In Memoriam 1992-1997/Wanita Montgomery George
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WANITA MONTGOMERY GEORGE
1906—1997
Wankel was born on June 30, 1906, into a large God—fearing Christian family on the midwestern plains of the United States. She remembered one morning sitting at the breakfast table when she was about six years ofage, and her mother remarked on an article in that day’s newspaper reporting that a man whom many believed to be the return of Christ was Visiting the United States. She recalled
her mother saying, “What if it’s true?” Looking back many decades later, it seemed that the article might have been about ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s trip to the West, and she felt blessed to have been able to follow up on her mother’s question.
When grown she had an uncommon ability to communicate with children and, like many others in the family, took an advanced degree in teaching. In that capacity she influenced many young lives over the course ofa very long career, and a number ofgratefui students kept in touch with her for the rest of her life.
In early 1957 she was living in California, and on an impulse she walked into a health food store to ask if they had something that could help a dear friend with an alcohol addiction. The woman running the store said that she did not know of any herb or vitamin that was likely to help but that she knew of religious teachings that would. She was not a Bahá’í, but she made arrangements to take Wanita to a fireside.
Wanita was deeply touched by the teachings and by the local believers, and within a few months she enrolled in the Faith. The friend for whom she had been seeking help never responded to the Writings, but Wanita and her teenage daughter, Maralynn, along with four other believers formed the first Bahá’í group of Redondo Beach and taught the Faith there. In 1959 Maraiynn graduated from secondary school, and Wanita obtained a teaching position in Honduras, and together they pioneered as participants in the Guardian’s Ten Year Crusade.
She had been eager to promote literacy and was a very active supporter of Frank Laubach’s “Each One Teach One” campaign. After becoming a believer, that same enthusiasm translated into teaching the Faith, and she did her best to mention Baha’u’llah and His principles everywhere
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she went. She was a person of great energy and busied herself praying and teaching, attending conferences and administrative meetings, holding children’s Classes, and growing fruit and vegetable seedlings to take to the tribes’ people, especially during times of Famine. Weekends and vacation periods were also full ofpurposeful activity.
Wanita was the first to organize teaching trips to the indigenous Jicaques of La Montafia de la Flor, and over the years a number of tribal elders became as clear to her as the very brothers and sisters with whom she had grown up. Though the Jicaques were her main focus, she also visited many other tribes, as well as people in ordinary villages and hamlets throughout the country. In subsequent years, as the Faith penetrated the regions, other Bahá’ís in Honduras would often report that they had Chosen some extremely remote place to take the teachings, and after the grueling trip to get there, when they began to explain about the Faith, someone in the little gathering would say, “Oh, you’re a Bahá’í! Do you know dofia Wanita?” They said that she seemed to have made her way to absolutely every settlement in the country in order to teach the Cause of God.
The trips she made over muddy mountain tracks and into the mosquito—infested jungle were often undertaken alone and were seldom easy, especially as she advanced into her sixties and seventies. On one steep mountainside the mule she was riding slipped and fell, pinning her leg underneath, but she got up and finished the journey on foot. Another time her mule Fell into a river, soaking all her clothing as well as the sleeping bag. It was night by the time she reached the next village. The people of the countryside had very few amenities but were hospitable; a family member often vacated his or her own
quarters to give a guest a place to sleep. The bed she was offered was a bare wooden frame laced across with leather thongs in an open crisscross pattern. As she was so cold in her wet clothing, and her sleeping bag unusable, she took out a few candles she had brought along, set them up on the clay floor under the bed frame, and lit them before lying down on the bare thongs. The modest heat helped her to get through the night.
Wanita was elected to the first National Spiritual Assembly ofl-londuras (1961) and served it for many years, as well as the Local Assembly of Tegucigalpa. She taught at the American School in Tegucigalpa, and she and Maralynn held weekly firesides there for years.
While traveling to Haifa as a delegate to the Second International Convention in 1968, she was in an airliner that caught fire over London, costing several fellow passengers their lives. Owing to a bad fall from the wing during the evacuation from the burning plane, she spent months in hospital with a broken pelvis and severe concussion and never fully recovered her health. She was sixty-two, and the physicians told her that she could never ride a horse again. But she was determined, and upon returning to Honduras she went back to her position in the school and to the teaching trips she made on mule or horseback.
In spite ofher indomitable spirit, growing frailties made it increasingly difficult for her to manage. She lived in the Bahá’í Center, and some of the wonderful believers in Honduras helped her to cope for a time, but after a bteak—in and unsuccessful attempts to find a live—in companion and assistant, her family encouraged her to return to California. She relented in 1981, but her heart yearned to be in Honduras.
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IN MEMORIAM 1992—1997 385
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She returned at the age of seventy—six. The following year the National Assembly of Honduras announced a special teaching Campaign among the Jicaques Indians to further her work.
Wanita’s health continued to decline, and after twenty—seven years of pioneer service she needed Full—time care. In 1986 her family helped her to settle in a convalescent hospital in Long Beach, California, where devoted Bahá’í friends helped to see to her needs.
For the next decade until her passing, she continued to speak of the teachings with those around her, and they would sometimes ask for reading material on the Faith. Her most precious possessions were her prayer book and a large photograph of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá.
She retained the deepest love for her pioneer post in Honduras and considered that her true home. Her house in Tegucigalpa was donated to the national community.
On March 23, 1997, the day after her passing, the Universal House of Justice sent the following message to the National Assemblies of the United States and Honduras:
Our hearts grieve at the passing of Wanita George, steadfast, devoted maidservant Of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh. Her long years of valiant pioneer services in Honduras have left indelible traces on the annals of the Cause of God. We fervently pray at the Holy Threshold that her radiant soul may eternally progress throughout the divine worlds.
Mamlymz Dunhzr
