Leonora Armstrong

Leonora Holsapple Armstrong
Leonora Holsapple Armstrong
Born	Leonora Stirling Holsapple; June 23, 1895; Hudson, New York, U.S.A.
Died	October 17, 1980; Salvador, Bahia, Brazil
Counsellor	South America; 1973 - 1980
Spouse(s)	Harold Victor Armstrong ; (1887-1975)
Parent(s)	Samuel Norris Holsapple and Grace Heathcoate Stirling
	Media

Leonora Holsapple Armstrong (June 23, 1895 – October 17, 1980) was the first Bahá’í to arrive in Brazil and she is regarded as a 'Spiritual Mother of the Bahá’ís of Latin America'. She went as a pioneer to Brazil in 1921 when she was only 25 years old and due to her efforts and services for the Bahá’í Faith in Brazil, she was appointed Counsellor in 1973 by the Universal House of Justice, the supreme governing institution of the Bahá’í Faith.

Early Life[edit]

Leonora Stirling Holsapple Armstrong was born on June 23, 1895, in the little town of Hudson, New York. Her father was Samuel Norris Holsapple and her mother was Grace Heathcote Stirling, who served actively in civic work and had taught school after attending Smith College. However, Grace suffered from severe health problems (later discovered to be symptoms of diabetes) and died soon after Leonora fifth birthday, which caused a profound effect on Leonora and her younger sister Alethe during their childhood and adolescence. Both girls were overcome with grief and partially raised thereafter by their grandmothers owing to the uncontrollable grieving of their father. Leonora assuaged her grief by plunging into books and her studies.

Academic Life[edit]

Despite her suffering Leonora was a gifted student during her childhood. In her Hudson High School graduating class of 1911, she received the highest honors being named Valedictorian. She was able to enter Cornell University in Ithaca, New York on a state scholarship and was elected Phi Beta Kappa in her junior year. Leonora graduated at only age 19 with a Bachelor of Arts degree with specialty in Latin and completed studies in other subjects such as German, Spanish and Esperanto, Literature, Astronomy, Botany, Physics and Chemistry. After graduation from University, she taught Latin in high schools in upstate New York and Boston Massachusetts and was active in social work as her mother and grandmother had been before her.

File:Leonora Holsapple (Armstrong) c. 1911

Leonora Holsapple (Armstrong) c. 1911

Introduction to the Bahá’í Faith[edit]

When Leonora was about thirteen years old, her maternal grandmother (Grandmother Stirling) who had long searched for a satisfying spiritual teaching found the Bahá’í Faith and declared herself a Bahá’í after corresponding with Isabella Brittingham (about 1906). She began to teach her granddaughters about the Bahá’í Faith and due to her example of devotion and efforts to spread the Bahá’í teachings, impressed Leonora highly enough that she started to search about the Bahá’í Faith and also began to memorize passages and prayers from the Bahá’í Writings. Later she made her own efforts to share the Bahá’í teachings with her classmates and friends and to host introductory meetings about the Faith.

Interest in Pioneering[edit]

The desire to pioneer first came to Leonora's mind when ‘Abdu’l-Bahá's Tablets of the Divine Plan were unveiled at the Bahá’í Convention held in New York City in 1919. Spontaneously, and at once, she wrote to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, offering herself in service and his reply to her was: "Thou hadst expressed thy great wish to be of service to the Divine Threshold and to heal the infirm with the Divine Panacea--the infirm who is afflicted with passion and self. Spiritual malady is more severe than physical illness for it may be that the latter may be converted by the least remedy into health and vigor, while the former will not be cured by a thousand well-known remedies . . . My hope is that thou mayest become a spiritual physician." Leonora was very touched by the message from ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and also Martha Root, a well-known Bahá’í reporter who traveled widely, served as a great influence for her on choosing South America as her destination. In her own words Leonora said: "This hope of the Master's became my highest aspiration and when, early in 1920, I read His Tablet to Martha Root, commending her teaching work in South America and stressing the importance of its being followed up by others, it at once seemed to me that here there might be a definite task for me. A letter to Martha brought an immediate reply, with all encouragement." Martha Root had made a historical visit to South America in 1919 and encouraged Leonora by sharing her experiences and sending a copy of her own diary notes from that period. This led Leonora to consider pioneering to the South American continent and after some further correspondence with Martha, she chose Brazil as her destination.

Arrival in Brazil[edit]

Many of Leonora's family members and friends expressed great concern in relation to her decision of moving to (as it was not called ‘pioneering’ back at that time) Brazil. Many of them believed that she was taking a very dangerous risk, by traveling alone without knowing anyone in Brazil or even knowing the country's language. Her father even at one time threatened to disown her as his Victorian ideas about young women were that they should not leave their families by themselves to live thousands of miles away and were deemed totally improper. However, her desire to teach the Bahá’í Faith was so great, that in February 1, 1921 she arrived in the port of Rio de Janeiro. At that time, she was only 25 years old and she did not know anyone in Brazil. Providentially, she had met two kind young women on board her ship (SS Vasari) who offered to teach her some Portuguese and then one of whom accompanied her for her first two weeks at the hotel in Rio so that she would not be labeled as a promiscuous or loose woman. The fact that she was a woman and single, in a time when women had no civil rights or freedoms, made her situation a lot more complicated but she still managed to stay in Brazil. Leonora got her first job in a very simple office through a young theosophist in the city of Santos. Afterwards she started to give private English classes, which made her able to make contacts to teach the Bahá’í Faith. One of her first opportunities to spread news of the Bahá’í Cause was her invitation to participate in the National Esperanto Congress held in Rio de Janeiro that year (1921) where she composed a talk about the Bahá’í Faith in Esperanto – a language she had only elementary little knowledge still. This presentation let to other invitations to speak in São Paulo and Santos and later to many other capitals of Brazil, as well as newspaper and journal publications.

Early Services for the Bahá’í Faith[edit]

In 1925 in the city of Belém, Pará she published her first translation (English to Portuguese) of the book Paris Talks written by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. Leonora beyond being a lecturer, educator and translator was also a social worker, having worked among the poor in Recife during a cholera epidemic (1922), also establishing and keeping an orphanage, in Salvador, Bahia, during the period of 1936-1940, for abandoned and needy children. In her first years in Brazil after living in Santos for about a year, she chose to establish herself in Salvador, Bahia and traveled to all the major cities along the eastern and northern coast of Brazil (including to Belém and Manaus) sailing up and down the Amazon River three times, stopping to share some news about the Bahá’í Revelation as it was called then. She always had a lot of support from many amenable Theosophists and Esperantists in her travels as her hosts and co-organizers of her lectures and newspaper articles. In 1927 she published many articles and brochures about the Bahá’í Faith in Belém. During her epic voyages of 1927 she was also the first Bahá’í to visit and give lectures about the Bahá’í Faith in Colombia, Venezuela, Curação, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Haiti, Guyana and Suriname. In 1930 she travelled and published articles about the Bahá’í Faith in Dakara, Senegal; Oran, and Algiers, Algeria; Barcelona and Madrid, Spain. She was the first Bahá’í to visit and proclaim the Faith in Spain.

Formation of the First Bahá’í Institutions in Brazil[edit]

In 1940 in (Bahia) Salvador - after 19 years of her dedicated work of education, translations and social services - Leonora was thrilled to see the formation of the first official Bahá’í Institution in Brazil: the Local Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of (Bahia) Salvador, composed of nine members, annually elected by the Bahá’í community in each locality. She was one of the members of this Assembly together with the first ones to accept and declare themselves Bahá’ís in that city. After that, a second Local Spiritual Assembly was formed in Rio de Janeiro and in 1946 a third one was formed in the city of São Paulo. In 1961 she saw the establishment of the first National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Brazil. In 1973, due to her services dedicated for the Bahá’í Faith in Brazil, Leonora was appointed Counsellor by the Universal House of Justice, the supreme governing institution of the Bahá’í Faith. The Counsellors are those who act in the continental levels and dedicate the time for the education and the protection of the Bahá’í Cause.

Marriage[edit]

In 1941, Leonora married a widowed Englishman named Harold V. Armstrong (1887-1973), an engineer living in Recife, whom she had known for several years. He became a great support in helping Leonora to accomplish many of the services that she dedicated during her life to the Bahá’í Cause. Leonora and her husband lived in many places around Brazil, and though not having any children of their own, they fostered and adopted about 20 children over the years contributing to their education and basic wellbeing.

Defender of Women's Rights[edit]

Leonora was also a notable defender of women's rights - emphasizing the role of educators and servants for the cause of world peace. Her message, recorded on a tape in Salvador, Bahia days before her death, in October of 1980, was addressed to hundreds of women gathered in the Brasília Convention Center to the participants of the first Women's Latin-American Bahá’í Conference. Below is an excerpt from her message:

"In the name of the Continental Board of Counsellors of South America, I wish to extend to you on this historic occasion – that of the First Latin American Women’s Bahá’í Conference – our most cordial and loving greetings and our best and sincerest good wishes for the greatest success possible.

Women, Light of the Future Generation.

When we, the women of the world, reflect upon the true significance of this theme which was selected, the measure which its significant plan penetrates ever more deeply into the conscious of each woman, we must understand that a supreme privilege is ours, and what an inescapable duty we must assume, and that we must arise as never before to fulfill this our most important obligation. The Women know that they are the first educators of humanity, and theirs is the opportunity to educate their children from the first days of infancy. There is no doubt that we have reached the ultimate in material progress, in attention to the physical well-being of the child, and still more in the progress in his intellectual development; in short, within our material civilization, in all aspects and without precedent. But, is it possible that this has brought us happiness? We see man involved in the darkness of egoism, and unsatisfied ambitions. We see our youth in search of something without knowing what; trying to escape in drugs which take them into crimes and other things yet sadder for us all."

Last Years[edit]

After living in Santos, Bahia, Recife, Rio de Janeiro, Niteroi, São Paulo, Petrópolis, Salvador and having passed most of her last years in Minas Gerais, in the city of Juiz de Fora, she died on October 17, 1980 at 85 years of age, in the city of Salvador. On that same day, hundreds of Bahá’ís from many communities of Latin America were gathered in Brasília, participating in the International Women's Latin-American Bahá’í Conference. The climax of this meeting for promotion of the condition of women was the moment where her written address and greetings were read out loud to the participants expressing her love and prayers for their future success at the same poignant moments that she took her last breaths and passed into the next world of existence.

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