Bahá’í World/Volume 20/Beatrice Owen Ashton
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BEATRICE OWENS ASHTON
1890—1988
When Beatrice Owens Ashton passed away in Cleveland, Ohio, United States of Ameiica, on 8 May 1988, the Universal House of Justice cabled:
SHARE DEEP SORROW PASSING DEVOTED HANDMAIDEN BAHA’U’LLAH BEATRICE OWENS ASHTON IN HER TIRELESS, INCALCULABLE SERVICES FAITH SPANNING SEVEN DECADES FROM CLOSING YEARS HEROIC AGE, SHE DREW CONSTANT INSPIRATION F ROM HER
IN MEMORIAM
CONTACTS WITH BELOVED MASTER AND SHOGHI EFFENDI. HER EXTENSIVE TRAVELS IN EUROPE, HER PIONEERING TO ALBERTA, CANADA, DURING TEN YEAR WORLD CRUSADE AND LATER SERVICES AT BAHA’I WORLD CBNTRE FOR RESEARCH DEPARTMENT COMBINED WITH ALL HER NUMEROUS ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIVITIES HAVE PRODUCED LEGACY EXEMPLARY SINGLEMINDED DEDICATION TO CAUSE TO WHICH SHE GAVE LAST MEASURE HER EARTHLY STRENGTH. EXTEND LOVING SYMPATHY HER DEAR FAIVHLY. ASSURE ARDENT PRAYERS HOLY SHRINES PROGRESS HER PRECIOUS SOUL ABHA KINGDOM.
Born in Cleveland, on 17 May 1890, to John R. Owens and Louise Benton Owens, Beatrice attended and graduated from Hathaway Brown School in 1907 and from Vassar Col1ege, New York, in 1911. In July 1918, she went to a new job in Urbana, Illinois. There, in the summer heat, she was sitting on a porch opposite a forest preserve when she saw a group of people pienicking. She was told they were Bahá’ís and that “they believe that Christ has returned”. She soon met them, read Paris T alias, and went to classes taught by Dr. Jacob and Mrs. Anna Kunz. “It was a beautiful group of Bahá’ís to grow in”, she later said. As Bahá’ís did in those days, she immediately wrote to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, and she received treasured replies.
When Beatrice moved to the Boston area and worked as an editorial secretary for the Journal of Industrial Hygiene, she served on the Local Spiritual Assembly and on the programme committee for Green Acre Bahá’í School, where she met Frank Ashton. They were married at Green Acre in August 1919. She said later in her life, “Green Acre has always meant a great deal to me’erhe went back whenever she could.
There followed a long period in which Beatrice was busy earning a living and raising her son, John. She moved to Ohio, where she worked in university hospitals in Cleveland doing editorial research, and then
897
to Illinois, living in Evanston, Wilmette, and Winnetka while she worked for Abbott Laboratories in Waukegan. She was a member of the Local Spiritual Assembhes of the Bahá’í communities in which She resided.
After World War II, Beatrice felt she could finally devote the time to Bahá’í activities that she had so 1onged to do, and in 1945 she was appointed by the National Spiritual Assembly of the United States to be the international relief representative for Germany and the Philippines.
Each summer from 1947 to 1953, Beatrice undertook two- to three~month teaching trips for the United States European Teaching Committee, visiting Bahá’í communities in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland. During these trave1s she gave many talks, held firesides, and presented courses she had developed on Bahá’í Administration and on the World Crusade. As she wrote in one of her reports to the ETC, “Teaching the Faith through the Administrative Order seems to appeal to their need for a practical plan that works”.
Going back to many of the same places year after year, she could provide the Guardian with a running account of the growth of the Faith in these countries and the problems they were facing. As if these efforts were not enough, Beatrice was also Chairman and secretary for the publication of Volume XII of The Bahá’í World, and she corresponded extensively with the Guardian about this international record. He expressed his appreciation by writing:
May the Ahnighty abundantly reward
you for your truly remarkable and merito rious efforts and service in distant fie1ds, remove every obstacle and enable you to win still greater Victories for the Faith.
In April 1952, she went on pilgrimage to Haifa and was enabled to meet the beloved Guardian for the first time.
After 1953, Beatrice focused her efforts on administrative tasks in the United States:
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Beatrice Owens Ashton
Volume XIII of The Bahá’í World, the worship programmes at the House of Worship, and the editorial committee of Bahá’í News, among other tasks. In addition to these efforts, for which she was well qualified as an editorial assistant, she taught numerous courses at Green Acre, Louhelen, and Geyserville Bahá’í Schools in the United States, and at Beaulac, Banff, and Toronto in Canada.
Teaching courses in Canada brought her into closer contact With the Canadian Bahá’ís and when the Ten Year Crusade called for pioneers (she had then retired from Abbott Laboratories), she volunteered to pioneer in Canada, and was sent to Lethbridge, Alberta. During the years 1958 to 1966, while stationed in Lethbridge, she continued teaching throughout Canada, especially her course on the Ten Year Crusade, ahd represented Canada at the dedication of the House of Worship in Germany.
By 1966, Lethbridge had a Local Spiritual Assembly and Beatrice went back to European teaching, making four trips to Norway and other European countries by 1970.
THE Bahá’í WORLD
In April 1970, Beatrice again went to Haifa, where she was offered the opportunity to use her editorial skills in the Research Department at the Bahá’í World Centre. She jumped at the chance. For two years she cata1ogued and indexed the Guardian’s letters and other correspondence, made frequent trips to the Bahá’í Shrines, and soaked up know1edge of the Faith from the many knowledgeable and dedicated Bahá’ís at the World Centre. When, at the age of 82, she was being overtaken by poor health and had to return to the United States, the Universal House of Justice wrote:
You have performed highly meritorious
service at the World Centre and have
endeared yourself to all members of the staff here. We are deeply grateful to you.
Although Beatrice then officially “retired”, her great love for the Faith drove her on to accept work from the House of Justice that she could carry out in her apartment in Cleveland. She compiled a subject index of Citadel of Faith and of Messages to America, thereby enabling the House of Justice to find immediately What the Guardian had said on many subjects. She also indexed those parts of the Writings of the Báb and Baha’u’llah which had been translated by Shoghi Effendi. She crowned this phase of her services by indexing The Dawn-Breakers.
By the fall of 1976 she was practically blind, and could no longer perform the services at Which she had so ardently labored for so long. But for another decade she continued to correspond with the many devoted Bahá’ís she had met around the world. Their news of the growth of the Faith sustained her in her last years.
Throughout Beatrice’s teaching and administrative services to the Faith, people were always impressed with her Whole—hearted and loving devotion to the Administrative Order, the Guardianship, and then to the Universal House of Justice. She was tireless in her devotion, and indefatigable in her desire to do the very best she could to help her beloved Guardian and then the House of
IN MEMORIAM
Justice. For these reasons, the high points of her life were the times spent in Haifa. As the Guardian wrote her in the midst of her endeavors, “...your Share in deepening the faith and understanding of the believers regarding the essentials Ofthe Revelation of Baha’u’llah and its distinguishing features has been truly outstanding”.
While at the Bahá’í World Centre, Beatrice worked closely with Mr. ‘Ali Nalghjavéni, a member of the Universal House of Justice, and continued an extensive correspondence with him thereafter. Mr. Nahhj avani probably knew Beatrice best in her later years of Bahá’í service. He wrote to her, “The serVices you are rendering are precious beyond description”, and later, “The determination and thoroughness with which you are pursuing the work given to you by the Universal House of Justice are truly most remarkable”. And then, “I sense the Vibrations of your indomitable spirit, your unwavering constancy and your inflexible resolve to pursue nobly and courageously the path of selfless stewardship to God’s Holy Cause”.
But Beatrice certainly treasured most the words of the Guardian:
May the Almighty bless abundantly and continuously your manifold, incessant, and highly meritorious activities to enable you to enrich the record of your splendid accomplishments in both the teaching and administrative sphere of Bahá’í service.
JOHN ASHTON