Bahá’í World/Volume 20/Frederick Laws
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FREDERICK LAWS
Knight of Bahá’u’lláh
1913—1987
Many years of exemplary Bahá’í service began for Frederick Laws in 1935, when he decided to enter an essay contest called “World Peace and Understanding”:
Try as he might, he could not come to a conclusion in his essay how this could be accomplished considering the problem of so many languages. His essay was never mailed. At about this time, Frederick’s mother noticed an advertisement in a Seattle,
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Washington, newspaper for an Esperanto class and she brought it to his attention.
The teacher of the class was Lorrol Jackson, a very active and well-loved Bahá’í, who in later years pioneered to Hawaii. Through Lorrol, Frederick became a Bahá’í and proficient enough in Esperanto to take over her class when she left to pioneer to Spokane, Washington, in 1936.
Frederick was born on 21 December 1913 in Pineridge, Alabama. While teaching the Esperanto class which had led him to the Faith, he met Elizabeth Stanley,1 who became a Bahá’í through him in August of 1937. He had been a Bahá’í only 11 weeks when they first met. In spite of a 25 year age difference, they fell in love and married in June of 1939 and began a long and happy life in tandem, serving the Faith, beginning in the Seattle area where Beth served on the Local Spiritual Assembly in 1938.
In answer to calls for pioneers, Frederick and Beth decided in 1940 to go to Chile. However, because of World War II, the Chilean Consul would not grant Visas to them. Instead, they went to San Diego, California, where they had been advised that the Bahá’í community needed administrative assistance. They stayed there until after the war, when they returned to Washington State.
In 1948, Frederick began to study at Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon, and graduated in 1953 with a bachelor of science degree in education. Beth also took some classes there, learning to paint, which allowed her to create some lovely pictures of places to which they later pioneered.
With a degree to work with, they responded to the Guardian’s call for pioneers to Africa and their long-awaited adventure began. On 10 March 1953 they set sail, with their car and trailer, on the Farrel Lines’ African Sun, arriving at Mombasa, Kenya, about six weeks later.
1 See In Memoriam for Elizabeth Laws, The Bahá’í' a
World, V01. XVII, p. 459.
IN MEMORIAM
They arrived in Nairobi in May 1953 and felt immediately at home. The climate was ideal: cool nights and pleasant days. They found the Kenyans very receptive to the Faith. They also made friends with Indians living in Nairobi, enabling them to introduce the Faith to that segment of the population as well.
In August 1953, Frederick secured a teaching position at the Kabete Trade and Technical School eight miles west of Nairobi, and they began to live on the campus. He was able to do sheet metal work there, which was what he liked to do most, next to his Bahá’í work, so he was very happy Five months after arriving in Kenya, Frederick and Beth were given another assignment and were off on a new adventure, leaving for Basutoland on 26 September 1953. During this 3,100 mile trek their trailer broke down four times, but with temporary repairs they managed to get to Teyateyaneng, where they stayed in a hotel until they decided how to proceed. Those pioneers who had reached their goal countries by 15 October 1953 were designated Knights of Baha’u’llah by the Guardian, so Frederick and Beth were both “knighted” for being the first Bahá’ís in Basutoland.
By December, they were in Maseru, where they settled in a cottage waiting to see if they would be asked to remain there or go on to Northern Rhodesia or Southwest Africa. They grew a garden while there.
By August 1954, they had received permission from the chief of the Basuto Village of Chadwick’s Halt to move into the Village to teach the Faith. Eventually they moved back to the Government Reserve in Maseru, and by December 1954, they had obtained a permit allowing them to stay in Basutoland until 31 January 1956 so they rented a house and Frederick set up a small workshop.
Almost every week Frederick and Beth had Visitors from J oharmesburg to help with the teaching work in Basutoland. The Africans were now beginning to feel that all the
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Bahá’ís they met were exceptional people and they believed the love of God had made them that way. Soon there were seventeen believers in three locations and four more centers had been introduced to the Faith.
By April 1955, there were close to seventy believers in Basutoland, including two eXministers, with seven Assemblies formed. During their stay in Basutoland, Frederick and Beth were adopted into the Crocodyle (Ruling) Clan of the Basuto, making them honorary Basuto.
Frederick was never given a permit to work in Basutoland, in spite of repeated attempts, so in May 1956 they reluctantly left for Johannesburg. They wrote to the Guardian to ask where in Africa he thought they might be of service and he suggested West Africa. The Hands of the Cause of God Mfisa Banani and Paul Haney were both present at the Johannesburg Convention, and after consultation it was decided Frederick and Beth should proceed to Gambia, where 300 believers and six Assemblies were in need of administrative assistance.
Unfortunately their stay in Bathhurst, Gambia, was cut short as they were not allowed to stay either as Visitors or to teach the Faith. They applied for a six month pass to help train the Assemblies but had to leave while waiting for a reply. The pass was never issued.
By July 1956 they were in Monrovia, Liberia, and were planning to settle there with Frederick possibly going into partnership with George and Bessie Washington. These Bahá’ís had become naturalized citizens of Liberia and were permitted to hold 400 acres of property on which they planned to build a trade school, and some of which was already growing fruits and vegetables. This partnership was short lived so our travellers went on to ZarZar where F rederick procured a position with Brown and Blauvelt, a consulting engineering firm with head offices in New York. The company was to do the engineering, survey and supervisory inspection work on the building of a bridge
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and its access road. Frederick set up the field office in ZarZar as well as the river camp.
They remained at this camp until they decided to return to the United States in late 1956.
The couple was active in the Seattle area until 1964, when they pioneered to the Omaha Indian Reservation in Macy, Nebraska. They were not able to live in the center designated for them due to flooding, so the teaching work became a weekend affair while Frederick attended Wayne State Teachers’ College to do graduate work for a teaching degree. Unable to find a teaching position after he finished school, they were forced to leave the area and return to Seatt1e, where Frederick found a position as drafting engineer at General Electric.
In 1976, Frederick retired from General Electric and in April of that year they set off again for Africa, stopping in Haifa on the way to Visit the Bahá’í Holy Places and the friends there. They proceeded to Moshi, Tanzania, ,and upon arrival there in May they sent for some of their household items. They felt at home with Mt. Kilimanjaro
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Visible 20 miles to the north and the people were friendly to the Bahá’ís.
Frederick was appointed to the National Properties Committee, for which he tried to facilitate a lease on some property on which to build a centre. He also attended the Nairobi International Bahá’í Conference in October 1976. This was a big success, with nearly 1,000 Africans participating and more than 50 countries represented.
In spite of repeated attempts to obtain a permanent residence pass valid for three years, Frederick and Beth were only able to get extensions of three months at a time. This uncertainty, plus an injured ankle, became so hard on Beth, who longed to be more settled in her advancing years, that her health suffered and they decided to return to the United States in December 1976, after having the crates, which had just reached them, turned around unopened.
They returned to Washington State, and in April 1977 pioneered to Wapato, on the Yakima Indian Reservation, where they served until Beth departed this world for the Abhá Kingdom on 24 June 1978, just three months short of reaching her 90th birthday. She was the first Bahá’í to be buried on the Yakima Reservation.
Left on his own, Frederick began to move about from community to community wherever he was needed. In the fall of 1979, Frederick and his sister, Alberta MacCartney, went on pilgrimage.
In January 1982, he had his first operation for a brain tumour from which he recovered sufficiently to continue his travelling, going as far as San Diego. However, the brain tumour overtook him once more and he never really recovered from a second operation. He finally joined his beloved Beth on 16 November 1987. He was buried in Sequim, Washington.
JEAN LAWS