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OWEN BATTRICK
1919—1995
DEEPLY GRIEVED PASSING OWEN BATTRICK, WHO RENDERED DEVOTED SERVICES CAUSE FOUR DECADES. HIS ENTHUSIASTIC COMMITMENT PROPAGATION FAITH EUROPE AUSTRALASIA DISTINGUISHED BY PIONEERING NEW CALEDONIA LOYALTY ISLANDS, DEDICATION ADVANCEMENT CAUSE FRENCH—SPEAKING AREAS PACIFIC. RECALL HIS HIGHLY VALUED PARTICIPATION ADMINISTRATIVE WORK FAITH INCLUDING MEMBERSHIP NATIONAL SPIRITUAL ASSEMBLIES OF BRITISH ISLES, SOUTHWEST PACIFIC, NEW ZEALAND, CROWNED SERVICE NINE YEARS MEMBER AUSTRALASIAN BOARD COUNSELLORS. WILL LONG BE REMEMBERED RADIANT SPIRIT, EXEMPLARY DEDICATION WORK CAUSE TO VERY LAST BREATH. KINDLY CONVEY WIFE FAMILY CONDOLENCES, ASSURANCE
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212 THE BAHA’I’ WORLD
PRAYERS PROGRESS HIS LUMINOUS SOUL. ASKING NATIONAL SPIRITUAL ASSEMBLIES AUSTRALIA SAMOA HOLD MEMORIAL GATHERINGS MALHRIQU’L-AflK/XRS.
Universal House ofjustiee April 17, 1995
wen Battrick Was born in the village
of Pinner, a suburb of London, on December 6, 1919, the third of four children born to Alfred and Olive Battrick. Although he grew up during the Depression, it did not touch the family as his father rose to a position ofsome consequence in the insurance business. As his grandfather had been Head Coachman t0 the Bishop onork and in the choir onork Minster, Owen’s father had an overdose of church—going while he was growing up, and though bringing his own children up with a high moral code, he only obliged them to go to church three times a year.
As a Child, Owen was afflicted with a middle—ear infection that left him with reduced hearing. His son Richard recalled that the hearing aids he wore were put to great effect entertaining grandchildren and many others. “Pod,” as he was known to those close to him, which incidentally stood for “Poor Old Dad,” would have the hearing aid placed against the children’s foreheads while they held their fingers in their ears. He would then explain to the enraptured children about cranial bone structure.
After receiving an excellent education at Merchant Taylors’ Public School, hejoined the army in 1939, gained a commission as second lieutenant in the Staffordshire Yeomanry, and was posted to Palestine. He served as a navigator for his battalion in the North African Campaign during the battle that defeated “the Desert Fox,” Field
Marshal Rommel, and later he served as a captain in operational intelligence assigned to Operation Overlord, the invasion of Normandy.
Returning to work for an insurance company in London and finding it was not for him, he decided to go to the Lausanne Hotel School in Switzerland. There he met Jeannette Wayman Rodgers, 3 war widow with a two—year—old daughter Ilona. In April 1947 they were married, and for the next two years, they managed a hotel in North Wales. They then started their own company, Reading Caterers, in the south of England. Reading Caterers operated England’s first tea bar, which served two thousand customers a day before branching out into food reform and becoming the largest health food store and vegetarian restaurant in the south of England. During these years they had a son, Richard, and a daughter, Sarah.
Owen and Jeannette were becoming concerned about their growing spiritual lethargy, and their interest in finding solutions t0 pressing social questions led them to seek diligently for the truth. They investigated various groups and sects, and as their search seemed fruitless, they grew dispirited. One day Owen visited a church, and finding himself quite alone, he passionately called out to God for guidance. Not long afterwards, he noticed a book in the local library about life after death. Again visiting the church, he apologized to God for having spoken to Him in such a forthright manner but again affirmed his dilemma. Back in the library he again picked up the book, and in the footnotes Owen read the words “Bahá’í Faith" for the first time. Other books increased his interest in the Faith.
Two months later, Beryl de Gruchy, a pioneer to Reading, advertised a public
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IN MEMORIAM 1992—1997 213
Owen Bath‘irk
meeting. Although neither Owen nor Jeannette was able to attend, Owen managed to drop in while en route to an appointment. Jeannette had exhorted him to get there early because she felt that there would be thousands in attendance, but when he opened the door he found only four people, all of them Bahá’ís! “It’s all right, I believe, but I can’t stay," said Owen, and he hurriedly bought ten books and left for his appointment. He and Jeannette accepted the Faith and were delighted when the next public meeting, held in the Town Hall, was attended by 120 people.
The Battricks were the third married couple to declare simultaneously in the British Bahá’í Community. In those early days they were deepened by Hasan Balyuzi, Ian Semple, and David Hofman, then members of the National Spiritual Assembly. Within two months ofdeclaring, Owen was serving on a Bath“ committee along with Marion Hofman and Dan jordan.
It was the beginning of the Ten Year Crusade, and the Battricks threw themselves into the service of Baha’u’llah with total commitment. In the fourth week of February 1957, they went on pilgrimage. The beloved Guardian, Shoghi Effendi, advised them to teach in the pivotal centers of the United Kingdom: London, Edinburgh, Cardiff, Belfast, and Dublin, and also in the islands of the North Sea, until the end of the Ten Year Crusade. He intimated that they could then go to the Pacific. The Battricks returned to England with a galvanized sense of purpose and direction and did indeed teach in all these centers, except for the Faroe Islands in the North Sea, a task fulfilled by their daughter Ilona. That year Owen became a member of the National Spiritual Assembly of the United Kingdom in a by-election.
At the end of the Ten Year Crusade, Owen earned a teaching degree in geography, and the Battricks sold their home and businesses at a loss and moved to the Pacific. En route to New Caledonia, Owen stopped in the Solomon Islands to help Knights of Baha’u’llah Alvin and Gertrude Blum.‘31 Within two weeks he had taken charge of their businesses, had been elected to the Regional Spiritual Assembly of the South Pacific Islands (which he served as secretary), had taken up responsibilities as the sole staff member of the national office, and had been appointed to the National Teaching Committee. Overwhelmed, he prayed a lot, adjusted, survived, and served.
While Owen was in the Solomon Islands, Jeanette, with her two youngest children, sailed for New Zealand. She was elected secretary of the National Spiritual Assembly ofNew Zealand at Riḍván 1968. She traveled extensively throughout the
13' See Gertrude Blum, pp. 65—70.
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214 THE Bahá’í WORLD
North Island, especially conscious of the need to teach the Maori people. Having helped the Blums, Owen went on to New Caledonia where there was a small and loving Bahá’í community. He managed to find work, a small flat in which to house his family, and a car that would enable them to explore their new country. “Bahá’u’lláh will always take care of your needs,” Owen would say with a smile, “a piece of bread, a scrape of butter, no jam.” After working several different jobs during their first years in New Caledonia, he found a job with the Shell Oil Company that he kept for some time.
In 1971 the National Assembly of the Solomon Islands was formed and the seat of the Regional Spiritual Assembly of the South Pacific—which maintained a jurisdiction over the French—speaking islands of French Polynesia, New Caledonia, and New Hebrides—was transferred from Honiara to Noumea. By 1973 the economic crisis forced the government to replace working expatriates with French nationals, but the Battricks were granted permission to stay in New Caledonia as they had means of support. 'Ihey moved to the goal area of Ouvéa, an outer island where they built their little garage/house, which they felt had a quietness that restored the soul. Every month they flew to Noumea for National Assembly meetings. Nine months later, Owen was appointed as an Auxiliary Board member.
After seven years of remission, the cancer that first struck Jeannette in the late 19605 reappeared, forcing them to go to New Zealand for her medical treatment. Owen continued to travel from New Zealand to New Caledonia to carry on his Auxiliary Board work. In 1975 he received a cable from the Universal House ofjustice
appointing him to the Continental Board of Counsellors for Australasia. Jeannette served as his secretary while undergoing rigorous chemotherapy. She passed away on October IO, 1978.132 In 1980 Owen married June Rittet.
Released from the Board of Counsellors in 1986, he was elected to the New Zealand National Assembly for two years and served as treasurer For one. In August 1987 he sufFeted heart abnormalities and was fitted with a pacemaker.
When his service to the Bahá’í institutions ended, he offered himself as a traveling teacher to French—speaking Europe, French Polynesia, the islands of the Indian Ocean, and the Caribbean. His 1994 trip to England was glorious; he took part in summer schools in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland and in a teaching project in Liverpool. At every opportunity he shared his knowledge of Bahá’í administration and his love for the Guardian. He held classes on 77112 Dispensation Of Babd’u’lla’k and met with old friends.
His son Richard recalled that during the last few years of his life, Owen enjoyed his family, and they were privileged to spend some quality time with him. “We consulted with him in the depths of the night about our lives, our children, out work and business ventures; and he poured forth such love to us.’7
His last project was a fifteen—day trip to Tahiti on behalf of the National Spiritual Assembly of Hawaii in 1995. Owen, with his extensive knowledge of the area, and Ron Pratt, a former pioneer to Tahiti, made a perfect team. They arrived in Tahiti on April 8, and during the next week they
”'2 See “In Memoriam," 777:: 811/1117 World, vol. XVII, pp. 47o~71.
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spent their days visiting the friends and their evenings in holding deepenings at their hotel, assisting the preparations for the reelection of the Spiritual Assembly of Papeete. Ron said, “The friends all showed a deep affection for Owen and called him ‘their angel’.” Owen and Ron were also searching for a suitable site on which to build a Ḥaẓíratu’l-Quds.
After attending a deepening on the evening of April 13, Owen awoke in the early hours of the next morning feeling dizzy but slept again. He became gravely ill a few hours later and quickly passed away shortly after 4:00 AM on the fourteenth. He was seventy—five years old. His wife June described him as having been “in a place that he loved, doing what he loved best—serving his Lord.”
June, along with their three children and friends, gathered with the local community for the funeral that took place in the cemetery in Papeete where the first Bahá’í Of Tahiti is buried.
The National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of New Zealand wrote of “being comforted by the knowledge that Owen passed to the Abhá Kingdom in full harness, as he would have wanted to do. He had a particular love of the French-speaking territories in the Pacific, and his ability to contribute to their progress only hours before his unexpected passing is a befitting tribute to his worthy endeavors in the pathway of service.”
From an article (7)1 june Ritter Ban‘rz'ck and Richard Battrick
