Tending the Garden/Final journeys

FINAL JOURNEYS

The loss of Rosemary after 46 years of marriage was a tremendous shock. Emeric decided in the spring to make the trip that he and Rosemary had originally planned together, through the southern United States to Florida. He also accepted an invitation to visit Rowland and Vivian Estall in Antigua,

and Edith and Al Segen in Dominica.

On my return flight | had to wait in Antigua for a change of planes. It was a hot day and there was no air-conditioning in the airport. | entered the bar and asked for a tomato juice. The bartender answered that he could sell it only with alcohol... | then asked for orange juice, but before the bartender could answer, a young man, sitting next to me at the counter, gave $2 to the waiter and told him to give me what | wanted.

| protested, of course, but the man insisted. He was from Georgia ... now was studying at the medical school in St. Thomas as he wanted to become a doctor. As | was finishing my very small glass of tomato juice, he again gave the bartender another $2 for another glass. Now | was really embarrassed since he would not let me pay. Then, out of the blue, without any relation to what we have discussed, he said as a very positive statement: “You have lost your wife recently.” | was, of course, nonplussed and asked him how did he know. He only smiled and then said: “Your wife wants you to be very happy.’ His plane was then called and he left.

| never experienced anything like this before. Whatever the source of his information, that was the kind of message, | knew, Rosemary would have wanted to send me. This experience had a deep and lasting effect on me.

One month after my return to Guadalajara, Priscilla Blake brought a friend of hers, Donya Vroclava Knox, to her first Baha'i study class. | was speaking... We exchanged afterwards, inevitably, a few words. The next day, | was to speak in another home in Spanish. Since Donya had shown interest in the Faith, | hoped she would come. Priscilla brought her again. After my talk we had an interesting conversation, and as she had to leave, Donya invited me to her house to continue our conversation. She told me afterwards that she had no other idea in her mind than to get more information about the [Page 216]216 FINAL JOURNEYS

Baha'i Faith from this man, who seemed to know what he was talking about.!

On September 27th, 1980, Donya and Emeric were married and shared an eventful ten years together. First they hosted Ruhiyyih Khanum on her 1981 trip to Guadalajara. Then Donya was initiated into the rigours of travel teaching across Canada. Later, they made several trips abroad.

Emeric describes the trip across Canada:

After attending the National Convention in Montreal, we made a tour across Canada giving 44 lectures. Donya spoke about the Montessori system, having owned and directed a Montessori school [for many years]. The Canadian Baha'is who had known Rosemary and me for so many years, looked at Donya at first as a strange phenomenon; but they warmed up to her rapidly and embraced her with that love which had the unmistakable Baha'i stamp on it.’

I was nervous meeting Donya for the first time, but she immediately charmed me, as she did the whole family. She had an assertive personality, tempered with understanding and humour. She lived life with zest, and was a perfect companion for Emeric’s last years. The strange story of the student from Georgia helped me to think of Donya as a gift from Rosemary.

A 1982 voyage overseas included meetings with old friends, first during a stop in New York City, then in Bucharest.

While waiting in line on Times Square for a ticket, a lady in front of me told me that the only play she wanted to see is “Master Harold and the Boys’. It was about Africa but she did not know which country nor the name of the playwright. | then asked, “Could it be Athol Fugard?”...My guess was right besides Fugard was directing the play. | then bought tickets for the play ... and after [the performance] went back stage and met Athol Fugard, whom | had known in Port Elizabeth, and with whom | did some mountain climbing. The rejoicing after 15 years was great.?

..In Bucharest we visited my old friend Josef Tumureanu whom | had not seen for 55 years. We had been corresponding with each other all these years, that is more years than with any other member of my family. During the war years we lost track of [Page 217]FINAL JOURNEYS 217

each other. [Some years later] the indomitable Josef sent me a letter c/o the Baha'is of Canada, Toronto. This letter was delivered to the Baha'i National Office, which was in Toronto, and they reforwarded it to me in South Africa.‘

On April 21, | had to give a talk in Spanish in Guadalajara. There were about 40, including children, not one North American. | told them that 12 years before, there were six pioneers of whom only two spoke a little Spanish, about six Mexicans, mostly old people who could not read. All activities were arranged only by the Gringos, generally talks and prayers were in English. ... [Now] the Mexicans arrange everything with some assistance from two Persian families. This is progress.

| feel increasingly that my days of giving talks are coming to an end. | rejoice

leaving this to the younger generation with their new ideas and fresh approach.’ By \&

1990

‘There were other adventures, a trip to China, attendance at the dedication of the Indian Bahai Temple, a last visit to the Holy Land. By the spring of 1990, because of health factors, Donya and Emeric moved to Victoria, British Columbia. Donya had been ill and her condition worsened. In hope of better care she went to a health clinic operated by a relative in Florida. It was here that she passed away in early August, 1990. In a copy that Emeric kept of a last letter to his friend, Rahiyyih Khanum, he wrote:

August 26, 1990

| am very sad to have to inform you that Donya passed away on August the third, nineteen days before her eightieth birthday...

Donya loved Rosemary’s prayer books with her markings and drawings of flowers, and used them to the end. We both felt ten years ago that she brought us together. She often spoke of Rosemary, sometimes in desperation, for not having made a better man out of me. Nina Tinnian Robarts writes to me: “Can imagine Rosemary and Donya up there having a wonderful time sharing their great love for you, and—smoothing your path now, you are certainly going to be well looked after.” [Page 218]218 FINAL JOURNEYS

When | said goodbye to your Mother over fifty years ago in New York (having been the last Canadian Baha’ to have seen her alive) she asked me to pray for her. After her passing | said a prayer for her every morning for the last fifty years. When my niece Norma died at childbirth | included her name in the same prayer. When Rosemary passed away | added her name. Now it is Donya. ...

Next summer | might go to Hungary and Rumania, besides British Columbia.

| find world events very encouraging and inspiring.°

Not long after Donya’s passing, Emeric attended a fireside given by two young Canadian pioneers to Romania. He was deeply moved by the recent development of the Faith in his homeland. As he listened for the first time to a Baha'i prayer being recited in Romanian, he leaned forward, asking, “Please say it louder.” He did not want to miss one word. Immediately, he made the commitment to visit Romania the following spring.

Robert Mazibuko writes about contacting Emeric who happened to be visiting his brother Ernest, in Ontario:

In the beginning of August I again felt worried that I was not hearing enough [from Emeric]. I ... called my old friend, Ernest, on whom I could rely in finding Emeric! Ernest replied that Emeric was with him at his home and asked me to hold on! Emeric’s first question was “How did you know I was here?”—there was pleasure in his voice. I told him I had not known but had decided to call his brother to find out. He then reassured me things were fine. I then told him to please look after himself and for the first time Emeric replied so obediently with, “Yes Robert, I will!” It really sounded like a son and his father when the father had got on in years — which was the case!”

Emeric’s life was punctuated by dreams. One day, while visiting with Harry and Giselle Liedtke, he described a recent dream. A radiant figure dressed in white was calling him, using a childhood nickname: “Imre, come...” Soon after, there were complications following a minor operation, and on September 5, 1990, he died.

The news spread quickly. A group of Canadian Bahd@is travelling in

what was still then the Soviet Union heard the sad news. Several members had [Page 219]FINAL JOURNEYS 219

known and loved him. I think it would have pleased him that on a train moving through the sunlit Russian countryside, prayers were said for this valiant soldier of Baha lah.

‘The morning of the funeral I went to pick up my father. I found him quietly weeping. Later at the gravesite, a native friend chanted with a drum as an eagle circled in the blue sky overhead.

Years before, as Shoghi Effendi’s Ten Year Crusade was being launched, Emeric wrote to Jamie and Gail Bond who had recently pioneered to Keewatin in Canada’s far north. Emeric and Rosemary had just decided to go to Africa on the other side of the earth. Emeric concluded the letter with these words:

November 23, 1953

We are planning to sail from New York February 18th and will many a day pray for a cool breeze from the Arctic Bay.

This is a grand world. It may look large to some, but it is a small place and we live on it only once fora short while.

With love from both of us®

From the Universal House of Justice came this message:

HEARTS GRIEVED PASSING VETERAN TEACHER PROMOTER FAITH EMERIC SALA. HIS WORLDWIDE TRAVELS, HIS HISTORIC EFFORTS IN REARING ADMINISTRATIVE STRUCTURE CANADIAN BAHA'I COMMUNITY, HIS SCHOLARLY WORK, HIS ENTHUSIASM, ARDOUR AND STEADFASTNESS WILL ALWAYS BE REMEMBERED. PRAYING HOLY SHRINES PROGRESS HIS NOBLE SOUL. CONVEY FAMILY FRIENDS DEEPEST LOVING SYMPATHY. UNIVERSAL HOUSE OF JUSTICE

By \&