Orcella Rexford

Orcella Rexford
Born	Louise Cutts Powell June 12, 1887 Tracy, Minnesota
Died	August 12, 1946 Hollywood, California
Other names	Orcella Gregory
Spouse(s)	Gayne V. Gregory
Works •  Media

Louise Cutts Powell, also known as Orcella Rexford (June 12, 1887 - August 12, 1946) was an early Bahá'í travel teacher who was among the first to teach the Faith in the U.S. state of Alaska.

She exhibited artistic skills in writing and performance in her childhood in Minnesota and college in Berkeley, California, and took up a career in writing, education and entertainment in public speaking and offering private classes on a variety of topics such as numerology, psychology, and nutrition. Along the way she encountered and joined the Bahá'í Faith circa 1918-1919 in Boston, Massachusetts. About the same time her studies led her to change her name to Orcella Rexford.

She undertook a trip to Alaska during which she began to offer mention of the Faith amidst her talks and classes. During her time there she also met Ezekiel F. German and Mrs. Victoria (Jack) Robarts both of whom then joined the Faith. Subsequently during a time apart Orcella and Ezekiel agreed they should marry. However, in keeping with her practice, Ezekiel agreed to change his name and it became Gayne V. Gregory. Gayne sold his interest in a dentistry and became her business manager. Rexford observed that while it was perhaps easy to generate interest in the Faith it was hard to keep a sustained interest if there was not a sustained presentation.

From Alaska they were soon in Hawaii and then back to the mainland. She developed a pattern of hinting about a great truth during her talks and classes, offer a free talk during which she would introduce the religion, and, usually led by others, develop a study class on the religion following which she would move on to another location. This was sometimes called an intensive teaching campaign. In 1927 they went on Bahá'í pilgrimage and she recalled the Greatest Holy Leaf admiring their cooperative marriage. With this methodology Rexford traveled widely for the Faith - from Mexico to Alaska, from Hawaii to Florida and Maine and to all the Bahá'í Schools of Geyserville, predecessor of Bosch, Louhelen, and Green Acre, as well as conventions, conferences and meetings. She and Gayne developed a close supportive friendship with Louis Gregory after his employment as a paid traveling speaker for the Faith was ended in 1932 while her own success had made of life of independent means.

Her speaking tours were reduced after an injury in 1936 but she kept on a degree of activity of speaking engagements and classes. She also wrote several self-published books, articles for Bahá'í periodicals like Star of the West and World Order, as well as newspaper and other magazine articles. Though her topics for her talks and classes were popular in society, and noted at least occasionally among Bahá'ís, Shoghi Effendi as Guardian of the Faith, and the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'ís of the United States, were specific in distancing her ideas from the teachings of the religion though with appreciation for her efforts among people who listened to her then to be introduced to the religion. Ultimately she was known as one of three Bahá'ís, with Ruth Moffett and Mabel Ives, who were successful in raising Bahá'í communities in several locales and assisting many more, in the era following that of Louis Gregory and Albert Vail being paid touring speakers for the Faith. She died unexpectedly and was buried in Inglewood Park Cemetery, not far from that of Thornton Chase. Gregory died many years later in 1946.

Growing up

Louise Cutts Powell was born June 12, 1887, in Tracy, Minnesota, to Lizzie Cutts Powell and Asbury Finley Powell who had married in 1886. However, Asbury had left and married another woman in Idaho in 1891 before moving out to the west coast and then into the Yukon of Canada before returning to Iowa, where he was born, and died in 1908. He might have gone to the Klondike Gold Rush which began 1896 - in 1945 an article she had written appeared in Bahá'í World v9 describing some of her connection with Alaska. She recalled that in her childhood a family member had joined the gold rush to Alaska never to return. Meanwhile Lizzie was living with her widower mother, Annie S. Cutts, in 1895, when Louise was 8. Lizzy was absent from their home in 1900, and had been committed to a psychiatric hospital by 1905, and died in 1907. So Louise' grandmother Annie may have been the primary guardian for Louise at least from age 8 to 20. The Cutts family, of Louise’ grandfather, had an inheritance of a couple paintings of early prominent Cutts kin which was held by Annie from 1887. Annie's family were early settlers of the area. In later years she briefly mentioned her relatively timid withdrawn personality when young - that her grandmother dressed her in white which she later felt was a detriment, and she was "afraid to open my mouth, shunned by the boys at a party…."

Louise made Minnesota news via a school literary magazine advanced by the The Minneapolis Journal. She made short writing contributions and was noted winning awards in high school in 1902 and 1903.

According to Signals

Run-sheep-run - that name calls up many pleasing memories of my favorite game. As much as I like the game, I am seldom at a place where there is a company large enough to play it. Any number above three on either side can play. After the company is divided into equal parts and each side has chosen a captain, the two sides separate to decided upon their signals. The last game I played I was captain and I made six little books out of writing paper. There was one book containing the signals for each on my side. The first thing we did, our side having the first outs, was to decide among ourselves where we were to hide. I then hid them behind a lilac bush some distance west of the house. The other side then went to the outdoor cellarway, which was covered by two doors and remained there while we were hiding. I rapped the door, they came out and their captain began to go east, so I shouted, "red and blue", which meant they were far from goal. Then "sun and moon". They were so far at last from goal that I shouted, "Run, sheep, run' run, sheep, run." Then my side ran towards goal and so did the others. My side reached there first, so we had our outs next time, and for five or size successive times. The side that reaches goal first has their outs next time. The captains reaching goal first do not count, as they are not supposed to run. So we play on and on like this, sometimes one side beating and sometimes the other, but always gaining a good deal of pleasure from it.

At the time they lived in Faribault, Minnesota. The remaining stories dealt with a walk at sunset after recovering from measles, a run in a golf course during which she became tired and friends made a chair from arms to carry her home, and being left for a week to do house chores and learning "how much work housewives had to do".

After then and by 1919 Annie and Louise had moved to Omaha, Nebraska, though presently it is unknown why. But in the same period Louise went to and graduated from the University of California at Berkeley in 1913 presumably starting near 1909. She majored in education and domestic science but undertook other studies as well. At the graduation ceremony her artistic skills were again on display by being a part of a theatrical chorus skit about the Pharaohs and Egypt. She later refers to "selling magazines to pay my way through the University of California".

In the summer of 1914 Louise was visible crossing from Kentucky to Ohio already beginning what would be her life long career - earning a living from public speaking and meetings promoting various ideas. This was a common enough career - though she herself never participated in these coordinated events, there were systems of public speaking as entertainment - see lyceum and chautauqua events and for example individuals like Nipo T. Strongheart and Mary Hanford Ford who toured giving talks to inform and entertain which people were willing to pay for. In 1914 the reports she put in the news was that her sickly youth had been cured somehow and that people should pay to listen to her story and learn to live a full healthy life. She may have heard of the Bahá'í Faith first while passing through Ohio on the way to Detroit, as she encountered Myrta Sandoz in Cleveland before 1918. In Detroit before early August 1915 she was involved in some kind of scandal about convincing people to order a set of books when they thought they were just joining a club. By mid-August Louise had returned to Oakland, California, presenting herself as a community organizer from Michigan.

Encountering the Bahá'í Faith

In later years she related an autobiographical narrative that seems to be from this period. "I started life as a cripple" she said. She reported falling in love after college but then they had a falling out and she developed "tubercular bone" (sometimes known as Pott disease,) and spent her inheritance on doctors. She was then visiting relatives in Eastport, Maine, and began to turn on her “mental radio” to broadcast for health, wealth, and love, and took off her cast to the astonishment of her kin. With a little gift of funds she began to give talks in Portland, Maine, and then later in Boston where she is first mentioned interested in the effect of colors and numerology on people. Whatever the truth of these statements, by later 1916 Louise was presenting herself in newspapers with numerology calculations as a counselor to people in Boston.

An example publication of the details of her numerology practice

It is not clear that she learned this system from Bahá'ís, however it is similar to a system of Abjad system of isopsephy, referenced in the history of the Faith, though also distinctly different, and Shoghi Effendi, head of the religion from 1921, wrote to Bahá'ís to not conflate teachings of the religion with the obscure ideas of numerology. If she did learn this from Bahá'ís it was probably from Dr. Edward Getsinger, her primary teacher of the religion at the beginning who was himself a originally a student of Ibrahim Khierralla, who had been attracted to the religion hoping for magic. And if she did she may well have also heard of some interest on the influence of color, an interest of Getsinger's wife, the famous Lua Getsinger, though she had died back in May in Egypt. Two other Bahá'ís of the period also had professional interests in the effect of color: Mary Hanford Ford, a lecture and writer on the history and appreciation of art, and Beatrice Irwin who composed theatrical performances with color and developed the profession of lighting to specifically include the role of color in lighting. Both were in and out of the region of DC and Boston in the period though no direct communication is specifically known.

By December, now in Washington DC, and then on into March, 1917, the topics of her talks and classes were her views on "vibrations" of types of people, of the affect of color, ideas of Pythagoras, telepathy, the “law of love”, praising the auspicious year of 1917 while denigrating the superstition of the number 13. At least one connection relates to some specific New York women's clubs, which is also linked with Mary Stokes MacNutt - wife of Howard MacNutt. Louise joined with the California delegation at Congress for a state exhibition, and was also part of a presentation for a vocational group at a business high school. She made her way back to Boston across April 1917 with a stop in Baltimore where she kept up efforts for public speaking and classes into early 1918. with something of a hiatus until after the summer of 1918, though sometimes echoed in distant places.

But again there was a gap in visible activities so far found from September into later December. Around this time she is known to have studied enough of the Faith from Dr. Edward Getsinger in Boston that she joined the Faith by 1919 and tried to organize classes for him to teach the religion.

In 1919 she was visible in Boston and New York women's club registry of events. She is also reported to have had activity in New York where between her and a friend and their interest in numerology they came up with the cryptograph pseudonym Orcella Rexford. However late 1919 is also when the court case on the inheritance of her family's paintings was settled. Louise’ grandmother Annie Cutts died by 1919 and the inheritance of the paintings became a legal contest that Louise won, following which they were kept by an art house until being sold in 1926.

Powell is also often referenced as having attended Columbia University which could have happened around this period though no independent mention has yet been found. And up until 1919 there is yet to be seen any evidence of Powell giving talks public or private on the Faith.

Alaska and Hawaii

After a gap of much of a year, by later 1920 Orcella Rexford, as she is now almost universally mentioned as, was in Los Angeles and Oakland and back again giving several series of talks on her usual topics into 1922. She was also a regular contributor to The Aquarian Age, psychic magazine, from December 1920 through 1921. Topics in newspapers varied from "On world movement", to "psychic research" and other of her familiar themes and versions sometimes echoed widely. She also participated in forming a psychologist's organization in Los Angeles.

But she left those developing efforts behind. By later summer 1922 there were signs she was in Alaska. She recalled later making a decision to go to Alaska in June, at least in part to promote the religion inspired by the Tablets of the Divine Plan that had been released in 1919. She was the fourth pioneer now known to go to Alaska - after Susan Rice, in 1916, and Emogene Hoag and Marian Jack in 1919. She is said to have addressed audiences of hundreds in Dawson City of the Canadian Yukon and encountered individuals with prior contact with the Faith. She was struck by the fact that individuals' interest was easily gained but that interest wained if there was no persistent presentation of the religion. She refers to a talk on a boat near Skagway, Alaska, on a new civilization dawning on the Earth and to inquirers she shared Bahá'í literature. Another pair of talks on the Faith followed along later on the way over to and from the Yukon River from White Horse and then also encountering people from Boston who had previously heard her talk including on the Faith. In Dawson she made contact with a ladies organization for talks and then the editor of the newspaper through which she said several articles on the Faith appeared - he had also met earlier Bahá'í pioneers. But in most encounters there was just interest and no time to develop serious inquiry. Arriving in Juneau she met the Governor of Alaska’s wife - this would have been the wife of Scott Cordelle Bone. From there she went by the Seward Peninsula which led to connections in Anchorage where she gave a week’s lectures and also met Mrs. Jack Robarts. There she attended social functions with Dr. Gregory, (as he was later called.) She reports that Gregory engaged in nightly conversations with herself and Mrs. Robarts, both of whom were very interested in her talks, and in these conversation she shared early mentions of the Faith Rexford normally withheld until her final talk. Then, following the concluding talk, Gregory declared his belief in the Faith to her, soon followed by Victoria Robarts. Rexford then took an opportunity to go to Fairbanks. During the trip she dreamed of becoming Gregory’s wife and then learned he had had a similar experience and they decided to get engaged by August, with some echoes found in newspapers in October, and had set a date of marriage for November. Rexford later refers to testing his character to see if she could encourage bad qualities in him which he denounced. After a week’s series of talks in Fairbanks, by November 1922, they had married after he changed his name. They made news doing so even far away including that he had changed his name. As announced in October, Gregory's original name was E. F. German. He was born in Montana in 1884, graduated from Butte Business College in 1898, moved to Valdez, Alaska, by 1904 and was visible in newspapers by 1909. This appears to be Ezekiel F. German, who's first wife died in 1912, though he is also recorded as Frank E. German. Rexford reported his grandfather had helped settle Salem, Oregon, while his mother was an early member of Christian Science. By 1916 he was in Anchorage and was vice-president of the Alaskan Dentist Association. The wedding was a dual service of a judge and a Bahá'í service by Mrs. Jack Robarts. The couple left Alaska for a period along the Canadian coast but returned in July 1923 where after another series of talks a Bahá'í study class of 60 came about and she offered a column to the Anchorage newspaper on the Faith. But the population was highly mobile, the work was not as widely sustained, and some of those actively interested in the Faith died. Still, a smaller class was carried on by Robarts.

By 1924 Gayne Gregory sold his interest in the dentistry practice shared with Dr. Charles Daggett, became Rexford’s business manager, and the couple moved to California where Orcella got an article published with her own authorship and also a book Mental radio; how to get anything you want, a course of class lessons published, and it was republished in 1930. In January 1925 the couple went to Hawaii where again Rexford gave many talks like her usual topics. At least one time it was incorrectly reported that her original name was Evelyn Underhill, a well known writer on mysticism. After having included biblical prophecies among her presentations and advertisements in later February, an individual took issue with her promotion of the Bahá'í Faith as related to those prophecies in a letter to the editor to whom she responded which enters the history of the rising coverage of the religion in Hawaii. Following this she continued her talks. They left in April for San Francisco and in May began her appearances now including on local radio station KFRC and appearances through the year. At some point Rexford and Gregory attended an organizational meeting for the Geyserville Bahá'ís School, a predecessor of Bosch, and published a book - The psychology of color: its effect upon health, happiness and finances. Perhaps unknown to the Gregorys, Gayne's father died in Glendale, California, in May, and the obituary did not acknowledge his name change, though he had perhaps attended the announcement of their engagement.

Even while Rexford had been up in Alaska and Hawaii without the experience and guidance in the Bahá'í community with speaking engagements, the US National Spiritual Assembly had begun paying Louis Gregory and Albert Vail as public speakers on the Faith starting in 1920.

Pilgrimage and back

Rexford later writes of going on pilgrimage and touring Europe from the fall of 1925. By January 1926 they were in Egypt when they were accepted to come on pilgrimage, with just herself and Gayne present and stayed 11 days, the first from Alaska to do so. She recalled the Greatest Holy Leaf speaking well of the couple supporting Rexford’s professional speaking tour as an example of the two wings of humanity. In February 1926 Rexford is noted arriving in New York on the SS De Grasse from Le Havre, France. In a letter to friends in Los Angeles by mid-March she reported about her trip. The friends shared her visits to the Sphinx, how it used to be colored, and had attended an exhibition of modern art in Paris and visiting Palestine and Jerusalem during a drought. She reported also having been at the opening of the Tomb of Tutankhamun and visited the Great Pyramids. There is no report through these friends and reported in the newspaper of the pilgrimage. Rexford is credited with appearing in Oakland and San Francisco in 1926 with Leroy Ioas teaching followup classes to Rexford's work. In 1929 Bahá'ís from Oakland publicly recalled Rexford drawing the Faith to their attention and ultimately an assembly was formed there circa 1927. This would have to happen in March without other newspaper appearances yet identified as Rexford began to make appearances in Brooklyn in early April and called a "Color Psychologist”. From there she appeared at the Annual Teaneck meeting of Bahá'ís which was highlighted in June as interracial. Some time that year Rexford bought 300 copies of You and the universe: a book of numbers by Ernest Wilson for sale in her classes. In July Rexford was on radio WEAF (later renamed WNBC), the first commercially licensed radio station in New York City, and her appearance on its schedule was echoed across New England.

Longer profile articles began to appear in the newspapers. In one she began to describe her early life. Another came out describing her post-college transition to her career as a speaker and going to Alaska. She began to call for men's clothing to be more colorful - a call that began to echo in other newspapers. And she began to appear on other radio stations with "natural schooling" eductor Winifred Sackville Stoner: WFBH, WGBH and others as well as news reports that echoed the coverage.

Meanwhile, following Bahá'í meetings by Keith Ransom-Kehler in New York, noted as following after Rexford’s 1926 work and other speakers, the greater Bahá'í community of New York decided to pool their resources and picked a new Bahá'í Center, to which the famous Kahlil Gibran attended. Meanwhile Rexford appeared a few times down the west coast across spring 1927.Her “unusual teaching method” was noted in Baha’i News of August 1927, and there was awareness of her work in Honolulu, New York, and Seattle. A lighter load of appearances followed in 1928 presaged again the publishing of a book: Your name and you: numerology made easy.

Public and private talks picked up again late in the year and the endeavor also drew the attention of the Bahá'ís of Phoenix and led to a wave of activity there. She had arrived in January, and was described as a "teacher of psychology and healing". She dwelt and gave talks there through March. Her final free lecture introducing the Faith came March 17 given at the Masonic Temple to some 450 people. That evening she gave a slide show on the Holy Land with scenes of Haifa and Akka and of the Bahá'í Temple in Wilmette as it stood then. She then announced a study course opening on the Faith for those interested meeting at the Phoenix Women's Club building and books for sale at the back of the room. About 75 people came to that first welcome session of the study class on March 18, 125 to the spiritual "party" of Naw Ruz led by Rexford and Edwinna Powell, and 35 to the first regular class. Rexford introduced Powell who then led the class and the early development of the community there, along with Elizabeth Greenleaf, while Rexford then went back to San Bernardino in April into May, though Rexford did keep up correspondence with those interested in Phoenix such as a report from the secretary of the Phoenix group that 30 people were still attending the class in June. In San Bernadino she shifted her topics towards health and “chemical” type of people - sulphur people, copper people - though still referencing numerology.

Between May and June 1929 there is a gap in mention of her so far found in newspapers. But then she was visible in Brooklyn and New York from later September. She stayed in the area giving her public and Bahá'í talks. Her comments about the best dressed men in the America was circulated in much of the country. However a relatively reduced schedule carried on locally until Rexford was in Miami in February 1930 where she continued until April. Records of Bahá'ís in Miami before 1932 are scant, but it is possible she connected with the Bahá'ís there visible since at least 1926, (see Howard MacNutt.) Then she was reported in Denver in late August for her public series, and from September in Bahá'í circles, indeed her farwell talks were "The Golden Age" (and prophecy) and "What I saw in the Holy Land" appeared mid-October. Beulah Lewis was noted giving public talks for the Faith around the same time. Rexford was in Oklahoma City in later October and November before appearing in Missouri in May, 1931. This would be around the time Betty Becker heard of the Faith from Rexford, joined the religion and pioneered to Alaska in August 1939.

Second generation of presentations

Green Acre and Louise Gregory

Meanwhile by June Rexford was in Indianapolis and Boston in September. Some joined the religion in Boston following this. In an article in Star of the West Rexford wrote of learning of Green Acre, which she had not much thought of even as recently as the year before, now attracted that Martha Root was teaching some classes there and finding it reminded her of being to Haifa/Akka. She mentioned recalling then the Guardian emphasizing the need for Bahá'ís to love, understand, and support each other. In a process from the spring of 1932 Louis Gregory, who had previous been a paid traveling speaker for the religion and just been let go amidst pressures on the Fund, was writing about being already friends with Rexford and her husband and becoming inspired to similar opportunities to earn a living by talks on food, diet and color, adopting Rexford’s methods after being aided by them in this serious faith-challenging time for him. However in a letter written on behalf of the Shoghi Effendi in November he was advised against it “though there is no harm in it, it may cause misunderstanding." Though Gregory did not follow the specific path of earning a living giving talks and then spicing such work with mention of the Faith culminating in a free talk and establishing classes, in 1934 he was using the idea of an intensive series of talks on the Faith to promote the religion in a locale - "in response to a new trend in our teaching work which the Guardian is encouraging… concentrating on that city until a properly functioning Bahá'í Assembly is established.” Gregory also reported Rexford contributing to the Green Acre Race Amity Convention held that summer at Green Acre. Rexford also appears to have dwelt some time in DC in the fall of 1931 - here there is something of a description of her method of public speaking followed by private paid classes during which she dropped hints, and then study classes on the religion coming after. And in this case, her public topics were also taught to Bahá'ís by Stanwood Cobb, showing some interest inside the community. It may have been around this time that Cynthia Olson learned of the Faith while attending a spa in Minnehahah Springs, West Virginia, and would eventually pioneer to Guam. Then Rexford was down to Miami, a place of more Bahá'í and integrated activity, where she was visible in January 1932 though March. There is record that she contacted the local Bahá'ís. Then she on to Racine in May for the Bahá'ís. In June she was in South Bend, Indiana on through July, then part of the Louhelen Summer Bahá'í School, noting Bahá'ís had bypassed the Century of Progress exhibition, underscoring the school as an opportunity for a region’s Bahá’ís to consult and be welcoming to each other, and the large proportion of youth who had come. Then she was in Hartford, Connecticut, and Cincinnati in November before appearing in late January 1933 in Miami where she continued making her public talks through April. Rexford’s efforts were noted at the national convention and coverage noting her work and resulting study groups that had formed and labors undertaken therefrom. Rexford came to Topeka, Kansas, in August to which dozens attended and the religious classes caused a bit of a stir and a rare appearance of husband Gregory in the work, and where she was followed by Ruth Moffett, which led to an assembly being elected. Meanwhile Rexford returned to Louhelen in September of 1933. In later September and into October Rexford was in Minneapolis before returning to Oakland where she then published two books: What to eat to be well, and The chemistry of foods and people.

Tour to the West and South

In January 1934 Rexford was in Oklahoma City, though also mentioned in connection with Fort Worth, and Houston. Sometime during the year Mormon Xorol Robinson Oliver joined the Faith after a friendship with Rexford dating back to the 1920s. But amidst another relatively quiet year of newspaper coverage also published a book: The voice of nature: the wonders of plant life in their service to man afield with the wild flowers and plants. It does turn out she had spent some of July in Colorado Springs and in Spokane in November, and though the date is unknown, possibly late in 1934, she was credited with raising serious interest in Boise, Idaho. Then from January 1935 she was back in Phoenix through February. There had been something of a lull of activity and Bahá'ís moving away, withdrawn from membership, or died, though they had maintained holding Feasts. By this point a few Bahá'ís from one family, the Schoenys, took up Rexford's numerlogical approach to renaming - particularly noted is Pearl Schoeny who renamed herself Zahrah, and named her newborn Zahrl on the same system. Again Rexford gave a series of her paid classes followed by a free public lecture on the Faith, then a study class was founded again starting in March and taught by Mamie Seto and then Edwinna Powell Nicholson. Rexford was on to LA in March, where it happens Getsinger had just died, and then she was on to San Francisco by May, where they were also noted according to the 1940 Census, though participating in the national convention at the end of April into early May highlighting her efforts in person. By that summer she was presenting at the Geyserville Bahá'í Summer School for the first time, a precursor of the Bosch Bahá'í School. By the summer the National Teaching Committee was noting Rexford among a list of 29 individuals involved in traveling for the Faith and giving talks. In the fall of 1935 a couple of mentions picked up mention of her work on color. While herself unheard from so far in the fall, by the the winter of 1935-6 she is reported to have gone to Mexico, along the border with the US, but also to a national protestant women’s group. She kept a hotel in San Francisco as her communication link in the States, and was later credited as being one of 27 Americans serving the religion outside the country. It is unknown when she returned from Mexico. The summer of 1936 she was back at Geyserville teaching classes as well as participating in the public receptions given. She and Gregory were friends with Edmond Bordeaux Székely and during their stay at the Geyserville Bahá'í school Gregory lost weight under his advice.

In February 1937 she began a series of talks on her subjects in Palm Beach, Florida, among conservative groups and then to Miami by late March and then back briefly. Then came her first World Order magazine article “The Succession of the Prophets” published in July. Sometime, perhaps the fall, she was in Oklahoma City aiding the development of the Faith there. She made her way up the east coast via Wilmington, Delaware, Philadelphia and New York while her second World Order article came out and later published as its own specifically Bahá'í book on radiant acquiescence about facing the troubles of the world and how best to seek the Will of God and that tranquility she returned to in World Order of February 1938. Rexford had a few appearances in Brooklyn late in 1937 and early 1938 both for her own work and for Bahá'í meetings and ranging wider in New England and nearby from Wilmington Delaware, to Englewood, Philadelphia, Hackensack, to Green Acre, and including another World Order article on the struggle with worry. Then she was on her way down through Brooklyn, Wilmington, Deleware, and on to West Palm Beach, Florida, and then over to Miami and visible giving talks in January 1939 on into early April and worked her way north including Atlanta sometime after May according to Terah Cowart Smith's memory, where she had gained the interest of some whites, and the followup class led by Smith, several of whom were soon elected to the assembly, succeeding in electing first Spiritual Assembly, but who were not aware of the interracial character of the Faith, - something the Assembly then found challenging, (see also Terah Cowart Smith.) Then in June she was in Brooklyn and generally New England including Green Acre. A lighter load of visible talks in the fall and Rexford wintered apparently in New York giving a few of her public talks and for the Faith. Opening 1940 she appeared in San Francisco, back to New York area and down to Miami and up to Green Acre by April but then returning to Miami into June. Couple were living on Madison Ave, New York, at the home of Charles Wharton in April. Rexford joined with Glenn Shook, Mabel Ives, and Terah Cowart Smith as the faculty of the first regional Bahá'í School in the South at Vogel State Park in Georgia in mid-June to which 19 students came. Then from the later summer of 1940 to 1941 she appeared variously if on a lighter schedule of public events in New England including Green Acre, until the Bahá'í Summer School at Louhelen and environs before going on to the mid-west in Wisconsin and Iowa into 1942 when she published another couple books - 101 usefull weeds and wildlings, and Happy hours with herbs: the hidden joys of plants. In October Rexford appeared in Omaha and Colorado Springs. In the face of WWII late 1942 found Rexford and Gregory living in Wilmette, Illinois, living with Horace Holley and self employed associated with C. J. King Laboratory. That winter they took the opportunity to visit Gregory’s home area around Butte, Montana, which included a few of her talks amidst events, before going to Phoenix from late 1942 into early 1943 back to Butte, and over to Los Angeles by the winter of 1943-4. In 1943 the National Assembly circulated a letter to communities to which Rexford came detailing that her personal career talks on topics were "non-Bahá'í subjects… to be entirely dissociated from the Bahá'í Faith" and the followup classes would be destinctly administrated through Bahá'í institutions, though with appreciation for Rexford's ability to generate interest among large groups of people.

Rexford joining in the intercontinental conference and events of the centenial of the Declaration of the Báb in May 1944. She was recognized among a list led by Martha Root and composed of 13 individuals who had undertaken national teaching tours as recognized by the National Assembly. She appeared in Minneapolis in June 1944 and recalled her grandmother and her early writing "career", and Salt Lake City in July.

Though the date is unstated, it is stated that she was injured in a fall while in Phoenix which compromise her public speaking - it is said it even ended it. She appeared only rarely in later 1944 and into 1945. She was noted in LA in November, and opening 1945 there as well, before sending greetings instead of attending the Geyserville Bahá'í School, but was visible in LA in later August.

1946

Talks and appearances continued at a light rate continued into 1946 in the LA area, then the national convention during which she was one of the four speakers for public meetings. Afterwards she went to Minneapolis, (where it was also said she had made it as far south as Guatemala,) and then in June gave a talk in Oakland, and San Mateo before attending Geyserville in late June. Afterward the couple returned to LA.

Death and memorialization

Amidst a couple appearances she died unexpectedly while staying in a hotel while taking a bath in Hollywood, and ruled to be an accidental drowning following an autopsy. She and friends had watched the Fiesta Parade, or as it is known now the Old Spanish Days, in Santa Barbara and visiting with some Bahá'í friends and a visit at the Samarkand Hotel which had a Persian theme. They then drove home to Hollywood where she was staying in a hotel.

She was buried in Inglewood Park Cemetery, not far from that of Thornton Chase. Gregory died March 1964 and was buried in El Centro, California. The Schoeny family aided directly in the funeral preperations.

Her Bahá'í World biography by Willard P. Hatch, et.al. underscored her interest in learning languages while at the University of California at Berkeley and then started graduage work in philosophy and psychology. She gained an interest in genealogy and took note of her two-times great-grandfather William Jarvis who was a diplomat serving under President Jefferson in Lisbon (1802-11.) Letters arrived from many parts of the world with condolences with pioneers and homefront Bahá'ís recalling their introduction to the Faith by Rexford. It was pointed out that Mamie Seto was one of the Bahá'í teachers who would follow up with study class teaching in days of being around San Francisco - "she gave one of the most convincing opening talks on the Faith I have ever heard”. She was buried in Inglewood Park Cemetery not far from that of Thornton Chase and to who’s funeral many attended and including a telegram from the Guardian: "Deplore loss indefatigabble, gifted promter Faith. Heartfelt sympathy. Fervent prayers.” Ruhiyyih Khanum, on behalf of the Guardian, wrote to the Los Angeles Spiritual Assembly saying "She was one of the most devoted teachers of the Cuase in the States, and responsible for bringing it to the attention of a great many people, as well as for confirmation of many souls. Her radiant devotion will not be forgotten, and her example should certainly be an inspiration to her fellow believers. It is a great pity the Cause should lose her services …."

A contribution in Rexford's named was made to the Bahá'í Fund in 1950. Rexford's work in color was among those gathered in a survey of ideas in 1956 and reprinted in 1996. Her work on numerology influenced some others in the field. Her work on herbalism touched on Charles Fillmore of Unity Church.

Account of her work in Kansas was written up in 1992, her Baha'i World biography was edited and included in a 2007 booklet Spiritual Foundations for the equality of women and men as part of the series Core Curricullum for Spiritual Education, and was also used in a regular historical blog.

Review

Rexford was listed as one of a few women who "single-handedly" established new communities by giving public lectures on then-popular topics and then inviting people to attend a series of classes on the religion. Rexford was called the first chronologically to develop intense campaigns of presentations for the Faith and one of the three most proficient - Ruth Moffett adopted it and passed it on to Mabel Ives. When Rexford went to Phoenix in 1929, there were only two Bahá’ís residing there. Through her lecture series she was able to generate a study class, which averaged from twenty-two to thirty-five in attendance. Phoenix had to receive additional teachers like Elizabeth Greenleaf (1863–1941) for several years to protect the group from several members who were interested in reincarnation and spiritualism and who tried to break up the group. The various teaching campaigns undertaken by Mabel Ives, Orcella Rexford, and Ruth Moffett show that the most difficult part of establishing a new Bahá’í community was not in expansion but in consolidation.