BEATRICE OWENS ASHTON
1890--1988
When Beatrice Owens Ashton passed away in Cleveland, Ohio, United States of America,
on 8 May 1988, the Universal House of Justice cabled:
SHARE DEEP SORROW PASSING DEVOTED HANDMAIDEN BAHA'U'LLAH BEATRICE
OWENS ASHTON. IN HER TIRELESS, INCALCULABLE SERVICES FAITH SPANNING SEVEN
DECADES FROM CLOSING YEARS HEROIC AGE, SHE DREW CONSTANT INSPIRATION FROM HER
CONTACTS WITH BELOVED MASTER AND SHOGHI EFFENDI. HER EXTENSIVE TRAVELS
IN EUROPE, HER PIONEERING TO ALBERTA, CANADA, DURING TEN YEAR WORLD CRUSADE
AND LATER SERVICES AT BAHA'I WORLD CENTRE FOR RESEARCH DEPARTMENT COMBINED
WITH ALL HER NUMEROUS ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIVITIES HAVE PRODUCED LEGACY EXEMPLARY
SINGLE MINDED DEDICATION TO CAUSE TO WHICH SHE GAVE LAST MEASURE HER
EARTHLY STRENGTH. EXTEND LOVING SYMPATHY HER DEAR FAMILY. ASSURE ARDENT
PRAYERS HOLY SHRINES PROGRESS HER PRECIOUS SOUL ABHA KINGDOM.
Born in Cleveland, on 17 May 1890, to John R. Owens and Louise Benton Owens,
Beatrice attended and graduated from Hathaway Brown School in 1907 and from
Vassar College, New York, in 1911. In July 1918, she went to a new job in Urbana,
Illinois. There, in the summer heat, she was sitting on a porch opposite a forest preserve
when she saw a group of people picnicking. She was told they were Baha'is and that
"they believe that Christ has returned". She soon met them, read Paris Talks, and went
to classes taught by Dr. Jacob and Mrs. Anna Kunz. "It was a beautiful group of Baha'is
to grow in", she later said. As Baha'is did in those days, she immediately wrote to
'Abdu'l-Baha, and she received treasured replies.
When Beatrice moved to the Boston area and worked as an editorial secretary for the
Journal of Industrial Hygiene, she served on the Local Spiritual Assembly and on the
programme committee for Green Acre Baha'i School, where she met Frank Ashton.
They were married at Green Acre in August 1919. She said later in her life, "Green Acre
has always meant a great deal to me"." She went back whenever she could.
There followed a long period in which Beatrice was busy earning a living and
raising her son, John. She moved to Ohio, where she worked in university hospitals in
Cleveland doing editorial research, and then to Illinois, living in Evanston, Wilmette, and
Winnetka while she worked for Abbott Laboratories in Waukegan. She was a member
of the Local Spiritual Assemblies of the Baha'i communities in which she resided.
After World War II, Beatrice felt she could finally devote the time to Baha'i activities
that she had so longed to do, and in 1945 she was appointed by the National Spiritual
Assembly of the United States to be the international relief representative for Germany
and the Philippines.
Each summer from 1947 to 1953, Beatrice undertook two- to three-month teaching trips
for the United States European Teaching Committee, visiting Baha'i communities in
Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal,
Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland. During these travels she gave many talks, held
firesides, and presented courses she had developed on Baha'i Administration and on
the World Crusade. As she wrote in one of her reports to the ETC, "Teaching the Faith
through the Administrative Order seems to appeal to their need for a practical plan that
works".
Going back to many of the same places year after year, she could provide the Guardian
with a running account of the growth of the Faith in these countries and the problems
they were facing. As if these efforts were not enough, Beatrice was also chairman and
secretary for the publication of Volume XII of The Baha'i World, and she corresponded
extensively with the Guardian about this international record. He expressed his appreciation
by writing:
May the Almighty abundantly reward you for your truly remarkable and meritorious
efforts and service in distant fields, remove every obstacle and enable you to
win still greater victories for the Faith.
In Apri11952, she went on pilgrimage to Haifa and was enabled to meet the beloved
Guardian for the first time. After 1953, Beatrice focused her efforts
on administrative tasks in the United States: Volume XIII of The Baha'i World, the worship
programmes at the House of Worship, and the editorial committee of Baha'i News,
among other tasks. In addition to these efforts, for which she was well qualified as
an editorial assistant, she taught numerous courses at Green Acre, Louhelen, and
Geyserville Baha'i Schools in the United States, and at Beaulac, Banff, and Toronto in
Canada.
Teaching courses in Canada brought her into closer contact with the Canadian Baha'is
and when the Ten Year Crusade called for pioneers (she had then retired from Abbott
Laboratories), she volunteered to pioneer in Canada, and was sent to Lethbridge,
Alberta. During the years 1958 to 1966, while stationed in Lethbridge, she continued
teaching throughout Canada, especially her course on the Ten Year Crusade, and represented
Canada at the dedication of the House of Worship in Germany.
By 1966, Lethbridge had a Local Spiritual Assembly and Beatrice went back to European
teaching, making four trips to Norway and other European countries by 1970.
In April 1970, Beatrice again went to Haifa, where she was offered the opportunity
to use her editorial skills in the Research Department at the Baha'i World Centre. She
jumped at the chance. For two years she catalogued and indexed the Guardian's letters
and other correspondence, made frequent trips to the Baha'i Shrines, and soaked up
knowledge of the Faith from the many knowledgeable and dedicated Baha'is at the
World Centre. When, at the age of 82, she was being overtaken by poor health and had
to return to the United States, the Universal House of Justice wrote:
You have performed highly meritorious service at the World Centre and have
endeared yourself to all members of the staff here. We are deeply grateful to you.
Although Beatrice then officially "retired", her great love for the Faith drove her on to
accept work from the House of Justice that she could carry out in her apartment in
Cleveland. She compiled a subject index of Citadel of Faith and of Messages to
America, thereby enabling the House of Justice to find immediately what the Guardian
had said on many subjects. She also indexed those parts of the Writings of the Bab and
Baha'u'llah which had been translated by Shoghi Effendi. She crowned this phase of
her services by indexing The Dawn-Breakers.
By the fall of 1976 she was practically blind, and could no longer perform the services
at which she had so ardently labored for so long. But for another decade she continued
to correspond with the many devoted Baha'is she had met around the world. Their
news of the growth of the Faith sustained her in her last years.
Throughout Beatrice's teaching and administrative services to the Faith, people were
always impressed with her whole-hearted and loving devotion to the Administrative
Order, the Guardianship, and then to the Universal House of Justice. She was tireless
in her devotion, and indefatigable in her desire to do the very best she could to help
her beloved Guardian and then the House of Justice. For these reasons, the high points
of her life were the times spent in Haifa. As the Guardian wrote her in the midst of her
endeavors, " ... your share in deepening the faith and understanding of the believers
regarding the essentials of the Revelation of Baha'u'llah and its distinguishing features
has been truly outstanding".
While at the Baha'i World Centre, Beatrice worked closely with Mr. 'Ali Nakhjavani,
a member of the Universal House of Justice, and continued an extensive correspondence
with him thereafter. Mr. Nakhjavani probably knew Beatrice best in her later years of
Baha'i service. He wrote to her, "The services you are rendering are precious beyond
description", and later, "The determination and thoroughness with which you are pursuing
the work given to you by the Universal House of Justice are truly most remarkable".
And then, "I sense the vibrations of your indomitable spirit, your unwavering constancy
and your inflexible resolve to pursue nobly and courageously the path of selfless
stewardship to God's Holy Cause".
But Beatrice certainly treasured most the words of the Guardian:
May the Almighty bless abundantly and continuously your manifold, incessant,
and highly meritorious activities to enable you to enrich the record of your
splendid accomplishments in both the teaching and administrative sphere of
Baha'i service.
JOHN ASHTON