Bahá’í World/Volume 18/Sharon Rickey Kazemi
SHARON RICKEY KAZEMI (KÁẒIMÍ)
1949—1983
Sharon Rickey, daughter of Horace B. Rickey Jr. and Jewel Katherine Seybold, was born in Lafayette, Louisiana. She attended Hamilton School, Château Mon Choisi, Lausanne, Switzerland, and graduated as a National Merit Scholar from Lafayette High School. She received a B.A. in English literature from Middlebury College, Middlebury, Vermont, and her Master’s and D.E.D. degrees in African literature from the University of Abidjan. Before becoming a Bahá’í, Sharon was active in many civic organizations, as a Girl Scout leader and as a Red Cross worker, and she performed valuable services on several committees of the First Presbyterian Church of Lafayette. She was interested in musical and theatrical presentations as evidenced by her membership in the Middlebury College Choir, and by her association with and participation in a number of plays and musicals both in Vermont and in Louisiana where she played the lead in a production of My Fair Lady. In sports, she became a champion fencer, and she achieved a measure of public notice as the State secretary of the ‘Young Republicans’. She was brought up in a religious family. Her parents, staunch Christians, taught her the equality of men without distinction as to race or religion. When at the age of twenty she became acquainted with the Bahá’í Faith, the new Revelation was the embodiment of the spiritual truths she had been taught.
Sharon’s varied activities at Middlebury College ultimately led her into contact with a Bahá’í who proceeded to explain to her the spiritual realities of Bahá’u’lláh’s divine economy. She faced each principle determined to prove it wrong; yet after each bout, returned
Sharon Rickey Kazemi (Káẓimí)
convinced and ready to argue another point. It was during an adult Christian baptism in the College Chapel that she realized that her answer was not in partisan politics in which she had been so active but in that divine polity being built by Bahá’u’lláh’s followers. That very day she declared her belief with characteristic bravado, rushing into the room of her Bahá’í friend and demanding enrollment on the spot. Hers had been the real ‘baptism'. Sharon retired from her political connections as time and opportunity permitted. She worked assiduously over the next two years to allay the fears of relatives and friends who believed that she had been misled. Some of their misgivings were softened when Sharon’s great-aunt remarked, ‘I heard ‘Abdu’l-Bahá speak in 1912. There is nothing wrong with Sharon’s being a Bahá’í. Any religion which has ‘Abdu’l-Bahá is good.’
In 1972 Sharon pioneered to the Ivory Coast
where, in the same year, she married Zekrullah
Kazemi (Dhikru’lláh Káẓimí) whose
appointment to the Continental Board of
Counsellors was announced in May 1973. Her
dynamic enthusiasm and vitality inspired all
who met her. For several years she was a
member and secretary of the National Spiritual [Page 821]
Assembly of the Ivory Coast, Mali and
Upper Volta. She also performed sterling
service as a member of a number of national
committees including the National Women’s
Committee and the National Teaching Committee
of which she was secretary. From 1974
to 1979 she labored diligently as secretary in
the office of the Continental Board of Counsellors
for West Africa. She served at the
same time and until the end of her life as
member-at-large of the Continental Pioneering
Committee for Africa, as well as performing
additional services for the Continental
Board and in translation work. During part
of her pioneering career, she relocated to the
northern areas of the Ivory Coast, areas which
have seen dramatic increases in numbers of
Bahá’í believers.
Besides her work for the Bahá’í Faith, Sharon was equally energetic in other activities. She taught English at Bingerville High School, at the Center for Audio-Visual Research and Studies, and in the English Department of the University of Abidjan. She also served as an interpreter with a number of organizations. She was a member of the Ensemble Vocal d’Abidjan, a well—known choir in the Ivory Coast. She was at the same time preparing her doctoral thesis in African literature.
Her passion was teaching the Faith and she did not hesitate to sacrifice her health and life for this noble aim. For her, to be a pioneer meant to stay in the pioneering post until the end of one’s life. For this reason she wished to die and be buried in Africa. It was a wish that was, alas, prematurely realized. In March 1983 she contracted severe amoebiasis which attacked her body already weakened by chronic diabetes. At dawn on 4 April her pure soul winged its flight to the Abhá Kingdom. Her earthly remains were buried at Niangon-Attié close to the site of Ivory Coast’s future Bahá’í Temple. Sharon is survived by her husband; her parents; two children, Jaleh Katherine and Ryan; and two sisters, Marjorie Rickey and Priscilla Rickey Forest. At her passing these cablegrams were addressed to her family on 5 April:
PROFOUNDLY SADDENED PASSING BELOVED WIFE SHARON, HER DEVOTED PIONEERING SERVICES LOVINGLY REMEMBERED. PRAYING SHRINES PROGRESS HER SOUL ABHA KINGDOM.
ASSURE YOU ALL RELATIVES HEARTFELT SYMPATHY.
NEWS PASSING YOUR DEAR WIFE SHARON DEVOTED STEADFAST SERVANT OF THE CAUSE EXEMPLARY PIONEER FILLED OUR HEARTS WITH SORROW AND SADNESS. WE SHARE YOUR GRIEF AND ASSURE YOU OUR PRAYERS AT THE HOLY THRESHOLDS FOR ELEVATION PROGRESS HER SOUL AND GOD GRANT YOU STRENGTH T0 WITHSTAND THIS HEARTRENDING TEST.
A subsequent cable dated 8 April offered the consolation of the assurance of continued prayers by the Universal House of Justice for the progress of Sharon’s ‘radiant soul’.
Sharon’s knowledge of the Holy Writings, her sharp memory and her genial intelligence made her a rare asset to the Bahá’í community of West Africa. Her loss was deeply felt, for she was at once a strengthening and stabilizing influence in the administrative institutions of the Ivory Coast, and a beloved teacher who won the hearts of many to the Cause of Bahá’u’lláh. And more than this, she proved herself a true friend, always ready to extend that Bahá’í friendship which is the hallmark of those who have truly imbibed the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. It is in her acts of generosity, unfeigned fellowship, and pure love that Sharon Kazemi lives in the hearts of those who knew her. Her services and untainted life must surely find an honored place in the annals of the Cause of God in the African continent.