Ruth Katharine Meyer

Ruth Katharine Meyer (January 17, 1908 - March 29, 2006) was a pioneer and Knight of Bahá’u’lláh, named for pioneering to Margarita Island.

Katharine Meyer was a conservatory-trained pianist who, with a degree in business administration and economics, worked as an economic analyst for the US government in Washington, D.C., where she became a Bahá’í in 1945. Despite being unfamiliar with Spanish, she volunteered to move to Latin America in 1947 after Shoghi Effendi wrote about the great need for Bahá’ís to settle there. She arrived in Caracas, Venezuela, after traveling through several Caribbean islands teaching the Bahá’í Faith. Funding her travels through school-teaching, office work, and other jobs, she visited Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, and Argentina. In 1953, she opened the Venezuelan Island of Margarita to the Bahá’í Faith and was honored by the Guardian with the title Knight of Bahá’u’lláh. For 11 years, she assisted in the building of Bahá’í communities in several localities, before moving on to St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands. She was elected to the inaugural National Spiritual Assembly of the Leeward, Windward, and Virgin Islands and served as its secretary. She participated in a number of projects in Venezuela and the Caribbean, taking the Bahá’í teachings to indigenous people.

In 1969, Ms. Meyer moved to southern Chile. The following year, she was appointed as an Auxiliary Board member and spent more then a decade traveling across Chile and to several islands, as well as parts of Argentina and Bolivia. in 1979, she published a book in English and Spanish describing the Bahá’í Faith's development in Latin America.

She was an independent and energetic woman, and the Universal House of Justice wrote that Ms. Meyer's "many services to the Cause, including her pioneering in Chile over several decades and her dedicated work in the Mapuche region will long be remembered".

References

• The Universal House of Justice. The Bahá’í World - An Internationl Record 2005-2006. Baha'i World Centre, Haifa: World Centre Publications. ISBN 978-0-85398-968-4.