Harlan Ober
Harlan Ober | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | October 6, 1881 Beverly, Massachussetts, U.S.A. |
| Died | July 20, 1962 Pretoria, Gauteng, South Africa |
| NSA member | Bahá’í Temple Unity 1915 - 1920 US & Canada 1938 - 1941 |
| ABM | Africa 1957 - 1962 |
| Signature |  |
Harlan Foster Ober (October 6, 1881 - July 20, 1962) was an American Bahá'í who traveled to India to teach the Faith, and later served on the National Spiritual Assembly of the United States and Canada. Towards the end of his life he pioneered to Africa.
Biography[edit]
Ober was born to George Oliver Ober, a shoe salesman, and Marcena Harmon Ober, a teacher before marriage, in Massachusetts in 1881. He received a law degree from Northeastern University in Boston, and also studied at Harvard University, graduating with a B. A. degree in 1905.
Ober became a Bahá'í at Green Acre in 1905.[1] In 1906 he was selected to accompany Hooper Harris on a trip to teach the Faith in India, following the passing of Lua Getsinger's brother who had been the first choice. He and Hooper departed Hoboken, New Jersey, in November 1906 and traveled to the Holy Land via Naples. They were welcomed by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in the Holy Land, who reportedly said the following regarding teaching the Faith in India to them, with Laura Barney acting as translator:
"I will now speak to you about India. In India people believe that God is like the sea and man is like a drop in the sea, or that God is like the warp and man is like the woof of this coat. But the Bahá'ís believe that God is like the sun and man is like a mirror facing the sun."[2]
They traveled across India, teaching the Faith, with Persian Bahá'ís Ibn-i-Abhar and Mírzá Mahmúd-i-Zarqání.
When ‘Abdu’l-Bahá visited America in 1912 he suggested that Ober marry Grace Robarts and they both agreed to the marriage with Ober travelling to New York from Boston and proposing in Central Park after being informed of the suggestion by Lua Getsinger. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá performed the marriage ceremony in His room in New York on July 17, 1912, and Howard Colby Ives later performed a legal ceremony.[3]
In 1915 Ober was elected to the Bahá’í Temple Unity, a national administrative body for the religion in the United States, and he served on it for the next five years, being elected Secretary of the body in 1918 and President in 1919. He and Grace gave a room of their home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to be used as the office of the National Teaching Committee, and in November 1919 the first Teaching Bulletin, a periodical which later became Bahá’í News, was issued from it. He served on the Teaching Committee into the late 1920's.[4] In 1920 he made a second pilgrimage to the Holy Land with his wife, and when returning to America they visited Germany, where they gave a talk at Leipzig at which Hermann Grossmann was introduced to the Faith, and England, where they met Shoghi Effendi who was attending Oxford University.
Ober and Grace were involved with organizing the first classes at the Louhelen Bahá’í School which opened in 1931.[5] In 1938 he was elected to the National Spiritual Assembly of the United States and Canada and he served on it until 1941. Grace passed away in 1938, leaving him widowed, and he received a letter from Shoghi Effendi, an excerpt:
"The vigor, the zest and fidelity with which you are discharging your duties, in spite of the severe and crushing blow you have recently sustained, heighten my admiration for you and reinforce the ties of brotherly affection that knit our hearts together."[6]
He remarried to Dr. Elizabeth Kidder in 1941. That year he was not re-elected to the National Assembly, and Shoghi Effendi encouraged him to engage more intensely in teaching the Faith. In 1946 he secured authorization for Local Spiritual Assemblies to conduct Bahá'í marriages in the state of Massachusetts.
In 1956 Ober made a third pilgrimage with his second wife, and met with the Guardian. After returning from pilgrimage they made preparations to pioneer to South Africa, settling in Pretoria in December that year. In October the following year he was appointed as an Auxiliary Board member for Protection for Africa. In November 1957 he attended the Funeral of the Guardian in London.
Ober passed in South Africa in 1962. The Hands of the Cause in the Holy Land issued the following statement:
"Deepest sympathy passing dear Harlan Ober, devoted distinguished American believer both Heroic Formative Ages Faith. Early global travels, membership Temple Unity Board and later National Assembly, historic services Africa pioneer Board member unforgettable. Assure loving prayers Shrine. Handsfaith."[7]
References[edit]
- Obituary published in Bahá'í World, Vol. 13, p 866-871
- ↑ https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/138823877/harlan-foster-ober
- ↑ The Bahá’í World, An International Record. (1970). Bahá’í World Centre. Haifa. Volume 13 (1954-1963), Pg(s) 869. View as PDF.
- ↑ Reginald Grant Barrow, Mother’s Stories: Stories of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and Early Believers told by Muriel Ives Barrow Newhall to her son, p. 20
- ↑ Baha'i News Letter (1928). National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States and Canada. No 26, Pg(s) 2. View as PDF.
- ↑ https://bahai.works/Baha%27i_News/Issue_622/Text#pg7
- ↑ The Bahá’í World, An International Record. (1970). Bahá’í World Centre. Haifa. Volume 13 (1954-1963), Pg(s) 870. View as PDF.
- ↑ The Bahá’í World, An International Record. (1970). Bahá’í World Centre. Haifa. Volume 13 (1954-1963), Pg(s) 870. View as PDF.
