Valerie Wilson

Valerie Wilson
Born	September 7, 1919 Oakland, California, USA
Died	October 1, 1993 Palo Alto, Califonia, USA
NSA member	North West Africa 1956 - 1957 ???? - 1964
ABM	Africa 1954 - 1957

Valerie Merriell Wilson (September 7, 1919 - October 1, 1993) was an American Bahá’í who pioneered to Africa where she served as an Auxiliary Board member.

Biography

Wilson was born in Oakland, California, in 1919. She studied at the School of Physical Therapy at the Children's Hospital of Los Angeles and then moved to San Jose to work at the Agnew State Hospital. She was introduced to the Bahá’í Faith when she went to a fireside in Los Angeles facilitated by Adrienne Ellis Reeves with a man whose mother was a Bahá’í and she attended another fireside the next week and became a Bahá’í on February 5, 1949, after a short period of study and association with the Ellis family.

In 1952 Wilson decided to pioneer to Africa as Shoghi Effendi had requested that Bahá’ís settle on the continent. She initially wanted to pioneer to Tanganyika but the United States Africa Teaching Committee convinced her to pioneer to Liberia. In November 1952 she settled in Monrovia and was able to stay in the Liberian government guesthouse where on November 22 she invited the Monrovia Bahá’í community to celebrate the Nineteen Day Feast in the building. On December 1 she began working for the Liberian government medical service in a ward for tuberculosis patients. Another woman living in the guesthouse who was a friend of the President of Liberia took offense at some of her behavior such as hosting the Feast in the guesthouse and reported her and ten days into working for the medical service the President of Liberia sent a letter demanding that both she and fellow American pioneer William Foster be fired and deported from the country however she was able to have her deportation delayed and secured an appointment with the President which she used to apologize and she was allowed to stay in the country and re-employed.

In 1953 Wilson attended the African Intercontinental Teaching Conference held to launch the Ten Year Crusade in Kampala, Uganda, where she was able to meet with the Africa Teaching Committee and Matthew Bullock who had retired from the National Spiritual Assembly of the U.S. to pioneer to Liberia. In 1954 the Local Spiritual Assembly of Monrovia was established and Wilson was elected as secretary and she was also appointed as an Auxiliary Board member by Músá Banání. In 1955 she made a nine-week teaching trip across West Africa as Board member visiting Ghana, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Togo, and Nigeria. In 1956 the National Spiritual Assembly of North West Africa was formed and Wilson was elected to the body and served for a year, returning to the United States in 1957 where she undertook postgraduate studies in physical therapy.

In March 1958 Wilson returned to Liberia. In 1961 she returned to the United States for a brief time before returning to Liberia again. She was re-elected to the National Spiritual Assembly of North West Africa in the early 1960's and she attended the First International Convention in Haifa in 1963 as a member of the Assembly casting a vote for the first Universal House of Justice.

In October 1963 the Universal House of Justice announced that the Liberian Bahá’í community would come under the jurisdiction of a new National Spiritual Assembly of West Africa to be formed in 1964. Wilson attended an emergency meeting of the National Spiritual Assembly of North West Africa in November 1963 and then returned to the United States where she lived with her mother in Palo Alto, California. She remained in Palo Alto and passed away there in 1993 after suffering a lengthy illness.