Registry of Early Canadian Believers
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Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Will C. van den Hoonaard, Registry of Early Canadian Believers, bahai-library.com.
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Registry of Early Canadian Believers

Will C. van den Hoonaard

1987-03

The project grew out of a need by researchers, biographers, and laypeople
to develop a master list of all early Canadian Bahá'ís from 1893,
the inception of the Faith in Canada, to 1944, marking the first Centenary of
the Bahá'í Faith. The Registry contains the names of 333
individuals.

The Registry is organized around information most likely to be sought on
early Bahá'ís. The paper discusses the nature of sources
consulted and a number of unique methodological problems.

Finally, the paper presents some initial findings of the Registry and
discusses the relevance of the Registry for Bahá'í scholarship
and historical writing.

Background

The growing interest in Canadian Bahá'í scholarship since
the establishment of the Association for Bahá'í Studies in 1975
has not been matched with the development of empirical and historical materials
on the early Canadian Bahá'í Community. We conceive the years
between 1893, when the Bahá'í Faith was introduced into Canada,
and 1944 which marked the first Centenary of the Faith, as constituting the
"early" years of the Canadian Bahá'í Community.
The lack of such materials has become particularly acute when the author,
as Social Science Editor of A Short Encyclopedia of the Bahá'í
Faith, tried to compile a series of about 35 articles on Canadian
Bahá'í history. While the institutional aspects of this history
has been somewhat documented already, the human hand of Bahá'í
Canadian history remains known only to the few remaining individuals who had
played a part in that history. Even for these individuals, however, there are
many lapses of memory and detailed knowledge of their own company.
As Social Science Editor of the Encyclopedia I saw the absolute
need to compile a Registry of these early believers which scholars and
biographers could profitably explore with the knowledge that only the best
possible sources were used to collect the information for the Registry. The
project got underway in October 1986 and is expected to be completed during the
Summer of 1987.
Parameters of the data

While I strove to include as much information of each individual as
possible, I realized that the following components should constitute the
minimum amount of information:
1. Names (first, maiden, last);

2. Titles (Dr., Miss, etc.);

3. Place and date of declaration of his or her Faith, or enrollment in the
Bahá'í community;

4. Earliest and last known date in Canada (which may or may not coincide
with date of declaration or of death);

5. Name of foremost community associated with that individual;

6. Annotations provided mainly by interviews with early believers;

7. A listing of sources consulted for each of the above items of
information to guide researchers and biographers.
More recently, I have started to collect occupational data on the early
believers.

Sources Consulted

The Registry is notable for the wide range of sources consulted, many
hitherto unknown or relatively unexplored. These include archival materials,
unpublished documents, published accounts, and oral histories.
The Bahá'í National Archives of the United States in
Wilmette, and those of Canada in Thornhill have yielded approximately 10,000
pages of primary materials. The most important of these include the Corinne
True Papers, the Alfred E. Lunt Collection, the Windust Papers, and scores of
regional histories written before 1944. Mr. Roger Dahl who also has an
interest in the development of a Registry, has provided a good measure of
assistance in the project.
While the archival materials are found in a few restricted areas,
unpublished documents come from a great variety of sources, both institutional
and individual. In some instances, early believers have been asked to present
talks at Bahá'í Summer Schools and the like; we are fortunate
that some have taken the effort of putting their talk to paper. With the
renewed interest in Bahá'í scholarship, Canada, and the United
States in particular, has seen the rise of local historians who possess at
least a great deal of enthusiasm, often a rare ability to feret out improbable
facts, and only occasionally an inability to understand the use of documented
facts. All this will develeop in good time.
Many Bahá'ís are most familiar with published accounts. The
Registry is consulting approximately 300 titles for all references to early
Canadian Bahá'ís. This category includes biographies, published
letters from Shoghi Effendi, Guardian of the Bahá'í Faith, and
certainly Bahá'í journals: Bahá'í News,
Bahá'í Canada (and its predecessor, Canadian
Bahá'í News), Star of the West,
Bahá'í Magazine, to list some of the more important
ones.

Oral histories constitute the fourth source of information. The author
has already begun a process of seeking out early believers, to secure not only
oral histories, but also to direct specific questions related to a tentative
Registry. While only a very few were able to provide a great deal of fresh
information, virtually all of these believers provided some new data which,
together with other such believers, will constitute a fairly complete Registry.
When the Registry achieves a niveau of accuracy and reliability, the revised
list will once again be sent to all of these believers for additional
comments.

Methodological Problems

Methodological problems in developing the Registry center around two chief
areas: (1) individual biography, and (2) the varying conditions of the early
Canadian Bahá'í Community.
Every historian has encountered the problem of the traditional position of
women. The search for the identity of Mrs. John Thomas is universal. Early
accounts, as was customary in those days, would be satisfied with no more
detailed description of Mrs. Thomas. Many of the early Bahá'í
accounts reflect this style of biographical referencing. A remarried woman
may, in fact, prop up three times in such accounts. First, as a trammeled
single woman, then as a blushing bride of a first husband, finally as a deadpan
wife of a second husband after the first husband's demise. Many of those who
were called in by the author to help with the Registry were asked to identify
women.
The second, important, problem concerns the nature of early
Bahá'í communities in Canada (as elsewhere). It revolves around
the question of "who is a Bahá'í?" Often, sympathetic friends of
the Bahá'í Faith took part in almost as many Bahá'í
functions as Bahá'ís themselves, receiving due credit in
Bahá'í publications. In addition, the process of declaring
oneself a Bahá'í was not only less formal than today, but the
leadtime between "declaration" and "enrollment in the Bahá'í
community" was also considerably longer. Some believers simply considered
themselves a believer and criteria were quite loose. Other never felt the need
to enroll in the Bahá'í community, although they certainly had
declared.
Then, as so often happens, the most active members of the community are
more "newsworthy" than the inactive ones. What possible route can we employ to
uncover the latter ones? Oral interviews have proven to be one of the best
ways.

Some Findings

Almost from the very beginning of the project, we were forced to recognize
that much of the accepted knowledge of the early Canadian Bahá'ís
had to be revised. First, there were a great deal more believers than official
accounts indicated. A good example is the information which appears in a 1987
publication of the National Spiritual Assembly, which herebelow is compared to
the numbers according to the Registry:

Table 1

A Comparison of the Number of Early
Believers in Canada

Publication Registry Difference
1893
1902
1910
1920
1930
1935
1945

The proportion of the 333 names in the Registry for 1893 and 1944
indicate the following proportion of men and women (see Table 2)

Table 2
Percentage of men and women in
the Registry and in the contemporary Bahá'í community

Men Women
Registry
Bahá'í Community
(1987)

We were also able to give a profile of the civil status of many early
believers, which is found in Table 3.

Table 3
Percentage of believers in various
Civil Status categories

Men Women
Married
Single
Unable to determine

We also determined the residence of the early believers. While it is true
that some have managed to live in different communities, they have often
indicated the place where they declared their belief as the "home" community.
Others did not identify themselves as such and we have therefore, for
statistical purposes only, divided them across their respective communities.
Table 4 and 5 indicate residence by community and by province respectively,
compared to current statistics.

Table 4
Percentage Distribution of Early Believers
by Major "Home" Community

Registry Bahá'í Community (1987)

Greater Montreal
Vancouver
Saint John, N.B.
Toronto
Hamilton
All other

Total % 100 % 100 %

Table 5
Percentage Distribution of Early Believers
by Major Provinces

Registry Bahá'í Community (1987)
Québec
Ontario
B.C.
New Brunswick
Manitoba
Saskatchewan
Alberta
Nova Scotia
Newfoundland
Prince Edward Island

Total % 100 % 100 %

Impact of the Registry

It is too early to clearly delineate implications of the Registry in the
study of the Canadian Bahá'í Community. However, the following
few issues come to our mind. First, various ethnic, language, and regional
groups in Canada may derive some benefit from exploring the Registry. How well
is it known that that the first Black Canadian Bahá'í was Eliot
of Montreal (variously spelled as "Elliott")? Does French Canada
Bahá'í History begin with the declaration of ........? whose main
contribution was to the Australian Bahá'í Community in the form
of a permanent summer school? How well is it known that Bahá'ís
could be found in Canada's peripheral areas, such as New Brunswick?
The practical importance of the Registry, however, has already been
clearly evidenced by the use to which it has been put by the still-living early
believers. Not infrequently, the Registry has allowed these believers to
remember and reflect more accurately on the life and works which they have
built up for us with their erstwhile soulmates. In that sense, the author has
more than once hoped that such believers will be encouraged to either start
writing their biographies, or to complete them as quickly as possible, in time
for the first Centenary of the Faith in Canada in 1993.

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-- Registry of Early Canadian Believers (Used by permission of the curator)