is covered with dust, and to cleanse it one must continually pray
to God that it may become clean.” The act of supplication is the
polish which cleanses the mirror and enables the soul to know
and adore God.
And there is COMPUNCTION. This is an uneasiness of mind aris-
ing from wrong-doing. It is the sting of conscious, or a sense of
remorsefulness. Did you ever have the feeling of unworthiness
that we find in one of the Psalms: “Feed me, O Lord, with the

bread of tears, and give me plenteousness of tears to drink.” If you
did, you were being compelled to prayer by compunction.
The third is ASPIRATION. This is the longing sometimes unex-
pressed for what is above one’s present attainment, for what is
pure, noble and spiritual. Alger says, “It is not aspiration but
ambition that is the mother of misery in man.”* Ambition may be
purely personal but aspiration is a selfless longing.
INTERCESSION is a form of prayer too. It is entreaty on behalf of
others. How often do you pray for the souls, the minds, even the
bodies of those you love? Unfortunately, so materialistic has the
world become in recent centuries that the very possibility of spiri-
tual healing has to a large extent been lost sight of. Some are
endowed with exceptional talent for healing, and such talent
should be recognized, trained and educated, like other gifts. The
physical and spiritual laws are both important to know and use,
for the physicians of the new age. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá wrote a tablet in
which he said: “The physician who has drunk from the Wine of
My Love, his visit is healing, and his breath is mercy and hope.
… He who is filled with the LOVE of God, and forgets all things,
the Holy Spirit will be heard from his lips and the spirit of life
will fill his heart …. Words will issue from his lips in strands of
pearls and all sickness and disease will be healed.”
The community at large can help also. Everyone is affected by
his social atmosphere, by faith or materialism, by virtue or vice,
by cheerfulness or depression. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá once said that to be
in the presence of some was to be consumed by hot desert winds;
to be in the presence of others was to be refreshed by the cool
breezes of the oasis. So even though you are not actively in prayer,
you can be a willing channel for the Holy Spirit first by banishing
fear, suspicion, jealousy, criticalness, and then by practicing ap-
preciation. In this way you can actually help to heal.
And in using this prayer, remember those dear ones who have

*
William Rounseville Alger, The solitudes of nature and man, p. 120.

gone into the Worlds of Light. Bahá’u’lláh has suggested many
beautiful prayers for them. Their worlds are progressive and un-
ending, and are in no wise separated from yours. If prayer is
effective here, then it is effective in every world of God.
And in your prayer for intercession, don’t forget the ills of the
world. Never in the history has there been such a need of the
realization of a New World Order on just and God-like thinking.
When you pray for this, you pray for millions of bodies that are
in danger of war and pestilence; for millions of souls robbed of
loving homes and kindred, shot thru and thru with worse than
lead; the spirit of hate.
And now another form of prayer: GRATITUDE. Many of you, I
know, have felt the urge to thank the great Divine Being for fa-
vors and bounties received. Do you remember the words of David,
“O give thanks unto the Lord for He is good and His mercy
endureth forever.” Bahá’u’lláh likewise says, “Praise be to thee, O
Desire of the world! Praise be to Thee, O Beloved of the hearts of
the yearning.”
Some attain prayer in the art of simple MEDITATION. ‘Abdu’l-
Bahá has declared that it is an axiomatic fact that while you medi-
tate you are speaking to your spirit and your spirit answers; the
light breaks forth and reality is revealed. A business magnate once
said that to a brief daily period of meditation on his affairs, he
owed the bulk of his success. For 15 minutes at the beginning of
each day he maintained an unbroken stillness during which he
thought thru the day’s program. Now consider the effect of a
whole world taught this art of concentration and using it habitu-
ally for spiritual betterment. How quickly the world could put
into practice the magnificent teachings of peace and love brought
by the Holy Prophets and emphasized today in the teachings of
Bahá’u’lláh. Why not make this one of your daily habits?
Try it, putting the harmony that such a habit could bring, into

our daily lives. One who has formed such a habit said to me re-
cently, “When I forget to pray and meditate, my day is like dark-
ness compared to sunlight.” ‘Abdu’l-Bahá writes, “Thru the fac-
ulty of meditation, man attains to eternal life. Thru it he receives
the breath of the Holy Spirit—in that condition he is immersed
in the ocean of spiritual life and can unfold the secret of things in
themselves.” We live in a swirl of feverish activity. There is no one
listening who does not need to learn the art of occasional listen-
ing stillness. “Be still and know that I am God.”
And now OBLIGATION is mentioned. Do you remember how
the people of olden times laid lambs on the alter and gave praise
to God? First we had the burnt offerings of many kinds of animal
and human flesh; then fruits and grains were offered with prayers.
Later sweet smelling incense was used, and now the more ad-
vanced souls have learned to sacrifice themselves for the love of
God. How often have you prayed this way.
The urge of ADORATION is a joyful spontaneous uplift of praise;
it is an affirmation; it affirms the glory and majesty and all-power
of God. The heart that learns to pray this selfless way purely for
the love of God becomes lost in the spirit and is led to the last
type or urge to prayer.
COMMUNION. This is the spirit’s conversation with God and
thru it perfect guidance may be obtained. Bahá’u’lláh says: “My
love is in thee. Seek and thou will find me near. I have placed
within thee a spirit from Me that thou mayest be My lover.” Now
prayer becomes the practice of the presence of God, and a very
direct and earnest prayer it must be indeed. Thru such commun-
ion, every soul, rich or poor, black or white, native or foreign-
born, becomes a glowing spirit of light, radiating joy and love
and understanding wherever he goes.
Now, every one requires this guidance for a completely harmo-
nious life. Not only should prayer become a firm habit, as con-

stant as our eating and drinking, but such faith should motivate
it that guidance is at all times assured. Shoghi Effendi, the Guard-
ian of the Cause of Bahá’u’lláh, suggested five steps to be used by
one who had a problem to be solved by prayer.
First step: Pray and meditate about the problem. Use the prayers
of the great Prophets if you can, as they have the greatest power.
Learn to remain in the silence of contemplation during which the
Will of God becomes you complete desire.
Second step: Arrive at a declaration and hold to this. This deci-
sion is usually born in a flash during the contemplation, or it
grows upon one with a sense of peace as he proceeds along his
way.
Third step: When the decision becomes clear, have determina-
tion to carry it out.
Fourth step: Have faith and confidence that the power for spiri-
tual accomplishment will flow thru you, the right way will ap-
pear, the door will open, the right though will be given to you.
Then take immediately the—
Fifth step, which is to arise and act as the prayer had already
been answered. Act with tireless, ceaseless energy. As you act,
you yourself will become as a magnet which will attract more
power to your being until you become an unobstructed channel
for the divine Power to flow through you. Every prayer that is
born without faith is like a stillborn child. Learn to fill your prayer
with the lifeblood and spirit of faith. May I leave you with one
last word; a word of warning. In all prayer make the Will of God
your aim. Never seek to impose your will upon Him, but rather,
pray to know His for you. Make this a daily habit.
Lord, what a change within us one short hour
Spent in Thy presence will avail to make!
What heavenly burdens form our bosoms take

What parched grounds refresh as with a shower.
We kneel, and all around us seems to lower;
We rise, and all, the distant and the near,
Stands forth in sunny outline, brave and clear.
We knell; how weak! We rise; how full of power!
Why wherefore should we do ourselves this wrong
Or others, that we are not always strong
That we are overborn with care
That we should ever weak or heartless be
Anxious, or troubled—when with us is prayer,
And joy and strength and courage are with Thee!

Index of names
'Abdu'l-Bahá, 5–7, 22–23, 36n., 37, 52–53, 101, 116, 139, 187, 236, 254–55, 257,
391–93, 400–01, 420, 496, see plate 1
Afnan, Ruhi, 189
Afshar, Mr., 406
Alexander, Agnes, Hand of the Cause of God, 483
Ali-Kuli Khan, Mírzá, 97, 102
Amatu'l-Bahá Rúhíyyih Khánum (Mary Maxwell), Hand of the Cause of God, 192
and n., 258–59, 311–13, 342, 344–45, 355
Andrews, Edna, 156, 249, 267–68
Archambault, Helen, 238
Astaire, Fred, 307
Austin, Elsie, 155, 191–92, 417, 428, see plate 59

Backwell, Richard, 480
Bahíyyih Khánum, The Greatest Holy Leaf, 173–74, 473
Baker, Ann see Salafia
Baker, Annamarie Mattoon, 367–71, see plates 43, 49, 72
Baker, Conrad, 63, 65, 69, 73ff., 83, 94, 104, 191, 454, see plates 14, 15, 22, 34
Baker, Crystal (Shoaie), 374, 456, see plate 72
Baker, Dwight, 248–49, 454
Baker, Frank, 65ff., 99, 104–06, 107, 121, 125, 132–33, 147, 161–65, 180–81, 191–
92, 198, 245–47, 270, 281, 285, 317, 335, 372, 418–421, 427, 439, 444–45,
452–53, 471, 485–90, see plates 13, 15, 28, 31, 37, 50, 71
Baker, Frank Mattoon, 368–69, 435, 456, see plate 72
Baker, Mary Quentin, 67
Baker, Robert, 374n.
Baker, Sara (Sally), 63–65, 67, 69, 73ff., 84, 94–95, 102–06, see plates 14, 15
Baker, William King (Bill), 87, 135, 139–41, 191, 208, 243, 283, 317, 367–70,
374n., 446, 454, 485–86, see plates 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 28, 34, 43, 49, 72
Baker, Winifred Louise see Matthias
Bakhtiari, Isfandiar, 439
Baldwin, Winifred, 41–43, see plate 11
Balyuzi, Hasan, Hand of the Cause of God, 480
Barnard, Mr. and Mrs., 110–11
Beecher, Chauncey Gordon (David), 14, 38, 39, 49ff., 80,167, 171, see plates 9, 10, 17
Beecher, Ellen Tuller ("Mother Beecher"), 2ff., 14ff., 35–37, 41, 79, 88, 97–98, 101,
111, 119, 128ff., 139, 141–46, 147, 251, 275, 301, 488, 496, see plates 4, 17,
18, 27
Beecher, Henry, 3–4, 9ff., 27, 29–33, 70–72, see plates 17, 18, 20, 26
Beecher, Luella Gorham, 3–4, 9ff., 156, 174, 191, 248, 373, 427, 435, 445, 471,
489, 490, see plates 3, 9, 21, 71
Beecher, Susie, 52, 167–68
Bernstein, Lenore, 133, 283, 335, 337
Bode, Edward and Mary, 309, 355
Boman, Perin (Olyai), 439
Boman, Shirin, 439, 462, 463, 466–67, see plate 67
Braun, Eunice, 313n., 313–315
Bullock, Matthew, 428, see plate 59
Busey, Garreta, 171–72

Carver, George Washington, 234
Caswell, Louise, 257–58, 334
Chamberlin, Hattie, 302–03
Cheney, Elisabeth, 259, 265–67, 288, 358, 395, 490–92, see plate 39
Christian, Kenneth, 428, see plate 59
Christian, Roberta, 257
Collins, Amelia, Hand of the Cause of God, 287, 323, 389, see plates 41, 35, 36
Collison, Rex and Mary, 97, 120 and n.
Corrodi, Henrietta, 120
Courlaender, Trina, 321
Cox, Alice, 380n., 380–81

Diehl, Allie, 298
Dobbins, Nancy, 414
Dreyfus, Hippolyte, 97
Duff, Howard and Nellie, 291
Dunn, Clara ("Mother Dunn"), Hand of the Cause of God, 482
Dwelly, Amy Brady, 262–63

Edwards, Julius, 359
Eggleston, Lou and Helen, 134
Elliot, Belinda, 273n., 273–75, 415
Escalante, David, 321
Ewing, Mary Lou, 156, 159, 165, 168, 191, 221, 226ff., 241–42, 244, 269, see plate

Faizi, Gloria, 476
Fatheazam, Hushmand, 468
Fitz-Henley, Hopeton, 474–75
Fosdick, Harry Emerson, 142
Fouts, Soo, 415 and n.
Furútan, 'Alí-Akbar, Hand of the Cause of God, 404–05, 407 and n., 421, 435,
482, see plates 54, 57

Fuller, Robert E., 46

Getsinger, Lua, 257
Giachery, Ugo, Hand of the Cause of God, 421n., 421–22, 486
Gregory, Louis, Hand of the Cause of God, 186–88, 200, 231, 274–75, see plates
36, 40
Grossmann, Hermann, Hand of the Cause of God, 484

Hainsworth, Philip, 410n., 410–11
Haney, Paul, Hand of the Cause of God, 304–07, 418–19, see plate 59
Hawthorne, Ruth, 113
Haydar-‘Alí, Ḥájí Mírzá, xxiii
Hofman, David, 432n., 432–33, 479–81
Hofman, Marion (Holley), 278, 432n., 432–33, 477–81
Holley, Horace, Hand of the Cause of God, 266, 286, 318, 378, 407, 439, see plates
35, 36, 54, 59
Honnold, Annamarie Kunz, 135, 182–83

Ioas, Farrukh, 279
Ioas, Leroy, Hand of the Cause of God, 279, 379–80, 404, 413–414, see plates 35,
36, 54
Írání, M. B., 465

Jarrah, Salah, 482
Jay, Harry, 157, 197, 375–376, see plate 37

Khadem, Dhikru'lláh, Hand of the Cause of God, 416, see plate 54
Khadem, Javidukht, 416–17
Kramer, Marie, 150
Kunz, Anna, 135
Kunz, Annamarie see Honnold
Kunz, Margaret see Ruhe

Lamb, Artemus, 272n., 272 73, 302, 363
Latimer, George, 286, see plate 35
Lismore, Viva, 200
Little, Hazel, 272 and n.
Lohse, Doris, 350

MacNutt, Howard, 139
di Marco, Giovanni, 474
Matthews, Loulie, 484
Matthias, Dorothy (Dodie), 425, 430, 435, 456
Matthias, Hubert, 342–45, 425 27, 430, 447, see plate 46, 47, 72
Matthias, Louise Baker (Winifred Louise), 80ff., 84, 139–41, 148, 191, 211, 241,
244, 245–47, 251, 258, 285–86, 288, 308, 317–20, 326, 328–30, 332, 335–
37, 337–39, 340–43, 345, 425–27, 429–30, 453–54, 485, 486–89, see plates
16, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 28, 42, 43, 45, 46, 47, 48, 60, 72

Mattoon, Annamarie see Baker
Mattoon, Florence see Zmeskal
Maxwell, Mary see Amatu'l-Bahá Rúhíyyih Khánum
Maxwell, May Bolles, 36 and n., 192n., 196–97, 332, 342, 344, 395, 476, 486
Maxwell, William Sutherland, Hand of the Cause of God, 192n., 395
Mayberry, Florence, 476–77
McCandless, Emmalu, 362 and n.
McHenry, Elizabeth and John, 209–10
McKay, Doris, 101, 112, 113, 115–17, 184, 204, 268, 281
McLaren, Edith, 263n., 263–64
Miessler, Edmund, 133–34, 144–46, 152–53, 288, 308–09, 331n., 330–35, 381–
84, 445–46, 446–48, 471, 485–86, see plate 37
Miessler, Elma, 308–09, 331n., 330–35, 381–84, 391–93, 446–48, 485–86
Miessler, Muriel, 308–09, 331n., 330–35, 381–84, 391–93, 446–48, 485–86
Moffett, Ruth, 112, 199 and n., 290
Mori, Hazel, 280, 436–37, 465–66
Muhájir, Rahmatu'lláh, Hand of the Cause of God, 463, 467n., 467–68

Nakhjavání, 'Alí, 407–08, 410–11
Nehru, Jawaharlal, Prime Minister of India, 435
Nichols, Valeria, 343, 385
Nooreyazdan, Sheriyar, 440
Nys, Lea, 350–51

Ober, Grace and Harlan, 101, 106, 143
Olinga, Enoch, Hand of the Cause of God, xxiii
Oliver, Cora, 356, 368, 372
Orbison, Virginia, 343, 350, see plates 41, 46
Osborne, Alfred, 360
Overstreet, Harry Allen, 286

Patterson, Elizabeth Heist, 97
Pettibone, Harriet, 250–51, 261 and n.
Pinto, Charlotte Stirrat, 270 and n.
Pritchard, Gene, 250n., 250–51

Reinholtz, Al, 415–16
Remey, Mason, 439
Rice, Emma, 284
Rice-Wray, Edris, 77–78, 204, 457
Robarts, John, Hand of the Cause of God, 250, 311, 352, see plate 62
Roosevelt, Franklin, President of the United States, 131
Root, Martha, Hand of the Cause of God, 251–52, 439n., 439–42,
Rougeou, Dorothy Campbell, 270n., 270–72
Ruhe, Margaret Kunz, 136, 195, 219, 242–44, 268–69

Sabri, Isobel, 278–80, 346–49, 472–73
Sala, Emeric and Rosemary, 321, 325, 379, 475

Salafia, Ann Baker, 248, 454
Sears, William, Hand of the Cause of God, 426
Semple, Ian, 431
Seto, Mamie, 428, see plate 59
Shoghi Effendi, Guardian of the Bahá'í Faith, 23, 36n., 77, 117–19, 143–44, 151,
154, 174 77, 178, 192–93, 205–06, 223 24, 226, 236, 258–59, 280, 287,
288, 318, 323, 329–30, 338–40, 355, 372, 377–78, 382n., 382–83, 399–
401, 411, 414, 421–22, 428, 444, 467, 471, 473, 482–84, 489–90
Sholtis, Gwenne, 321, see plate 40
Sluter, Gerard, 320
Sohaili, Bahiya, 440
Sohaili, Monira, 440ff.
Spahr, Floyd and Gertrude, 149–50, see plate 37
Stone, Roan Orloff, 247–48
Stronach, Yolanda, 326
Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 407

Tasker, Lorna, 115–16
Toner, Hammie, 46
True, Corrine, Hand of the Cause of God, 303, 419–21
True, Edna, 303n., 303–04, 377–79, see plates 41, 59

Vail, Albert, 114–15, 134, 152
Vanderbilt, Bernice Nickerson, 46
Vera, Manuel, 383 and n.

Warner, Charlene, 150, 190, see plate 37
Weeden, Gladys and Ben, 382 and n., 423 24, 457
Wilson, Woodrow, President of the United States, 45
Woolson, Gayle, 211, 323–24, 395–99, see plate 40

Yazdi, Marion, 276n., 276–77

Zmeskal, Florence (Mattoon) and Otto, 367–68