Bahá’í World/Volume 20/Helen Pilkington Bishop
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HELEN PILKINGTON BISHOP
1905—1990
After a public lecture which Helen Bishop delivered on the Cause of Bahá’u’lláh at the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) in Los Angeles on 23 February 1939, she received a letter from the organization’s executive secretary:
As a novice listener-observer, I was profoundly impressed with your presentation. The rhetorical and spiritual content; magnetic warmth; all blended admirably to create a message of unlimited spiritual value. We somewhat regretted our inadequate background in the Bahá’í Faith, as we speculated for a richer one upon which to register your words.
That statement appropriately characterized what made Helen so effective as a teacher of the Faith. She possessed a marvelous intellect, was well versed in philosophy, psychology, literature and art, and had a profound interest in religion. Though she wrote articles for World Order and The Bahá’í' World and a most remarkable Introduction to T 118 Book of Certitude When the beloved Shoghi Effendi translated it into English, she did not cherish the challenge of writing. She once wrote to the Guardian (20 August 1946): “Francis Bacon said ‘Speaking will bring forth
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a brilliant man, but writing an exact man.’ When I confront an audience, words come and then flow from me, but When I take a pen, the words do not come easily or please me either.” She was a “platform speaker” par excellence.
Helen was born in Mazatlan, Mexico, on 19 July 1905 Her father, Guy Pilkington, was an American who traced his ancestry to one who had fought at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. Her mother, Maria, was a Mexican who was a descendant of a Spanish Viceroy. Helen was the third of six surviving children.
She attended a convent school, but her father took her out because he feared that she would become a nun. She loved to read and “wept over Anna Karenina and Daniel Deronda” when she was eleven. She remained an avid reader throughout her life.
The family moved to the United States, and it was on the eve of the Master’s ascené sion that Helen for the first time heard of the New Dispensation from Orcella ReXford at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco. But the “true beginning of her Valley of Search” was in 1925—her 20th year—when “in response to the Great Announcement” she made her declaration. She was taught by the George Latimer family of Portland, Oregon, and soon had the privilege of meeting in the same city other outstanding Bahá’ís such as May Maxwell, Louis Gregory, Horace Holley and Roy Wilhelm.
Louis Gregory wrote to her in Portland
from Seattle, Washington, on 7 June 1926:
My dear little sister...1t has surely been my good fortune to see one so illuminated at so tender an age as is yours. God has been infinitely kind to imbue you with His knowledge, and you show your gratitude by your wish to inspire and help others to the pathway of all beauteous Light.
In July 1927 Helen married Charles Reed Bishop (born 24 October 1889), a member of one of the most distinguished Hawaiian families, and it was Charles who proposed that his bride attend Reed College in Portland.
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In September 1929 Helen enrolled. Already she had begun her correspondence with the beloved Guardian, and consulted with him about her thesis on the Bahá’í Faith. When she sent her thesis to him, she received a letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi stating, “It is hoped that all Bahá’í students will follow the noble example you have set before them...” (Letter dated 6 August 1933)
In December 1933, Shoghi Effendi suggested that the Bishops go from Portland to Geneva, Switzerland, and that Helen assist Mrs. Emogene Hoagg in the International Bahá’í Bureau in that city. “You are just the right person who is needed now that the Bureau is acquiring an important international status in the Administration.” (Letter written on behalf of the Guardian dated 23 December 1933)
Meanwhile, the Bishops were given permission for pilgrimage. In January 1934 they left for the East Coast of the United States, and on St. Valentine’s Day (14 February) they sailed on the Conti di Savoia for Haifa. Among other passengers on board was Chaim Weizman, the future President of Israel.
The image of the Guardian and the memory of that pilgrimage never faded from Helen’s mind. To Alfred Hunt, in Portland, she wrote:
It is a great experience to go to Haifa, and one changes one’s point of View on many matters. The Guardian is an example of how intellect can serve the spirit in a manner we in the West have never known... I have never heard him recite an incident in which he is the major figure... This may sound very naive but the point is that Shoghi Effendi simply refutes all those theories with which our academies are subjected that every ego is trying merely to maximate itself... His speech is rapid and his English is stunning; when he speaks the hours pass timelessly... Again and again he seems to convey to one that the Cause of Baha’u’llah Will
reach its aim and that we have only to be
superlatively faithful and to be obedient ‘
and active...
From 1934 to late 1937, Helen was in charge of the International Bahá’í Bureau in Geneva. It had been established to coordinate Bahá’í activities and establish the Cause in Geneva, but after more than nine years of continued support, the Bureau had failed to achieve its goal; no Assembly, no group of genuinely interested people was formed. By sending Helen to Geneva, the Guardian wanted to simplify the status of the Bureau; no longer was it to be an auxiliary center to Haifa. In a letter written on behalf of the Guardian dated 13 June 1934, Helen was asked to “help in making the Bureau a powerful and effective machinery for coordinating the activities of the Faith in Europe”. She was to travel and teach outside of Geneva, Visit various Bahá’í centers in Europe, particularly the Balkans, Central Europe, Germany and the Northern Countries. The Bureau was to be a center for distribution of information and literature about the Faith.
Helen began her task immediately and in earnest by Visiting Bahá’ís in the Balkans and Germany. In 1934 the National Socialist Party began ruling Germany, but as yet the teaching of the Faith was not totally outlawed. She had helped the Bahá’ís of Berlin to receive permission from the city’s authorities to hold local meetings, and in the spring of 1935 she and Charles attended the German Bahá’í Convention. But soon the government’s policies changed radically. Police observers were accompanying Helen wherever she was to give a lecture, and in Frankfurt the police cancelled her speaking engagements when she refused to sign the article excluding “non-Aryans” from the gatherings and from all communications. By late 1935 all Bahá’í meetings were closed. A letter written on behalf of the Guardian held comforting words for Helen:
In fact, the more obstacles develop in number and in strength, the firmer your
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faith should become in the saoredness and Vital importance of the mission you have been ca11ed upon to fulfil for the Cause in Germany. (29 September 1935)
In the fall of 1936, Helen Visited the Scandinavian countries. In the summer of the same year, she represented the Faith at the World Congress of Faiths held in Great Britain and sent a detailed report of its proceedings to Shoghi Effendi. He responded: “I know of no one better qualified to write such an interesting report”, and he asked Helen to write an article on the same subject. The report was published in T he Bahá’í World, Vol. VII.
Helen spent much of the year 1937 in England, travelling and teaching With great success. Mark Tobey was, at the time, a resident teacher in Torquay, and With her help, soon there was an Assembly there.
Charles, however, never felt comfortable in Europe, and made repeated trips back to the United States. By the summer of 1937, he decided to return to America, and Helen followed him in the fall. She informed the Guardian of her intention, and a letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi said, “deplore this quite sudden and unexpected turning point in the career of your international services to the Faith”. The Guardian himself added his “deepest gratitude”, and expressed his appreciation for the “sacrifices you have so patientIy and courageously home during these years...” (18 July 1937). Helen left England on 30 October 1937.
Shoghi Effendi’s secretary, on his behalf, wrote to Helen:
...he cannot but deeply grieve over your departure from Europe Where you have accomplished, during those years, services that are truly unforgettable and wmthy of every admiration and praise... He is fully aware of the circumstances that have forced you to return to America... For it is not so much the place where one works that matters. The essential is the
quality of work one is able to attain... In
Helen Bishop
America, friends W111 rejoice in your
return and surely will benefit immensely
from the presence in their midst of such a...devoted and loyal teacher as you.
(16 November 1937)
In 1939, the Bishops were at home for only four months, travelling the rest of the time to teach the Faith. It took its toll, but they never complained. “A little travel”, Helen wrote to Mark Tobey (14 July 1939), “makes one reluctant to settle anywhere; and I fancy a great deal of travel makes one Willing to settle anywhere”.
In 1941, the Bishops went to Mexico on behalf of the National Spiritual Assembly of the United States and Canada.
During World War II, they spent most of their time in Pasadena, Califomia, where Helen Visited all the surrounding Bahá’í communities and sent food and clothing packages to the friends in England.
In 1944, the new method for the election of the members of the National Spiritual Assembly—the hoIding of State Conventions and the sending of state delegates to the National Convention—was inaugurated. The
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first State Convention of California was held at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles on 9 April, and 22 delegates were elected. Helen was one of the delegates, and she was one of the two speakers who addressed the public meeting in Wilmette during the centennial anniversary of the Declaration of the Báb. For the centenary volume of The Bahá’í World, she also—on a recommendation by the Guardian—wrote “The Beloved Returns”.
From Wilmette, Helen wrote a long and detailed letter to Shoghi Effendi Which included a fascinating report of her encounter with Sir Alexander Lindsay, Master of Balliol College, who had been the Guardian’s tutor while he was at Oxford. In December 1943, Professor Lindsay gave a talk called “Democracy and Common Man” in California at the invitation of Athenaeum, an affiliation of the patrons and patronesses of California Institute of Technology. After the talk and during his reception, Helen and Sir Alexander engaged in a remarkable intellectual dialogue, for Helen a prelude to asking questions regarding the Guardian. After more than 20 years, he, indeed, remembered Shoghi Effendi very well.
Sir Alexander told Helen that his young student’s “idea of education was to discover somebody whose opinions he valued and then question him. When Shoghi Effendi got his answers, he wrote them all in a small black book”. Professor Lindsay then related:
When I had posted my schedule, Shoghi Effendi came to me asking, ‘What do you have between seven and half past eight?’ ‘Why man,’ I cried, ‘I dine!’ ‘Oh,’ said Shoghi Effendi, with obvious disappointment, ‘but must you have all that time?’ I had not found so much eagerness for knowledge at Oxford! So I .x-gave him another quarter-hour and went with less dinner. So it was I suffered for him.
Then the professor commented to Helen: “Quite soon after that, we lost him. He left us to become the head of a religion. What a
pity!”
THE BAHA’l WORLD
The Bishops continued their extensive
teaching trips in the United States and Canada ‘
where there was always great demand for Helen’s services as a public speaker, teacher and conductor of seminars and deepening classes. A letter written on behalf of the Guardian dated 6 January 1949 stated that it was always Shoghi Effendi’s hope that “...you both will be able to continue your teaching trips which have invariably been a real and much needed assistance to the centers you Visit”.
Age did not slow down Helen’s service to the Cause. For example, in 1966 one of her teaching trips included Visits to Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. She considered that journey “one of the most rewarding” of all her teaching efforts. She was interviewed by members of the press, radio and television.
Charles passed away on 9 July 1967. He had been a caring, loving, and supportive husband. Living on his family trust income, he had devoted all of his days to the service of Baha’u’llah. They had no ohidren, and since Helen had never learned to drive a car, by necessity she had to limit her teaching trips. Yet, even in her 608 and 708 she conducted classes in various Bahá’í schools in the West Coast and elsewhere.
When she had embraced the Faith, Louis Gregory had written to her (26 June 1927):
Guide my dear child, the young and the old, the wise and foolish, the guilty and just. Transform their lives by the Elixir of Life. If you lived for thousands of years in this world you could not select a work that is fraught with more far reaching and eternally happy results.
Thus she lived her life.
Helen passed away on 23 December 1990. She left a rich legacy for the Cause of Baha’u’llah.
NOSRATOLLAH RASSEKH (N usratu’llah Rasihh)