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Note 3. (Letter No. 2) |
The Blundell family: Mrs Sarah Blundell was born at
Burwell, Cambridgeshire, England in 1850, a year sacred in Bahá’í history
as that of the Báb’s martyrdom, and was destined to become one of the
pioneers of the Bahá’í Cause in New Zealand. She received her early religious
training from her “Non-Conformist” father, a man whose strong
convictions led him to withdraw his seven year old daughter from religious
instruction classes at her boarding school. The feeling of isolation which
followed caused her to think for herself and she had the rare distinction of
being one of the first women to enter the Cambridge University Examinations
in an age prejudiced against the education of women.
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In 1886, with her husband and seven children, she arrived in New
Zealand where she endured hardship and difficulties in a strange country.
She persisted in her unfettered search for truth and rejected several dogmas
until, with an open mind and a prepared heart, she read in “The Christian
Commonwealth” of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s visit to London in 1911 and sent overseas
for additional literature. When Mr and Mrs Dunn arrived in Auckland
in 1922–3, Mrs Blundell invited them to her home, “Lymbury”, Ridings
Road, Remuera to meet a group of twenty people whom she thought might
be interested. This was the first Bahá’í meeting held in New Zealand and
shortly afterwards Mrs Blundell accepted the Bahá’í Faith.
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On hearing from Martha Root that Shoghi Effendi and the Ladies of
the Household were eager to welcome the New Zealand friends, Sarah
Blundell arranged to make the journey to the Holy Land in 1925 visit the
Holy Family, and the Shrines of the Báb, Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá,
and to meet in person many other Bahá’ís—this was “a crowning gift to
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one whose spiritual path had been travelled alone.”
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She returned to New
Zealand after first going home to England to see her relatives and, at the
Guardian’s suggestion, make personal contact with the English Bahá’í
community. She continued to work unsparingly in New Zealand to serve
the Cause of Bahá’u’lláh until her passing at the age of eighty-four years on
December 20th, 1934.
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Mrs Blundell’s son, Hugh, was also destined to serve the Bahá’í
Cause. Although not at that time a Bahá’í, Hugh accompanied his mother
and sister on their pilgrimage to Haifa in 1925 and accepted the Faith the
following year. A tireless worker for the Cause, he was New Zealand’s first
Auxiliary Board Member and passed to the Abhá Kingdom on October
16th, 1976 in his ninety-second year.
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1. | “The Bahá’í World, Vol. VI, 1934–1936”, pp. 496–498. Bahá’í Publishing Committee, New York, 1937 [ Back To Reference] |