From: ChesleyJ@hfx001.ns.istc.ca (John Chesley)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.bahai
Subject: Someone who touched our lives
Date: 11 Jan 93 13:38:52 GMT
Article-I.D.: qiclab.1993Jan25.093636.22956
Organization: Industry Science & Technology Canada

A tribute to the late Doris McKay as printed in Canadian Baha'i
News, Vol. 5, No. 8; January 1993.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

                         Doris McKay

     The radiant spirit of Doris McKay, one of Canada's senior
Baha'i pioneers, ascended to the next world on November 30, 1992,
at the home of Bob and Shirley Donnelly in Charlottetown, P.E.I.

     Doris and her husband Willard became Baha'is in 1925 in
Geneva, N.Y., taught by Howard and Mabel Colby Ives and Harlan and
Grace Ober.  Active in racial amity work with Louis Gregory, co-
workers of Dorothy Baker, Martha Root, May Maxwell, Horace Holley,
and numerous other early American Baha'is, Doris and Willard
assisted in the formation of Spiritual Assemblies in Memphis,
Tenn., Jamestown, N.Y., Hamilton, Ont., and Moncton, N.B.  They
undertook many travelling teaching trips, both together and
separately, and Doris served as the chair of the U.S. National
Publishing Committee, as secretary of the National Teaching
Committee, and as member of the Outline Bureau.  Both Doris and
Willard taught many summer schools at Green Acre, and her synopsis
of The Dawnbreakers, done when the volume was first published, has
been a useful teaching tool for more than fifty years.  Among the
many articles published in Baha'i World paying tribute to Martha
Root on her passing, Doris's intimate portrait of that heroine was
at once stirring and profoundly moving.

     In the late 1930's, Doris and Willard began to make travelling
teaching trips to the eastern part of Canada, and they eventually
pioneered to Canada in the early 1940s, first to Moncton, and then
in 1942 to Prince Edward Island.  Doris described the circumstances
of their move in her memoirs, Fires in Many Hearts, published in
1991:

          "The objectives of the Seven Year Plan wanted a local
     Spiritual Assembly in every state and province of the United
     States and Canada.  In July of 1943 the National Teaching
     Committee, then far off on the American West Coast, realized
     that Prince Edward Island was, of itself, a province.  In
     accordance with the Plan, it would have to have an Assembly by
     Ridvan '44.  While at breakfast with Grace and Irving Geary,
     the wire arrived: `Would the McKays leave Moncton and re-
     pioneer to P.E.I. at the earliest possible date?'  A letter
     followed with the news that the Guardian had cabled the
     National Assembly saying that, due to the insularity of the
     people, P.E.I. was a most difficult place to teach.  The
     letter posed the question:  would we settle there, planning to
     remain, if necessary, the rest of our lives?  We wired back.
     `Yes, we would.'"


     And they did.  Willard passed away in the late 1960's, and now
Doris, after inspiring generations of Baha'is through her luminous
example as a stalwart pioneer and a radiant, deepened soul, has
gone at age 98, to be reunited with him in the Abha Kingdom.

     The Universal House of Justice wrote, on December 4, 1992:

          "...Her years of devoted service will long be remembered
     by the countless believers whose lives were touched by her
     manifold activities on behalf of the Cause.  Her steadfastness
     and obedience to the beloved Guardian in remaining at her
     pioneer post will serve as a shining example for generations
     to come...."


********************************End of Excerpt***************
Respectfully submitted by some of "the countless believers whose
lives were touched" by Doris,


John Chesley
Sharon Chesley-Smith
and Leah

chesleyj@hfx001.ns.istc.ca