Bahá’í World/Volume 20/Dora (Dee) Worth Lamb
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DORA (DEE) WORTH LAMB
1903—1988
Dora Worth Lamb, generally known as Dee, was born 17 March 1903 on a farm near Moran, Kansas, USA. A few years later, the family moved to Oskaloosa, Iowa, where she grew up. As she told it, she was deeply concerned at an early age about what she was going to do with her life. She was determined not to stay in Oskaloosa and become a “drudge”, and finally opted for music and voice with Which she was enamored. With the aid of a partial scholarship and working as a private secretary, she was able to study at the Conservatory of Music at Appleton, Wisconsin, and graduate with honors. She continued her voice lessons in California, becoming a soloist in several churches in Los Angeles.
As a youth, Dee had been very active in the Methodist Church. One day she confided in her pastor that she wanted to know more about God, and she put to him some very sincere questions. He refused to answer, telling Dee just to accept what she had been
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taught and not ask questions. This started Dee’s search which was to lead her many years later to the Bahá’í Faith. She decided that she was going to throw out all creeds and limitations until she found something that would satisfy her spiritual inquietude. The search included Theosophy, which she studied intensively for four years with the grandson of Madam Blavatsky, its founder. According to Dee, Theosophy was a useful stepping stone which aided her to enlarge her Vision of life and the universe, but it still left her soul unsatisfied.
While she was still studying Theosophy, a friend, a former Theosophist, told Dee about the Bahá’í Faith, giving her the book God Passes By. Dee said she had no real interest but felt that it would be prejudiced to make any judgment without an investigation, so she read the book, according to her “combing Persian names out of my hair in the process.” Later, she asked her friend Why she had selected that particular book to start, and the friend answered that it was to show Dee that the Bahá’í Faith was something entirely different from anything she had known so far. It worked, and Dee bought a number of Bahá’í books and started her search in earnest. After an exhaustive investigation, she knew that this was what her soul had been looking for and she formally entered the Faith in the summer of 1953 in Beverly Hills.
In November of the same year, her future husband Visited Beverly Hills immediately following his pilgrimage to the Bahá’í World Centre. It happened that Dee was on vacation so she offered to drive him around to the different communities to share his experiences and the latest news of the Guardian. She became so fired up that she made her offer to go pioneering anywhere in the world. Some six months later she arrived in Costa Rica, on the first lap of her pioneer life which ended only With her passing to the Abhá Kingdom.
In Costa Rica, she served on the National Teaching Committee for Central America
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and the Antilles, and one year on the National Spiritual Assembly of the same area. In 1956, she transferred to the Dominican Republic to help with the formation of the first National Spiritual Assembly of the Greater Antilles, serving on that body as secretary. In 1958, she returned to Central America, to El Salvador, for her marriage to Artemus Lamb who was then pioneering in that country. The following 30 years were spent with her husband in different countries in Central America, serving the varying needs of the Faith, including the filling of many administrative posts.
Dee’s entire Bahá’í life was centered around serving the Faith with all her heart. In addition to devotion and steadfastness, one of her outstanding qualities was an outgoing love for people which she constantly expressed and which automatically attracted to her persons of all ages and walks of life. Since her own long search had been a deeply spiritual one, she was particularly apt in counselling individuals on personal problems and sharing with them spiritual solutions. Another outstanding quality was her cheerfulness and radiant spirit. She constantly wore a smile and possessed a very infectious laugh, and was always ready to hear the humorous side of things.
In later years, arthritis and other infirmities increasingly cut down on her physical activities, so she spent more and more time praying for others and for the institutions and work of the Faith. Even though confined to a wheelchair and racked with illness, she usually managed to attend Nineteen Day Feasts and other important Bahá’í activities. During her final months of existence on this earthly plane, when she could no longer really function physically, she constantly expressed her gratitude to Baha’u’llah for His goodness to her. It is this loving and radiant spirit that people almost always remember when they mention Dee’s name.
On 14 August 1988, her soul passed to the Abhá Kingdom, leaving “her bones” in La Ceiba, Honduras, in accordance with
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Dora (Dee) Worth Lamb
the wishes of the beloved Guardian for all pioneers, as expressed through the Hand of the Cause of God Amatu’l—Bahá Rúḥíyyih Ig_h2'mum during the All-American Teaching Conference held in Wilmette, Illinois, in 1953.
The following cable was sent by the Universal House of Justice on 26 August 1988 to the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Honduras:
DEEPLY SADDENED PASSING OUTSTANDING MUCH—LOVED VETERAN PIONEER TEACHER CAUSE GOD DEE LAMB. HER LONGTERM AND EXEMPLARY SERVICES, STERLING QUALITIES AND UNFLAGGING RADIANT DEVOTION WILL LONG BE REMEMBERED. ASSURE ARDENT PRAYERS HOLY SHRINES FOR JOY AND UPLIFTMENT HER CHERISHED SOUL ABHA KINGDOM. KINDLY EXTEND OUR fiEARTFELT CONDOLENCES DISTINGUISHED HUSBAND AND GRIEVIN G FRIENDS.
ARTEMUS LAMB
THE Bahá’í WORLD