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GLADYS ISABEL MCLEAN
1912—1994
ladys McLean was born on June 8,
1912, in Edmonton, Canada. She was the eldest child of George William Alexander McLean and Lily Cross, immigrants from Scotland and England.
Because of her father's experience as a youth with traveling evangelists, religion was not spoken ofin the home. However, the family led a Christian life, practicing kindness and generosity. Around 1920 they moved to San Francisco, where the seeds of Gladys’s later loves were planted. There she found her first book of poetry, a tattered, blue book that she memorized in its entirety. There she attended Christian Sunday School, and although she was reprimanded for her questions, she became an ardent Christian. While still a child she converted her best friend, who had belonged to the Jewish Faith.
In San Francisco she learned of other religions and other lands, and she wondered why the other religions were not considered to be true. She was fascinated by an old Chinese dictionary and dreamed of the Far East and of Persia. She circled the name “Iṣfahán” on the map and pronounced it over and over for its beautiful sound. In her adolescence and later life the intimations increased. At the age of sixteen she
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became deeply interested in Buddhism, and later she developed a profound respect for Islam.
After attending high school and teacher’s college in Edmonton she taught school in Bonnyville, Alberta. When she had saved enough money, Gladys toured England and Scotland on bicycle and worked for a while as a governess. Returning to Edmonton she wrote For a local radio station and aired a program entitled “From a woman’s point of view."
In 1941 she married Anthony Earnshaw. Two years later she went to Britain as a volunteer with the Victorian Order of Nurses. Returning again to Edmonton she continued her volunteer work with paraplegic veterans of the war. In 1950 she gave birth to her only child, Felicity.
Gladys had been an unusually cheerful person, but in the years following her marriage she experienced great unhappiness from which there seemed no escape. Her difficulties made her a ready seeker. Around 1944 she heard a talk given by Anita Ioas. She immediately recognized the truth in Bahá’u’lláh’s Message, but for ten years she hesitated to join. She was, in her own words, “a slow learner."
At last in 1954 following a visit by Florence Mayberry who admonished her for “sitting on the fence,” Gladys declared her faith. She continued to have a difficult life in Edmonton, and only when she moved to Victoria, British Columbia, in 1967. did she become fully active in the Faith. She began to hold Bahá’í children’s classes and to teach more effectively. She shared her new beliefs with her family whom she clearly loved and for whose welfare she cared deeply, Although she had hoped for a firmer acceptance, she was fortunate that her relatives greeted her new faith with a positive spirit. The declaration of her niece, Meredith McLean,
Gladys Isabel McLean
after her thorough independent study and an unforgettable encounter with the Hand of the Cause Tarazu’lláh Samandari, was a source of great joy for Gladys. Gladys’s mother also brought her joy; although she never formally declared, she accepted Bahá’u’lláh during a summer school in Ireland and became attached to the Bahá’í prayers.
Spiritually galvanized by the 1963 World Congress, Gladys pioneered to the suburb of View Royal and began holding regular firesides. During her stay on Vancouver Island she obtained her BA and BEd from the University of Victoria. Besides her Bahá’í activities she was an active member of the World Federalist Organization and the Indian Arts Association, of which she was president for a time and through which she became acquainted with many indigenous students.
Gladys left her home many times to Visit, travel teach, study, and pioneer. Between 1969 and 1978 she obtained a Graduate Certificate in Education for Curriculum
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Development from the University of Alberta, served on the Edmonton Local Spiritual Assembly, opened a new locality in Youngstown, Alberta, and went on the first of three pilgrimages to Israel.
In 1979 she pioneered for two years in northern Thailand, where she worked as an English teacher at Chiang Mai Teachers’ College. While in Thailand she served on the Local Spiritual Assembly of Chiang Mai and developed a number of long—iasting friendships with leaders of the community and with the young people she taught. Accompanied by a student who had embraced the Faith, Gladys taught Bahá’í children’s classes at a nearby village every Sunday. Her love for Thailand and her fervid interest in its history and culture continued to grow. Other responsibilities prevented her from remaining there, and she later wrote that the happiest days of her life were spent in Thailand.
Not long after Gladys returned to Canada, her father died. Her mother, then in her nineties, could not live alone. Gladys, in her seventies, could not bear to see her mother institutionalized so she decided to become her caregiver.
In 1984, placing her mother temporarily in a nursing home, Gladys undertook a traveling teaching trip to the Isle of Man, Thailand, Burma, Macau, Hong Kong, and Nara, Japan. It was her second visit to the Bahá’ís ofBurma for whom she had a special affection. On this occasion she was deeply concerned about the damage done to one of their Bahá’í Centers and subsequently made efforts to raise funds for its repair.
Following the passing of her mother in 1986, Gladys attended the dedication of the India Temple and then went on another teaching trip to Malaysia, Burma,
Thailand, and Japan.
While the topic of her firesides and talks during her 1984 and 1987 trips was peace and the Bahá’í Faith, the focus during her last tour was “The Global Environment as it Relates to the Bahá’í Faith." An active member of a number of environmental organizations, an ardent admirer of Richard St. Barbe Baker and John Muir, and an avid reader of their works and other writings on the environment, she equipped herselfwell. Her talks, which she typed on a little red typewriter carried everywhere, show that she meditated deeply on the relationship of the Writings of Baha’u’ilah to environmental questions. This six—month trip in 1989 took her from Hawaii to New Zealand, Australia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore7 Taiwan, and Japan and filled her with more enthusiasm and gratitude than she had ever felt before. Everywhere she found herselfsupported by Bahá’u’lláh’s blessings, and everywhere she found unprecedented interest in the Bahá’í Faith and noticed the extraordinary development of the Bahá’í institutions.
The spur of Gladys’s vitality was her love of people, with whom she had such an ease that she was able to converse even with those whose language she knew little of. She loved the diverse cultures she encountered and demonstrated it by her Visits to churches and temples of many creeds. She danced with Sufis and with the women of Gabon.
The older she grew the more active she became and the more she felt the peoples of the world to be her family. She wanted to return to Burma and contemplated ways of staying longer. Another of her wishes was to serve as a volunteer at the Indian Temple. Plans were made in 1993 to fulfill both. As the time drew closer for her trip, Gladys’s activity accelerated. During her last summer in the Kootenays she hosted an extraordinary indigenous Bahá’í institute.
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In the fall she received a group of Thai students who had driven from Alberta to Visit her, and in early November while en route for New Delhi, she toured northern Thailand.
In New Delhi her activity and joy peaked. She worked many hours daily as a guide at the Temple, meeting and conversing with visitors from all over the world and serving her Lord, side by side with her beloved Bahá’í sisters and brothers. When her days work at the Temple was over, she gave talks on “The Changing Role of Women in Society.” After being in India for nearly three months7 she went to Bangkok on her way to Burma. While getting her visa and packing small gifts to take to the friends, she became ill and asked her daughter to come from Canada to help her. Because of the seriousness of her illness, arrangements were made for her immediate flight to Edmonton and transfer to hospital, where she died nineteen days later on March 13, 1994.
During her last days she recited poetry, remembered her many loved ones, and continued to teach. She charmed the hospital staflC with her courteous, loving, thought—provoldng, and sometimes humorous words. She spoke of the great loss that results from prejudice and from the failure to show love. She talked about what she regretted most in her life~occasions when she could have, by some action, brought spiritual life to her fellows but did not.
Her funeral followed a night of high winds and early morning snowfall. It included readings and prayers in the Kootenay and Thai languages offered by people of Ethiopian, Scottish, Estonian, Persian, and Canadian backgrounds. Despite the severe cold two hundred participants drove to the graveside, where her much—loved chant of “Alláh—u—Abhzi” was sung. A message
written on behalf of the Universal House
of Justice on April 6, 1994, to the National Spiritual Assembly of Canada stated:
Mrs. McLean is particularly remembered for her tireless travels in service to the Faith, even after reaching the age of eighty.
It is fitting that, in her last months, Mrs. McLean should achieve the distinction ofbeing the oldest person yet to serve as 3 volunteer at the House of Worship in India. I—Ier example has, no doubt, already proven an inspiration to young and old alike.
The House of Justice will onet ardent and loving prayers in the Holy Shrines for the progress of the soul of Mrs. McLean and will beseech Bahá’u’lláh to comfort her
Children and grandchildren.
From an article by Felicity Enayat
