In Memoriam 1992-1997/Edythe Mae MacArthur

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EDYTHE MAE MACARTHUR Knight of Bahá’u’lláh 1906—1994

(( thank God for my parents,” wrote

Edythe MacArthur, “for their legacy of physical strength, mental determination and an inbred pioneering spirit.” Edythe entered this world on May 15, 1906, in Lavenham, Manitoba, Canada, one of seven children born to Adelia Rose Ganton and David Sherman Milligan.

Edythe’s parents were evangelical Christians, and from an early age she consciously searched for a Faith that would be compatible with her own questing spirit and provide answers to her searching mind. Edythe related in an interview with the editors of the Canadian Ba/ad’z’ NEWJ that she Felt that she had become a Bahá’í without knowing it, when she was twelve years old. She was at a Christian revival meeting and was deeply stirred by the thought that there had to be a more profound and broader way to be of service to the world than by standing up and being “saved.”

She attended public schools in Fesserton and Coldwater, Ontario, before enrolling in Nurse’s College in Toronto. She also attended the Toronto Business College.

She married Merlin Ramsay MacArthur on June 25, 1929. “My husband,” Edythe explained, “was of ‘the old time religion’; [he] viewed it [the Bahá’í Faith] with askance.” Merlin died in 1944, and there were no children born of the union.

In 1943 Edythe was introduced to the Faith by her sister, Doris Milligan Richardson,87 and she declared sometime the following year.

From the time of her declaration, Edythe was always at the disposition of the

87 See “In Memoriam,” 7713 Balad’z’lVorld, vol. XVII, pp. 410—11.

Edythe A’I/Ie Mm/lw/mr

needs of the Cause, her life exemplifying the following prayer of Bahá’u’lláh:

Make me ready, in all circumstances, O my Lord, to serve Thee and to set myself towards the adored sanctuary of Thy Revelation and of Thy Beauty. If it be Thy pleasure, make me to grow as a tender herb in the meadows of Thy grace, that the gentle winds of Thy will may stir me up and bend me into conformity with Thy pleasure, in such wise that my movement and my stillness may be wholly directed by Thee.“

In Canada she helped form the first Local Spiritual Assemblies in no less than five localities in Ontario (Scarborough, Kingston, Welland, Ajax, and Bowmanville) and in Calgary, Alberta. Shelalso served as a pioneer in St. Johns and Labrador City in Newfoundland and Labrador; Dartmouth, Nova Scotia; Yellowknife,

83 Prayer: and Meditation: (Wilmette: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1987, 2008 printing), sec. CL.

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Northwest Territories; Red Lake, Alberta; and in several other localities in Ontario.

One city to which she pioneered is not mentioned in the list above—Ottawa. She later described her experience there as “a miserable flop."

I became ill to the point of being useless—with loneliness. Perhaps [it was] a natural reaction to one who hasn’t realized [the] results of suffering a recent bereavement. I left for home after a three-day stay, arriving just moments before the passing of my very precious father. I have often wondered, was it loneliness or pure guidance? This, I do know, through the Mercy of God, this experience of loneliness was of great importance and bounty, for I never suffered to that extent of loneliness again. It was an emotional cleansing.

It was also an experience that prepared her for her next venture.

At long last, it was 1953, and we who were able to attend (by hook or crook) the Chicago International Bahá’í Conference were on our way . . . Some never to return the same as they had arrived . . . The day of the conference came when Rúḥíyyih Rabbani [the Hand of the Cause Amatu’I—Baha Rt’rhiyyih Khánum] was to read, out loud, the prepared paper (by Shoghi EFFendi) and list of global (virgin) pioneer territories that were to be settled and occupied by Bahá’í believers as soon as possible. This was a beautiful and tremendous challenge.

My Spiritual Mother (my sister Doris Richardson) signed immediater—she to Grand Manan Island, East Coast of Canada, and I to the Queen Charlotte Islands, West Coast of Canada. John Robarts, with whom

we registered, coined a phrase, “we had covered the water Fronts.”

In 1953 both Edythe and her sister received the distinction of becoming Knights of Baha’u’llah.

“I learned isolation,” she wrote oflife on the Queen Charlotte Islands, where her nearest neighbor was four miles away. “My daily visitors were mostly black bears, coons, chicken hawks and herds of deer.” But Edythe made a discovery: “This Queen Charlotte Island was not only special, but especially special. On its land there is one of the greatest and most widely known Canadian Indian tribes—the Haida.”

Other pioneers joined her in the months that followed, and a Bahá’í group was established. When she felt it was secure, she wrote to the Guardian about pioneering to South Africa. “His reply,” she writes, “was one of the most valued letters of my life.”

I had pioneered in Canada from coast to coast and Felt myself to be a wellworn “citizen of the world” until I experienced my last view of Canada, late [one] evening on board ship as we sailed out to sea headed directly for South Africa, with the tears streaming down my face wondering ifI would ever see my homeland again. Oh, that I had known at that moment ofwhat a tremendous bounty lay in store in that far—offland with untold rewarding faces waiting to be discovered.

The garment ofwords couldn’t possibly contain what passion I feel for this land, Africa, and its people. The love, the tragedies one experiences on that part of the earth’s surface, is engraved for all time within the habitation of the heart. We formed the first LSA in Capetown. I pioneered to Windhoek,

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SW. Africa. There, I was on the “treason list” as a possible suspect as one believing in the “brotherhood of man.” I was a Bahá’í—sitter (as John R. [Robarts] named me) in Zululand for a year and a half. It was here I learned the African is Closer to knowing God, and is prepared, listening and waiting for the “return of a Redeemer.” It was a bit startling to realize that here on this Continent [North America] we are still to be convinced [of] there being a God. Our noonday prayer is a constant reminder. With the African, it is a reality. My heart bled when I left Africa.”

Early in 1958 Edythe returned to Canada to care for her aging mother, and in time she returned to the Queen Charlotte Islands.

Edythe attended the first Bahá’í World Congress in London in 1963, made her pilgrimage to the World Centre in 1969, and attended the Oceanic and Continental Conference in Reykjavik, Iceland, in 1971.

In 1979 she moved to Bowmanville, Ontario, to assist in the formation of the first Local Assembly there. She described it as a “home base.” “After having Bowmanville as my legal and permanent address all these years, [I realized] I had made a complete pioneering circle to at long last . . . make up ‘pioneer residence’ in my own hometown . . . to say nothing of perfect timing.” At another time she wrote, “I’m not too happy meeting my own dust. But never fear, there is a purpose.”

Edythe MacArthur entered the Abhá Kingdom on April 3, 1994. Hearing of her passing the Universal House ofjustice wrote to the National Assembly of Canada on April 12:

89 “The Story of Edythe MacArthur,” Canadian Babzi’z’Nezw, August, 1964, p. 4.

SHARE YOUR KEEN SENSE LOSS IN PASSING EDYTHE MACARTHUR, DEDICATED FOLLOWER BAHA’U’LLAH AND DEVOTED SERVANT HIS CAUSE.

HER WIDE—RANGING PIONEERING SERVICES SOUTHERN AFRICA AND MANY REGIONS CANADA CROWNED BY BELOVED GUARDIAN’S DESIGNATION OF HER KNIGHT BAHA’U’LLAH FOR QUEEN CHARLOTTE ISLANDS.

FERVENTLY PRAYING HOLY SHRINES PROGRESS HER RADIANT SOUL IN ALL WORLDS OF GOD.

From memair; ofEdyt/Je MacArthur and information compiled by Roger White