In Memoriam 1992-1997/Susan McKechnie

SUSAN MCKECHNIE

1901—1994

n November 22, 1948, the National

Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the British Isles cabled the Guardian that Ada Williams from Manchester had pioneered to Glasgow thereby opening to the Faith the west of Scotland. A month later Adib and Zarin Taherzadeh from Iran followed Ada, and on March 26, 1949, Susan McKechnie became the first Glaswegian to accept the Faith.

Susan was born on May 4, 1901. Some six years earlier her sister, Annie Parker, had been sent by the British Government to Canada as a child to work as a farm laborer. Annie settled permanently in Canada, married William Harrigan, and in 1937 became a Bahá’í. Annie began to trace her natural family in Scotland

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and through correspondence introduced them to the Bahá’í Faith. She eventually wrote to the British National Spiritual Assembly asking for someone to contact her sister Susan. When Glasgow became a goal town during the British Six Year Plan (1944—1950), Susan was visited by a traveling teacher and National Spiritual Assembly member, David Hofman. She was also visited by some of the pioneers and later by traveling teachers from the first goal town in Scotland—Edinburgh. Among the latter was Luṭfu’lláh Ḥakím, who became a regular visitor, and who said how very much “at home” he felt with the family.

From the outset Susan showed tremendous courage and dedication. Living in a sprawling council estate that was strictly divided into Catholic and Protestant areas, on the day following her declaration she placed a poster in the window of her house inviting inquiries about the Faith. There followed a period of intense teaching activity. Her sons Alex and Thomas accepted

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the Faith in April 1950—Alexander being the first Bahá’í youth in Scotland. When Dick Backwell pioneered from Edinburgh to Glasgow, the formation of the Assembly and the triumphant conclusion of the Six Year Plan were assured. Susan and her son Thomas were among the native Scots on that first Assembly.

Susan’s brother, Tommy Parker, was concerned that his two sisters, Susan and Annie, had become Bahá’ís and had divided the strongly Catholic family. He consulted his priest and taught his children to pray for the souls of their aunts. His daughter Ann, about five years old, told her teachers, and they and the priest all promised to pray for them. Tommy, however, despite weak eyesight and with only gaslight in the house, studied Bahá’í books, sometimes for four or five hours at night, standing under the light so as to be able to read. A final altercation between Tommy and the priest was so loud that it woke Ann from her sleep. Tommy explained to her that the Bahá’í teachings were true, and the next day he told Susan he wanted to become a Bahá’í. This was in 1952. Tommy and Susan were very close, and there was great joy when the Parkers moved from their tenement room to a council house in 1955. Susan helped with the move, and Kathleen Hornell, a Bahá’í traveling teacher, came with a Wedgwood tea set as a housewarming present, which Susan and Tommy were able to use when they invited their neighbors in to tell them about the Faith.

Susan and her family, badly hit by unemployment and living in a small council house, continued to extend loving hospitality to all the Bahá’ís who came to Glasgow, and she was indefatigable in her dedicated service to the Faith, without which Glasgow would not have developed in the way it did. Her loving spirit attracted many to the Faith in those early years.

From her home it was some six to seven miles to Glasgow, and frequently Susan did not have enough money for the bus fare to attend the meetings in the center of town, and it became a subject of debate whether she, her daughter, and niece Ann should walk there and take the bus back. She never failed to attend the meetings.

Although her sister, Annie Harrigan, had introduced Susan to the Faith in the later 19405, they did not meet until 1957, when Susan traveled to Canada.

When she was on her deathbed, Susan’s son Frank read Bahá’í prayers and her favorite Hidden “70721: to her. She passed away on May 2, 1994, at the age of ninety—thtee. She was buried with a most moving and dignified funeral in the Alexandria Cemetery, Dunbartonshire, near the banks of Loch Lomond. On May 4 the Universal House of Justice sent its condolences to the National Assembly of the United Kingdom:

SADDENED NEWS PASSING MAIDSERVANT BAHA’U’LLAH, SUSAN MCKECHNIE. SHE CONTRIBUTED GREATLY ESTABLISHMENT Bahá’í COMMUNITY GLASGOW EARLY YEARS BRITISH 51x YEAR PLAN CULMINATING FORMATION FIRST SPIRITUAL ASSEMBLY THAT CITY. THE SERVICES SHE RENDERED WITH SELFLESS AND LOVING DEVOTION ARE FONDLY REMEMBERED. PRAYING HOLY SHRINES PROGRESS HER RADIANT SOUL. CONVEY LOVING SYMPATHY MEMBERS HER FAMILY.

From an article by Phillip Haimwart/J