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HELEN EGGLESTON
1892—1979
Helen Latimer Whitney was born in Portland, Oregon, on 1 June 1892, the daughter of Kate Latimer Whitney and Edwin D. Whitney. Whitney, Marzieh Gail advises, was a prominent Lansing, Michigan, businessman, and owned one of America’s most complete private gun collections, its oldest item being an Arab firearm,- very light, for cavalry, dating back about three hundred years. His other avocation was making birdhouses.
Helen, The American Bahá’í’ of July 1979 reports, became a Bahá’í in Portland ‘some seventy years ago after learning of the Faith from a relative of hers, George Orr Latimer [who died in 1948]’, and ‘will be best remembered for her pioneering work in Bahá’í education through the establishment [with her husband, Lou (1872—1953)] of the Louhelen
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IN MEMORIAM
l “en t 3%
Helen Eggleston
School near Davison, Michigan’, whose first session was held ‘in August 1931 with the approval of Shoghi Effendi’.
Helen met Lou Egglestonl in the Bahá’í House of Worship in Wilmette, Illinois; they were married on 24 December 1930. Marzieh Gail in an unpublished reminiscence gives us a vivid picture of the couple set against the background of the creation and development of the- school which was to bear their names: ‘Helen was thirty-eight at the time of her marriage, slender and youthful in appearance, and she stayed that way throughout her life. Lou was fifty and had other family, Helen being his third wife. They produced two children of their own, first a daughter, Louhelen, and later a son, “Buzzie.” Although a recent Bahá’í at the time of their marriage, Lou then dedicated his life, as did Helen, to an enterprise which would be of value to the Faith. Searching the rural area near Davison, a few miles out of Flint they discovered a large property which had outbuildings and a deserted farm house. The house was fifty years old, built for the ages, with that confidence in the future, those self—respecting lines, that American architects can apparently
1 See ‘In Memoriam’, The Bahá’í World, vol. XII, p. 712.
675
no longer reproduce. It had oak timbers; the rest was of white pine lumber throughout. No plumbing, only a cistern under the kitchen and a pitcher and pump at the sink. Four porches, rotting away. It had last been painted forty years before. Lou, a genius-level, selftaught engineer who had been obliged to leave school at eleven, went to work on the house and its 280 acres. On 1 August 1931 was held the first session ever of the first Bahá’í Summer School in the central part of the United States. (There were only two other Bahá’í schools in America at that time, Green Acre in Maine, and Geyserville in California.)
‘Names associated with that first nine-day session were Dorothy Baker, Louis Gregory, Harlan and Grace Ober, Howard and Mabel Ives, May Harvey Gift, Christine McKay, Fanny Knobloch and Mary Collison. Those in attendance met on the porch of a log cabin on Kersley Creek, which ran through the property, or sat on bleachers at the water’s edge. The Guardian was very pleased with that first success and urged the friends to “do even more next season.” The Egglestons toiled to plan the courses and expand the facilities . . . From the beginning, with continuous guidance from the Guardian and served by national committees, the school was youth-oriented. It stressed Bahá’í administration and also the study of Islam and the Qur’án, for on 2 December 1935 the Guardian wrote: “The knowledge of this Sacred Scripture is absolutely indispensable for every believer who wishes adequately and intelligently to read the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh.”
‘In 1939, a handsome, official library was opened to the public, while Helen’s private collection of Bahá’í books and rare pamphlets was becoming perhaps the best in the country. Her knowledge of the Faith was well organized, so that if you had a question, you would often turn to her for a documented reply.
‘In 1949, a nine-acre tract, including the main residence and all the other buildings and recreational grounds, was deeded by Helen and Lou to the National Spiritual Assembly. Meanwhile, with the help of a tenant farmer, varied activities were constantly going on: goats were raised; a special kind of flour was developed; additional dormitories were constructed; a tennis court, outdoor grill for Wiener roasts and a craft center were provided;
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a conservatory was established upstairs in the residence; and the Louhelen Bahá’í Choir was created by Esther Wilson of Bradley College.
‘Helen was known for developing new talent and many a teacher, crowded out by established talent elsewhere, got a start at Louhelen and found that he or she had abilities previously undiscovered. What Helen contributed throughout was to rule her domain with the proverbial rod of iron; but unlike most “dictators” she had a sense of the ridiculous. When you watched her carefully you noticed a barely perceptible tic, a small twitch to her lips. Whether the humor came first, or the tic, we do not know; but in any case they matched. Her custom when she first met a person was to test him out: she would stare at him out of round brown eyes, her mouth twitching just a bit, and make some outrageous statement, and watch to see how the individual responded. She once greeted a new arrival at the school with: “Your room is in such~and—such a building; bed—time is ten o’clock; all the mail is read before we deliver it to you; good night!”’
The operation of running Louhelen, Marzieh Gail continues, ‘involved administering thousands of people, over the years, and it was Helen’s continuous, invaluable, personal supervision, reinforced by Lou, that made Louhelen School the unique institution it was . . . Helen had small, delicate hands, and I doubt that she ever cooked anything or wielded a broom in her life, but she collected and closely supervised a fine staff. Not everyone was enthusiastic over the goat’s milk and kelp which formed part of the Louhelen menu—and you were not allowed to escape to the city of Flint for a meal. Nor did Helen care for the individual’s private ideas of what to eat. “The worst part is having to deal with all their special diets,” she once confided. “You take today. Mrs. X has just informed me that she cannot possibly eat veal. So . . . ——deadpan stare and slight twitch Of the lips——“she’s going to get some lovely chicken.” I once asked her how, with all those buildings, she warded off a long succession of self—invited guests. “I explain that there’s lots of work for them to do around the ranch," she said. “Lots of weeding, painting, driving the tractor, milking the goats . . .” To prevent cliques, she made each one sit by a different person at
THE BAHA’
1’ WORLD
each meal. As for circumventing budding romances, she said: “Takes about two weeks to get ’em started. Then we send ’em home and schedule a different study course.”
‘Basically egalitarian in spite of her Junior League background, she was as real as a sack of potatoes. She neither wanted nor accepted adulation for herself . . . Shy and vulnerable at heart, when confronted with formal guests she would have someone else present to manage the conversation. Nevertheless, even though it involved facing unfamiliar people, she was so anxious to have good relations between the school and the inhabitants of the area that she would go out of her way to make friends. One autumn she and Lou arranged for me to give talks on some forty platforms in surrounding towns—at schools, in churches, at men’s service clubs, Rotary, Lions, the Kiwanis (the entire peas-and-chicken—a—laking circuit)—they themselves driving me in the overheated car (Helen couldn’t stand the cold) through the bare, wintry fields. Practical, the two would combine other errands along with getting to the lecture . . . It was Helen who arranged the lecture engagements . . . In those days religion was a taboo subject on most platforms of the kind I have mentioned; you walked on eggs, and the relevance of the Bahá’í Faith t0 the world situation was not understood. (Neither in-fact was the world situation.) Lou was a member of Rotary himself, and as the years went by, the school gained in local prestige, and clubs in the area would often ask for Bahá’í speakers. One summer the Civitan Club of Flint used Bahá’í speakers for three successive meetings,- the Zonta Club featured a staff speaker from Louhelen School, and the Flint radio station interviewed another. Winning this type of recognition was a considerable achievement for the time and place. Various groups would also make use of the public library on the grounds, and sometimes rent the school for conferences of their own . . .
‘The home Helen shared with Lou and her children and thousands of Bahá’ís, and others, taught its own message and imparted its own memories that still linger in the mind. As for the budding romances nipped in the bud, we think there must be many a couple who still turn back, over the years, to their days in that lovely place.’
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IN MEMORIAM
Though best remembered for her association with Louhelen School, Helen served the Cause faithfully in various capacities throughout her lifetime and until her last breath maintained an active interest in its world-wide development and expansion. The gift of a copy of the new publication Selections from the Writings of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá sent to her by Lois Goebel elicited a happy response dated 17 April 1979, a month before her passing: ‘0 Lois! How can I thank you for this precious, priceless Selections from the Writings of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá! It arrived yesterday. The power of His Word shakes one, and is overwhelming, and I’ve only read a few pages! Thank you, my dear, so very, very much for your thoughtfulness and kindness. Do you know that section 167, page 198, is a Tablet that I had the blessing of receiving from the Master?’
The National Spiritual Assembly of the United States in its cable announcing the passing of Helen Eggleston on 9 May 1979 paid tn'bute to this ‘stalwart, generous—hearted handmaiden Bahá’u’lláh whose name along with husband’s will be associated with development Bahá’í education United States for generations to come’. From the Universal House of Justice on 11 May came this accolade:
GRIEVED PASSING VETERAN DEVOTED MAIDSERVANT CAUSE HELEN EGGLESTON WHO WITH HER LATE HUSBAND ESTABLISHED CENTRAL MICHIGAN SUMMER SCHOOL IN EARLY THIRTIES EARNING HIGH PRAISE BELOVED GUARDIAN. CONVEY FAMILY FRIENDS OUR CONDOLENCES AND ASSURANCE LOVING PRAYERS PROGRESS HER SOUL.
(Adapted from a memoir by MARZIEH GAIL)
