Bahá’í World/Volume 20/Rose Hawthorne
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ROSE HAWTHORNE
1882-1988
Rose Hawthorne, born Rose Elizabeth Brooks, was one of nine surviving children born to Margaret and David Brooks, farmers from Booleroo Centre, South Australia. Born on 1 August 1882, Rose astonished her elders while still a young girl by walking down the street in a skirt Which displayed her ankles. This small episode, recounted as she neared the age of 100, was indicative of her desire to break with past traditions, particularly those which inhibited the advancement of women.
The Brooks family was one of strong Christian belief, and Rose’s father regularly recited Bible passages to his children. He frequently read aloud and pondered over the passage, “The Glory of God will cover the earth, even as the waters cover the sea”. Most of the Brooks children retained their interest in religion as they matured, although Rose, who married Will Hawthorne when she was 26 and moved to his property adjoining the township of Yaninee on the Eyre Peninsula, had given up all hope in the established religious and secular leaders. The loss of a brother, Norman, in the first World War, contributed greatly to the family’s disillusionment With the condition of the world.
In about 1930, Rose’s brother David began attending meetings of “New Thought”, and Rose herself went to a meeting on the New Thought platform addressed by Clara Dunn. She returned home to tell her sister Hilda of this woman who had spoken of a man thrown into prison. Lucy Trueman, who was also attending the New Thought meetings at that time, told Hilda that an American woman, Keith Ransom-Kehler, was about to Visit Adelaide to speak further about the Bahá’í religion. Thus, although they already knew of the Bahá’í Faith from Clara Dunn, it was principally through Keith RansomKehler’s lecture tour of 1931 that Rose and Will Hawthorne, Rose’s sister Hilda, Mrs.
IN MEMORIAM 915
Lucy Trueman, and eventually the remainder of the Brooks family, became Bahá’ís.
Hilda Brooks, who lived in Adelaide, soon became a member of the Adelaide Assembly, and when the first National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Australia and New Zealand was formed in 1934, she was elected as its first secretary. Rose and Will Hawthorne had travelled with Hilda to attend the historic first National Convention in Sydney, and were among the few Adelaide Bahá’ís present.
Although not wealthy, the Hawthornes were sufficiently comfortable financially to undertake inter—state teaching trips. Early in 1939 they had the privilege of accompanying Martha Root from Adelaide on her lecturing Visits to Melbourne and Hobart. Miss Root had arrived in Adelaide from Perth on 28 January 1939. Afflicted with the cancer which was to claim her life before year’s end, she was barely able to complete her schedule of public appearances. Only the kindness and care shown her by such Bahá’ís as Stanley Bolton, Hi1da Brooks, and Rose and Will Hawthorne permitted her to continue. Shoghi Effendi later thanked the Hawthornes for the kindness which sustained her during this period. It was Martha Root’s heroic example that sustained Rose in her subsequent years of ceaseless effort to promote the teachings in which she so whole-heartedly believed.
Eventually, Rose and Will retired to the Adelaide suburb of Millswood; they had never had any children. Over a period of many years they donated Bahá’í books to the library at Adelaide University, and to interested seekers in Adelaide and e1sewhere. Throughout the 19408, Rose contributed to the functioning of the Adelaide community. She was not a public speaker as was her sister. She preferred to offer practical assistance, such as being responsible for the organisation of the Feasts, social activities, and the Bahá’í library.
Through the many years that Hilda Brooks served as secretary to the National
Assembly, Rose acted as her loyal and competent assistant. At first she fulfilled this function informally but the importance of her role was later recognised by the National Assembly, which officially appointed her as clerical assistant to the National Secretary. Throughout the same period Rose worked with her sister to carry out significant and effective teaching activities.
In 1941, for instance, Rose accompanied Charlotte Moffitt and Hilda Brooks to Brisbane to undertake the first teaching work there since the Dunns had lived in Brisbane more than a decade previously. The three women stayed one month in Brisbane, and Hilda and Rose organised public meetings in Melbourne on both the forward and return j ourneys, in April and June. Two years later, in September 1943, Rose and Hilda visited Broken Hill, where they again met up with Mrs. Moffitt, and with Miss Gladys Moody, for another teaching campaign.
In 1944, Rose assisted in Adelaide community’s planning for celebrations marking the Centenary of the Declaration of the Báb. She continued to hold firesides and to travel following her husband’s passing in July 1947.
In addition to working with her sister, and with other Bahá’í friends, Rose maintained her individual teaching efforts. For a period of eight years in the 19503 Rose travelled regularly to Clare, a small country town far from Adelaide, to hold public meetings. Departing Adelaide on Thursday night laden with books, pamphlets, crockery and cakes, she conducted public meetings and returned home on Sunday evenings. Often such meetings occuired in the Mayor’s parlour, which Rose rented for the occasions. The meetings were often chaired by a prominent non-Bahá’í businessman of the town whom Rose had befriended. Although audiences never fell below four or five, and sometimes rose to seventeen or eighteen, the tangible results were few. Australian country towns were notoriously conservative, and the influence of the churches remained strong.
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Rose Hawthorne
When the editor of Clare’s paper, the Northern Argus, printed a lecture which had been delivered by Hilda (who was now married to Ewart Thomas), he was confronted in his office by the clerics of the town’s seven Christian denominations. Their intolerance so outraged him that he informed Rose he would print “anything Mrs. Thomas cared to give him”. No fewer than 15 articles subsequently appeared in the paper, provoking continued persecution from an incensed body of clergymen. In March 1956, Rose received a cable from Shoghi Effendi which read “Assure Feiyent Prayers Shoghi”.
Before retiring from the Northern Argus, the paper’s editor printed in instalments the entire work by George Townshend entitled Christ and Bahd ’u ’lldlz~a feat due entirely to Rose’s persistent efforts in the town, and to her ability to convey to others the absolute conviction of her faith. This success, and the opposition it provoked, caused the Hands of the Cause residing in the Holy Land to state in a letter to Rose in October 1958:
The wide-spread opposition which you have encountered from orthodox elements
THE BAHA’l WORLD
is exactly what the Master and the
beloved Guardian told us would happen
when the Cause emerged from obscurity.
These attacks will not halt the spread of
i the Faith; on the contrary, they will hasten the day when the people of the world will in large numbers accept the Message of Bahá’u’lláh.
Together with Ewart and Hilda Thomas, Rose travelled to teach in other South Australian country towns, including Quorn, Port Lincoln, and Yaninee. When the original Adelaide community evolved into smaller communities based on municipal boundaries, Rose became a founding member of the Unley community.
Rose continued to serve the Faith right up to the end of her life. When she began to go blind, she would ask people to read to her, always from the Bahá’í Writings, introducing them to the Teachings that way. Rose remained alert and a source of wisdom to the Adelaide Bahá’ís. She died 7 July 1988, at the age of 105.
GRAHAM HASSALL