Marvin Newport

Marvin Newport

Marvin Newport (November 14, 1902 - October 7, 1994) was an American Bahá’í who served as a travel teacher assisting with efforts to establish the Bahá’í Faith in Arkansas and Iowa.

Biography

Newport was born in 1902. In his youth he was a musician and sang with the Horace Heidt orchestra in the 1930's but then became a salesman based in New York. He discovered the Bahá’í Faith in the 1930's which he later credited as a turning point in his life. His mother, who passed in 1950, also became a Bahá’í at some point.

In 1937 Newport chaired a discussion on the National Youth Program for the year at the Green Acre Summer School, and in 1938 he delivered a talk on Epistle to the Son of the Wolf at Green Acre. In 1938 he helped establish channels for the Faith to receive publicity in Liberty, New York.

In 1939 Newport used a business trip from New York to California as an opportunity to undertake a teaching tour. He first visited Minnesota speaking at organizations in Coleraine including a talk to two hundred people at a College, and addressing clubs and schools in Grand Rapids, St. Paul, Minneapolis, and Peoria. He then visited Arkansas spending ten days in Little Rock during which he spoke at the local Kiwanis and Rotary clubs, and then visited Hot Springs where he spoke at a meeting of eighteen interested people and facilitated several classes at a Synagogue.

Later in 1939 Newport assisted Nellie French with teaching work in Madison, and in November 1939 he visited Cedar Rapids in Iowa to assist pioneer Gayle Woolson speaking at nine clubs and schools and he settled in the city when Woolson pioneered to Central America remaining until April 1940.

In 1942 Newport married Claire Lorraine and they had a son, Loring Scott, born in 1947. As of 1945 Newport had moved to Illinois and was serving as a guide at the Wilmette Temple, and in 1947 he participated in the National Convention contributing the following to a consultation on growing the community:

"Train prospective believers carefully, or you harm the community."

As of 1955 Newport had moved to Eugene, Oregon, and that year he chaired an Area Teaching Conference held in Eugene. In 1964 he retired from his sales career, and moved to Salinas, California, and that Ridvan he was elected to the cities first Local Spiritual Assembly. By 1969 he had moved again to Seaside, California, and was elected chairman of the Seaside Assembly.

As of 1986 Newport was living in Pacific Grove, California, and he continued to be an active member of his community with a profile being written in a local newspaper about him. He passed away in 1994 and was buried in Monterey City Cemetery.