Josephine Kruka

Josephine Kruka
Born	September 3, 1892 Wolverine, Michigan, USA
Died	January 7, 1971 Dayton, Ohio, USA
NSA member	Scandinavia & Finland 1957 - 1958 Finland 1962 - 1963

Aminda Josephine Kruka (September 3, 1892 - January 7, 1971) was an American Bahá’í who was the first pioneer to Finland and established the Bahá’í Faith in the country. Shoghi Effendi referred to her as the Mother of Finland. She also assisted in the establishment of the Bahá’í community of Cuba.

Biography

Kruka was born in Wolverine, Michigan, in 1892 and had six siblings. Her father was Swedish and her mother was Finnish with both having immigrated to the United States. In 1902 Kruka's father passed away and in her youth she was heavily influenced by her mothers commitment to studying the Bible and interest in the prophecies regarding the Return of Christ. Her mother did not speak English and Kruka would read her Finnish newspapers daily.

In 1918 Kruka served in France as a nurse with the Red Cross until the end of the First World War. She returned to the United States after the war and enrolled in Columbia University however she became severely ill and spent two years in a sanitarium preventing her from continuing her studies. While in the sanitarium she was introduced to the Bahá’í Faith by one of the nurses, Selma Gustafson, and became an active member of the Washington Bahá’í community. Due to ill health she would spend winters in Florida, travelling with her mother, where she actively taught the Faith.

Kruka's mother passed away in 1935 and she volunteered to pioneer to support the work of the Seven Year Plan, launched by Shoghi Effendi in 1937, and moved to Havana, Cuba in the late 1930's where she taught the Faith and English classes. She pioneered to Finland in July, 1938, at the request of Shoghi Effendi and taught in several major cities across the country with a young Finnish minister declaring through her efforts. She returned to Cuba in December, 1938, and returned to Finland on a travel teaching trip in May, 1939. The Finnish Foreign Ministry forbade her from teaching the Faith on her second trip to the country and the onset of the Second World War resulted in her being forced to return to the United States.

In the 1940's Kruka returned to Havana, Cuba, and continued to serve the Bahá’í community working with Jean Silver. In 1946 Shoghi Effendi expressed that he would like for her to return to Europe and in 1950 she pioneered again to Finland and she began spending summers in Finland and winters in Cuba from 1950 to 1956 allowing her to serve both communities. In 1957 she established her residence permanently in Finland, and that year she was elected to the inaugural National Spiritual Assembly of Scandinavia & Finland. In 1962 she was elected to the first independent National Spiritual Assembly of Finland and in 1963 she attended both the First Bahá’í World Congress and the First International Convention at which she cast a vote in the establishment of the Universal House of Justice.

In 1963 Kruka returned to the United States settling in Kokomo, Indiana, and living with her niece Rhea Akemann and she assisted in the establishment of the Local Spiritual Assembly of Kokomo. In 1967 she moved to Dayton, Ohio, where Selma Gustafson, who had introduced her to the Faith, lived and she passed away there in 1971.