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    • Source: Agnes Baldwin Alexander

      • Agnes Baldwin Alexander (1875ā€“1971) was an American author and distinguished member of the BahĆ”Ź¼Ć­ Faith.


      Life


      Agnes Baldwin Alexander was born on July 21, 1875, in the Kingdom of Hawaii. She was the youngest of five children born to William DeWitt Alexander and Abigail Charlotte Alexander, nĆ©e Baldwin. Miss Alexander was a scion of two of Hawaii's most illustrious Christian missionary familiesā€”the Alexanders and the Baldwins. Her father was one of Hawaii's most famous men as President of Oahu College, author of A Brief History of the Hawaiian People, and first Surveyor-General of the Hawaiian Islands.
      Alexander graduated from Oahu College in 1895, later doing undergraduate work at Oberlin College and U.C. Berkeley. After teaching for a few years, she fell prey to chronic illness. In 1900, she joined a group of Islanders who were going on a tour of Europe. While in Rome in November of that year, she encountered an American BahĆ”Ź¼Ć­ woman and her two daughters who were returning from a BahĆ”Ź¼Ć­ pilgrimage in the Holy Land, and they shared with her about the faith. As the result of an epiphany one night, which she described as ā€œneither a dream nor visionā€, she embraced the BahĆ”Ź¼Ć­ Revelation and accepted it as God's new message to humanity as proclaimed by BahĆ”Ź¼u'llĆ”h.
      At the request of BahĆ”Ź¼u'llĆ”h's eldest son, Ź»Abdu'l-BahĆ”, who was then head of the BahĆ”Ź¼Ć­ Faith, Miss Alexander pioneered the BahĆ”Ź¼Ć­ Faith in Japan in 1914. In 1921 she became the first BahĆ”Ź¼Ć­ to introduce the New Gospel in Korea. Except for extended vacations in Hawaii, Agnes spent over thirty years in Japan.
      Alexander was an early advocate of Esperanto and used that new international language to help spread BahĆ”Ź¼Ć­ teachings at meetings, conferences, and in articles.
      In 1957, BahĆ”'u'llĆ”h's great-grandson Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian of the BahĆ”Ź¼Ć­ Faith, appointed Agnes Alexander a Hand of the Cause of God, the highest rank a person may hold as an individual BahĆ”Ź¼Ć­. In 1964, Alexander represented the Universal House of Justice, the supreme administrative body of the BahĆ”Ź¼Ć­ Faith, at the election of Hawaii's first National Spiritual Assembly in Honolulu. After suffering a broken hip in 1965, and spending two years in a Tokyo hospital, Agnes Alexander returned to her birthplace in Honolulu in 1967. Ironically, the Arcadia residence where she spent her last four years was adjacent to where she was born on Punahou Street.
      On January 1, 1971, Alexander died. She is buried behind Kawaiahao Church amidst her missionary forebears.


      Family tree


      Agnes Alexander is related to several notable people including: Amos Starr Cooke, David Dwight Baldwin, William Owen Smith, Samuel T. Alexander, Henry P. Baldwin, and Annie Montague Alexander. Her father's parents were William P. Alexander and Mary Ann McKinney, and her mother's parents were Dwight Baldwin and Charlotte Fowler.


      Works


      Before moving abroad, Miss Alexander owned a popular restaurant in Honolulu. In 1912 she published a cookbook of her recipes entitled "How To Use Hawaiian Fruit".
      At the request of Shoghi Effendi, Agnes Alexander wrote two histories: "Personal Recollections of a BahĆ”ā€™Ć­ Life in the Hawaiian Islands: Forty Years of the BahĆ”ā€™Ć­ Cause in Hawaii, 1902-1942" and "History of the BahĆ”Ź¼Ć­ Faith in Japan, 1914-1938". Both of these volumes were published posthumously.


      See also


      BahĆ”Ź¼Ć­ Faith in Japan


      References




      Further reading


      Sims, Barbara R. (1989). Traces That Remain: A Pictorial History of the Early Days of the BahĆ”Ź¼Ć­ Faith Among the Japanese. Osaka, Japan: BahĆ”Ź¼Ć­ Publishing Trust.
      Sims, Barbara R. (1992). Japan Will Turn Ablaze! Tablets of Ź»Abdu'l-BahĆ”, Letters of Shoghi Effendi and the Universal House of Justice, and Historical Notes About Japan (Revised ed.). Osaka, Japan: BahĆ”Ź¼Ć­ Publishing Trust.
      Sims, Barbara R. (1994). Selected Communications from the Universal House of Justice Concerning the North East Asia Area Including Japan. Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo: BahĆ”Ź¼Ć­ Publishing Trust.
      Sims, Barbara R. (1998). Unfurling the Divine Flag in Tokyo: An Early BahĆ”Ź¼Ć­ History. Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo: BahĆ”Ź¼Ć­ Publishing Trust. ISBN 4-938975-06-8.
      Troxel, Duane K. (1984) "Agnes Baldwin Alexander" in Notable Women of Hawaii, Barbara Bennett Peterson (ed.). Honolulu, HI, USA. University of Hawaii Press.


      External links


      Agnes Alexander at Find-a-Grave.com

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