Mildred Mottahedeh

Mildred Mottahedeh
Born	August 7, 1908 Seabright, New Jersey
Died	February 17, 2000 New York-Presbyterian Hospital, Manhattan
ABM	Americas 1957 - 1961
IBC member	1961 - 1963
Works •  Media

Mildred Root Mottahedeh (August 7, 1908 - February 17, 2000) was an American Bahá’í who served as the first representative of the Bahá’í community at the United Nations, an Auxiliary Board member, and as an elected member of the International Bahá’í Council. In her personal life she was a collector of Chinese porcelain and founded a company that produced porcelain reproductions.

Biography

When she was thirteen Mildred began collecting Japanese prints. It was through her collecting that she met Rafi Y. Mottahedeh, an Iranian importer and Bahá’í, in New York and they married in 1929 and Mildred became a Bahá’í. They founded Mottahedeh & Company in 1929 which was a firm which created porcelain reproductions, eventually producing reproductions for the US State Department and President Ronald Reagan.

In 1938 Mildred visited Iran and met an elderly man who was imprisoned in the Siyah-Chal with Bahá'u'lláh. In 1939 she hosted the first meeting of the Regional Teaching Committee of New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania in her home. In 1947 she visited Europe for an extended business trip after the 1947 U.S. National Convention, and was the first traveling teacher to visit European pioneers under the direction of the European Teaching Committee. By the end of her tour of Europe she had visited ten Countries and assisted their Bahá’í communities: England, France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, Holland, Luxembourg, and Belgium.

In May 1948 she attended an international United Nations conference in Geneva at which the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was drafted as part of a delegation from the Faith. She was appointed as the Bahá’í International Community's first official representative to the United Nations the same year and served in the part-time position until October 1967. In late July 1948 she spoke at the Laurentian Bahá’í School in Beaulac, Quebec. In December 1948 she led a study class on the Covenant at Green Acre. In April 1949 she attended a United Nations Conference for International Non-Governmental Organizations in New York.

In June 1950 she attended the Fourth UN Conference of International Non-governmental Organizations in Geneva as part of a delegation which included her husband Rafi. In September 1951 she spoke at Green Acre on current events from a Bahá’í perspective. In 1952 she spoke at Flatbush Unitarian Church at a commemoration of the fortieth anniversary of ‘Abdu’l-Bahás visit to it. In February 1953 she travelled to Africa to attend the International Conference in Kampala, Uganda, and visited the Bahá’í group in Addis Ababa after the Conference. She traveled to Sweden to attend the Intercontinental Conference in Stockholm in July 1953. In October 1953 she went to India and attended the Intercontinental Conference in New Delhi and also accompanied Horace Holley and ‘Alí-Akbar Furútan to Bombay where she spoke on the Faith at Cama Hall.

In 1954 she visited Bahá’í pioneers across Southeast Asia and in the Pacific from May to September. Her husband accompanied her up until she departed Japan. She departed New York in May and traveled to East Asia via Europe, travelling through London, Paris, Munich, Rome, Florence and Venice. She then visited Beirut before travelling on to Japan where she visited Bangkok, Saigon, Hong Kong, Macao, Taipei, Tainan, Tokyo, Yokohama, Osaka, Hyogo-Ken and Kyoto. She then went to the Philippines, and visited Guam and the Marianas, returned to Manila, then went to Borneo where she visited Brunei and Sarawak, then to Singapore and Djakarta, back to Manila, then to Dutch New Guinea where she visited Biak and Hollandia Haven. After New Guinea she went to Fiji, then to Western Samoa, the Society Islands, briefly back to Fiji then onto Australia where she visited Sydney and Canberra, then to Port Morseby and Lae in Papua New Guinea, then to the Solomon Islands, then to Brisbane, Australia, then to New Caledonia, then the New Hebrides, then again to Fiji, then to Hawaii, then San Francisco and then finally home to New York. She wrote the following during the trip:

"There is no minute to be lost. Asia and the Pacific desperately need teachers with dedicated hearts. Now is the time to prove that we are worthy to bear the name 'Bahá’í'."

In July 1955 she was scheduled to teach at the Ontario Summer School. She had to cancel her course at the Summer School as she had to travel to Geneva in July 1955 in order to appeal to the United Nations on behalf of the Bahá’í community of Iran, presenting evidence of persecution such as the destruction of the Tehran Bahá’í Center. Mildred, Ugo Giachery, Hermann Grossmann, John Ferraby and Aziz Navidi formed a committee to handle the appeal which was filed with the Secretary-General of the UN on August 1, 1955. In June 1956 Mildred provided advice to the National Spiritual Assembly of the United States who were writing a renewed appeal to the United Nations regarding the Iranian Bahá’í community. In July 1956 she was appointed to represent the Faith at the Economic and Social Council in Geneva, and she visited London on the return journey to the United States speaking at a Press Conference at the London Haziratu'l-Quds.

In 1957 Mildred was appointed as an Auxiliary Board member for Protection by the Hands of the Cause in the Americas. She and Rafi founded Mottahedeh Development Services, a company devoted to social and economic development projects in the third world in 1958. In February 1958 they were invited to India by the government to investigate potential for selling native crafts in the western market, and they were able to publicize the Faith while visiting with an interview Mildred gave in Madras being published in several newspapers. They also visited the Bahá’í community of Rangoon, Burma, on the trip with the visit being reported in local papers. In May 1958 Mildred spoke at the Chicago Intercontinental Conference addressing visiting Persian Bahá’ís with the speech being translated by Mosratollah Rassekh.

In July 1959 Mildred taught a deepening course on God's Revelation to man and man's relation to God at the second Alaskan Summer School in Juneau. Later the same month she visited Hawaii and spoke at a public meeting and fireside on the island of Kauai. By August she was back on the mainland United States and gave a talk at the Los Angeles Bahá’í Center on Bahá’í activity across the world. In September she helped secure speakers for a regional teaching campaign in Hartford and chaired two public talks on the Faith during the campaign herself.

In 1961 Mildred was elected to the International Bahá’í Council and moved to the Holy Land to serve, with Mas’ud Khamsi replacing her as Auxiliary Board member. She served in the position until 1963, when the Universal House of Justice was established.

Rafi passed in 1978 and Mildred succeeded him as President of Mottahedeh & Co., a position she served in until retiring in 1998. She passed away in 2000 and the Universal House of Justice sent the following message to all National Spiritual Assemblies after her passing:

"We are deeply grieved at the passing of Mildred Mottahedeh, so esteemed, so greatly loved, so staunch and trusted a supporter and defender of the Cause of Bahá’u’lláh. With her departure from this earthly life the Bahá’í world community has lost an outstanding figure of the opening epochs of the Formative Age of the Bahá’í Dispensation.

Her more than half a century of tireless endeavor in its service involved her in teaching and administrative activities at the local, national, continental and international levels. At the same time she maintained a rigorous schedule as a businesswoman, a contributor to the arts, and a promoter of humanitarian works. To these manifold tasks, she brought the combined resources of a selfless spirit, a compassionate heart, a creative mind, a practical sense, and a leonine will tempered by humility, candor and wit.

She remained for almost three decades at the forefront of the external affairs work of the Bahá’í International Community and in the service of the world center of the Faith, culminating in her membership on the International Bahá’í Council, the first globally elected Bahá’í body.

With assured hearts, we supplicate in the Holy Shrines for the progress of her illumined soul throughout the divine worlds. Our loving sympathy is extended to the members of her family and all others who mourn her loss. National Spiritual Assemblies are urged to hold befitting memorial gatherings in her honor in all Houses of Worship and other centers."

References

• NY Times Obituary

Notes

Bahai.media has a related page: Mildred Mottahedeh