The Dunns:
Keys to Their Success

by Madge Featherstone and Kaye Waterman

published in 75 Years of the Bahá'í Faith in Australasia
Rosebery: Association for Bahá'í Studies Australia, 1996

By way of introduction to this presentation I (Kaye Waterman) would like to say that had it not been for my mother, Madge Featherstone who knew Clara Dunn, I would not be here today - in more ways than one that is! The initial plan for this paper was hers and hers alone. And although we have worked together in assembling the material, she was to do the presentation. So it is with regret that she is unable to be here today, as she is in Papua New Guinea, combining a visit to family and additionally embarking on a visit to Bahá'ís in other areas. Dates clashed. To make it easier for me, and for you the audience as well, this presentation has been rewritten from my perspective, since I also knew Clara Dunn.

With a commemorative year of this nature, it is not surprising we have made many mental excursions back into the past. At the same time we have also been sorting through the many files and letters which my father Collis Featherstone had put together and came across many reminders of the events and influences which affected our lives so deeply.

This presentation has been divided into several component parts.

The first part deals briefly with our association with Mother, then we take a look at the people themselves and the influences on their lives; this will be followed by investigating some of their activities, and finally a summation relevant to the topic.

PREAMBLE

Seventy five years ago this year, two indomitable souls set foot on this continent with the sole objective of establishing the Bahá'í Faith in this vast nation. They weren't young people who would fit the mould of earlier pioneers to this country, but two elderly people, considered past their prime even in today's terms, who achieved their objective. They were John Henry Hyde Dunn and Clara Mary Dunn[1], known as Hyde and Clara Dunn[2] and subsequently simply as Father and Mother Dunn, not because there are any titles in the Bahá'í Faith, but because they were the spiritual parents to the Bahá'ís of Australia and New Zealand. Father Dunn had already reached retiring age and Mother was in her fifties.

Madge Featherstone recalls how the Dunns came into the lives of her and her husband, Collis, in this way:

"My husband and I learnt of the Bahá'í Faith in 1944 in Adelaide and our first teacher Bertha Dobbins together with her husband Joe had always spoken of the Dunns with great reverence and love. Father Dunn passed away in 1941 and although it was not our destiny to have met him there were other Bahá'ís who had known Father and spoke of him with great love and devotion. Because of this great love and respect for our beloved pioneers, Collis and I waited ever so eagerly for the opportunity to meet Mother. We were left in no doubt by Bertha of the great honour and privilege it would be to meet her. During the first week of her visit to Adelaide in May 1945, we went to several gatherings where Mother spoke words of wisdom and of her meeting with 'Abdu'l-Bahá in 1912 in San Francisco. We were simply overjoyed when it was arranged for her to come to our home to attend a fireside, which happened to coincide with her 76th birthday."

Collis wrote in his diary on Saturday 12th May 1945:

It was a wonderful night ... the atmosphere was electrified ... Mrs Dunn was overjoyed and her face was radiant."

Although my parents hadn't been Bahá'ís for very long they became very much aware of the transforming power of the Faith. We felt and saw this particularly with Mother Dunn's glowing "radiance", that special powerful glow that people have when, devoid of ego and desire, they are devoted to the love of God and submission to His will, humbly seeking His guidance.

Madge and Collis had a very close association and contact with Mother Dunn for many years and corresponded with her regularly.

That Mother Dunn had a profound influence on their lives is a simple enough fact, and of enormous consequence given the events which transpired in their lives as Bahá'ís. All their children also were blessed to know one who had known the Master, 'Abdu'l-Bahá, and one of Australia's two links with the Heroic Age of the Faith.

So, why did they come and how did they achieve their objective? These are two very simple questions which will be addressed in this paper. At the outset, however, it should be obvious that within the constraints of this paper, it will be impossible to do anything more than scratch the surface of the subject.

What we do know is that the significance of their contribution to the establishment and development of the Bahá'í communities of Australia and New Zealand is incalculable.

Indeed in 1939, Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian of the Bahá'í Faith (from 1921 to 1957) wrote a book, The Advent of Divine Justice,[3] in which he paid tribute to the early Bahá'ís who arose to take the Bahá'í Faith to other countries. Accompanying the gift copy he sent to the Dunns was a letter written on his behalf by his secretary which reads in part as follows:

"The tribute so abundantly & yet so deservedly paid by the Guardian in this unique epistle to your magnificent teaching services is assuredly destined to transmit to future Bahá'í generations, & in particular to the Bahá'í teachers & pioneers of succeeding centuries, such measure of inspiration & such example of the pioneer service as cannot but inspire & guide them to follow in your footsteps & emulate your noble example."[4]

It is obvious then that there is every reason to take a look at the significance of the achievements of Hyde and Clara Dunn, and more particularly, what made it all "happen".

The first question, why did they come, can be dispensed with rather summarily, by saying that they came in response to the Master's call in the Tablets of the Divine Plan, unveiled in New York in 1919. They had each accepted Bahá'u'lláh's teachings for humankind in the first decade of this century and had dedicated their lives to the Will of God and to the spread of His teachings given by Bahá'u'lláh and turned to His appointed son 'Abdu'l-Bahá, also known as the Master, for guidance and inspiration. Incredibly, when Father had already reached retiring age and Mother was in her fifties, they had set sail from San Francisco for this continent with little more than their faith to sustain them. But they had a goal and a mission.

PERSONAL QUALITIES

So far, very little has been written about the kind of qualities Mother and Father had.

In light of the fact that the Guardian referred other Bahá'ís to enquire of them how they had succeeded in establishing the Faith here,[5] it is interesting indeed to delve into this aspect of their lives, and to ask what qualities they had which enabled them to achieve their goal. What follows now is a brief background synopsis of their earlier lives.

Hyde Dunn, born and raised in England, engaged in business in that country and in Europe before he emigrated to the United States, where he worked as a travelling salesman.[6] His work in Australia too was that of a salesman, enabling him to travel the length and breadth of this continent.[7] He also had met 'Abdu'l-Bahá in San Francisco in 1912. His first wife Fannie Dunn passed away early in 1916.[8] In July 1917 Hyde and Clara were married and lived in San Francisco.

When we think of the requirements of a salesman, and a successful salesman Father Dunn was, some of the words these days which come to mind are: "Self starter, self motivated, persistent, persevering, persuasive." Whilst we do not find accounts describing Father in this way, the fact that he was a successful salesman suggests he must have had these qualities. We do know, however, that he was capable of "cold calling" his customers, that is, approaching them "out of the blue", or, to use a less colloquial expression, approaching people directly without prior introduction.

In addition, we do know that he was regarded as a distinguished English gentleman, notwithstanding his many years in the United States. He was of handsome appearance and had snow white hair. He dressed immaculately and usually wore a bow tie. Don't think that bow ties are out even now - James Strong, now head of Qantas always wears one! Father's shirts were immaculately laundered. In addition to his natural dignity of bearing, he was courteous, sincere, his manner was at all times kind and gentle, he was patient and radiated joy and love;[9] "...he gave generously material help to those who needed it" and "by practising rigid economy in expenditure upon himself, he always had funds to contribute to the support of the institutions of the Bahá'í Faith and to help, secretly, in the emergencies of others."[10]

My mother recalls hearing from the early Bahá'ís who knew Father Dunn that although he never hesitated for one moment to talk to anybody about the Bahá'í Faith, his personality was such that people were drawn to ask questions of him, so that he was never seen to be pushy or overbearing.

Father Dunn was posthumously raised to the rank of a Hand of the Cause in 1952.

The following quotation from the In Memoriam written for the Bahá'í World by the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'ís of Australia and New Zealand very beautifully sums up the cherished qualities of Father Dunn:

"...he was a brilliant example of one in whom the confirmations of the spirit had become a living force, vitalizing every thought and action. Bahá'u'lláh, as the embodiment of Reality, was the spring from which he drew his ever-increasing supply of spiritual sustenance. It was not alone the great message of which he was the bearer that arrested attention, but, in addition, the unearthly light that suffused his whole personality when giving the message, endowing him with a quality which set him on a spiritual plane to which others were blindly groping...His faith in the ultimate triumph of the Beloved's Cause was firm as a rock that no buffetings of indifference or adversity in the path could move."[11]

Clara Dunn was born in England but went to Canada to live when she was a small child. The Catholic/Protestant mix of her parents was always a source of contention and to escape the unhappy family situation, she married very young.[12] However, she was widowed when still a teenager and the mother of a small child, and the years which followed were extremely difficult.

Mother was not formally trained in nursing, but with her great gift for tending the sick she was trained by a doctor when she was living in Canada to assist him and would tend people in their homes, both wealthy and poor. She was very proud of her achievements, particularly after she had saved the life of a child, but after a dream in which she saw herself seven feet high, she knew she had to become more humble. Mother contracted Typhoid fever whilst she was in Canada[13] and after a long and debilitating illness she went to the United States early this century, and worked in Walla Walla in Washington State for a group of doctors who had developed the Viavi Treatment. Viavi means Way of Life, according to Harold and Florence Fitzner.[14]

It was during this time, about 1907 that Hyde Dunn walked into her Viavi office where Mother was in charge and asked her if she was interested in spiritual things, to which she replied, "I would be if I knew of any spiritual things!"[15] Hyde Dunn invited her to come to the hotel to meet Mr Ward Fitzgerald, who was a lawyer, and who had just returned from Akka with a wonderful message. What struck Mother was that she had never seen a man like him, with "something new in his face, a new light", so she decided to close the office earlier and go to meet Mr Fitzgerald, who incidentally, didn't impress her one little bit. She asked if the Bahá'í message was for everybody in the world, for every kind and colour, and they said it was, so she said it must be from God and as a result she became a Bahá'í.[16] Father had given up his good job in San Francisco to go on this trip to Walla Walla.[17]

Mother suffered many difficulties during her nursing career and struggled in her little town for 5 years to interest people in the Faith but to no avail. Eventually she had to give up her job with the doctors because another doctor in the same building called her a quack - the Viavi treatment which utilised massage was a new technique. In consequence of all this she had a nervous breakdown. When she got the urge to go to California to meet 'Abdu'l-Bahá in 1912, her landlady, who had really helped her so much during her illness told everyone she had lost her mind over this new religion, which upset Mother enormously.[18]

The point of briefly mentioning this here, is that Mother suffered everything a woman can suffer; but as she said, this was meant to be for otherwise how could she understand the trials of others without experiencing them herself. Although this was undoubtedly true of the early days of her life both here and in Canada and the United States, in 1958 when she was asked at a conference of hundreds of Bahá'ís, to recount her difficulties, she said she didn't have any![19]

Although we only knew Mother in the evening of her life, so to speak, she was a very, warm, loving, gentle but determined person. She could relate to anybody of any age or circumstance - a truly amazing ability to talk unaffectedly and humanly with anybody; she could be giving "s'prises" and telling stories to children one minute and talking to the mothers and grandmothers the next or even the mayor or Prime Minister Chifley![20] She radiated love and her beliefs and convictions were very reassuring and certain. There never was any sense of fanaticism or egocentricity, just humility, grace and serenity that made her the centre of attraction. In fact the Fitzners who knew her much earlier said she had a regal bearing.

In addition, she was fun loving and could be very witty and had a delightful sense of humour. Did you know that the one thing that actually improves with age is your "forgettery"? When she addressed a large gathering of Bahá'ís, she told them the Bahá'í Faith was like the Measles - catching. She loved the sense of speed and like any teenager today, liked to be driven faster and faster!

Mother was also well known for her ability to heal the sick by calling on the Divine Power. Indeed in her earlier years in this country she was well known among the ladies for massage and the healing touch of her hands. In one of her letters to my parents she wrote of a young man who had been involved in a motorcycle accident having his memory restored after the laying on of hands and prayer.

Mother was "humbled to the dust" as she put it, when she was made a Hand of the Cause in February 1952. She said she never expected anything like that.

Both Mother and Father lived simply, had few wants of their own, ate simple food and watched their diet carefully. Mother always supplemented her food with Parke Davis Abadon vitamin pills, and had her orange juice in the morning with a whole egg yolk - while my sisters and I looked on horrified at the thought. The whites were always discarded as Mother said they were indigestible.

DESTINY & SPIRITUAL INFLUENCES

Of her meeting with 'Abdu'l-Bahá, Mother said that "there was something about His presence that was indescribable". She was the last one to arrive from anywhere in the world to seek the presence of 'Abdu'l-Bahá in San Francisco, only to find no one would answer the door. When she looked through the windows she saw a large throng of Bahá'ís, whose faces looked "glorified". She decided to try the knob, and discovering the door was unlocked, walked in to be greeted by Hyde Dunn whose duty it was to look after the door and the arriving guests!

Mother was invited to join 'Abdu'l-Bahá for dinner that night and one of the points she always made was how much she enjoyed that Persian rice because she was "starved". Until that moment she had not been able to eat because she had been so upset that her landlady had said she had lost her mind over this religion.[21]

From a story 'Abdu'l-Bahá told, looking straight at Clara Davis, about a woman who took her great big duck to the market, saying her duck was the biggest duck, Mother got the message that she shouldn't exaggerate any more. For many to whom Mother told the story, whenever anyone has been exaggerating or ego-tripping, the phrase 'my duck is the biggest duck", and "my duck is a great big duck"[22] has been enough to restore reality and a little laughter! For me too, the eldest of four daughters (a son came later), Mother gave a set of china ducks, a large one which she said represented me, with three small ones. Having been thus made the "sitting duck" of the situation, the point has not been lost on me either! But then in my travels the three little ducks got broken. But Ah, there's more! When my parents were in Thailand on one occasion, my mother was presented with, guess what? - three little china ducks! So the "duck" saga goes on!

It was inevitable that someone, sometime was going to work at establishing the Bahá'í Faith in this country; it was destined to happen. The call was made by 'Abdu'l-Bahá for the Bahá'ís to arise and take the Faith all over the world, and it was the Dunns who volunteered to come to Australia, some seven years after meeting 'Abdu'l-Bahá. But fame and glory don't come without a price tag or without your motives being tested.

There is no doubt that both Mother and Father were tried in the crucible of tests and trials. The most difficult time for them was the first two years here. They obviously had looked at the possibility of setting up their own business in some way, and had for example, secured the rights to sell the bio-chemistry tissue salts here.[23] Also, they had bought jewellery in Hawaii which was to be part of their business plan. When they arrived, however, Father had not declared for Customs the jewellery he had bought in Hawai and was fined all the spare money they had. We remember Mother telling the story and saying how Father hoped they would send him to gaol so that he would know what Bahá'u'lláh suffered, but of course Mother hoped that wouldn't happen. And then Father became ill to such an extent that he was unable to work, so for six months Mother was the breadwinner.

They had earlier written to 'Abdu'l-Bahá and at this low point, a response to their letter came telling them that "great results" will come and that "later on favour, comfort and happiness will be bestowed."[24] They were thus encouraged and supported.

When 'Abdu'l-Bahá passed away in 1921, the friends everywhere were distraught - it was as though a light had gone out of their lives. What sustained them, was the Covenant and appointment by 'Abdu'l-Bahá of the Guardian, Shoghi Effendi. Whenever pilgrims had gone to visit the Master and subsequently the Guardian, the pilgrim notes recording the sayings of the Master and the Guardian were meticulously recorded and shared through the whole Bahá'í community. Of course they corresponded with their Bahá'í friends in California who shared news with them and sent them copies of notes Bahá'ís had made when they visited 'Abdu'l-Bahá in the Holy Land. And later on there was a succession of visits from American Bahá'ís which provided great upliftment for them.

Although they had given up everything and lost everything they didn't lose sight of their goal, this burning passion to achieve their objective. We might pause here a moment and ask: How many of us in our fifties and sixties have goals and a burning passion to see them fulfilled? Most people of their age would be happy to stay put in one place, but Mother and Father were on the move, from city to city across the nation and to New Zealand.

Nevertheless, in spite of all their efforts at trying to establish local Assemblies which are the foundation upon which any National body could be established, they repeatedly experienced disappointment. Their earlier attempt in 1926 to have a national convention for the election of a National Assembly did not materialise and by 1932, Father and Mother felt they had failed. Mother was on pilgrimage to the Holy Places in January 1932 and when she met with the beloved Guardian, Shoghi Effendi she "begged" him to replace them. She said she felt clumsy and awkward and uneducated.

The Guardian reminded her that Peter the Fisherman could neither read nor write and did not even know the days of the week. He told her to go back to Australia and form the National Assembly. Mother returned with a new spirit and the National Assembly was formed in 1934 on the foundation assemblies of Adelaide, Sydney and Auckland.[25]

Calling on the Divine power

Recently when we were in Adelaide with a group of Bahá'ís who knew Mother the one thing that everyone remembered was the way she prayed. And when Frank Wyss spoke in Sydney early in April about Mother, what he remembered was the way she prayed. She taught us all how to pray - not by giving lessons, but just by doing it.

To think of prayer as being something you rattle off to an invisible deity is to miss the point entirely. When Mother prayed it was every word that had meaning to her and she never rushed. It was more akin to a performer of music in full swing, transformed by the music being played, and in turn transforming others. To read prayers to oneself without voicing them is like playing a musical instrument in one's head, but without the sound effects that create the mystical magic.

Harold and Florence Fitzner too, recall the sweet melodious voices of both Father and Mother in prayer, an experience they deeply enjoyed. They also felt that Mother was guided and inspired with her responses to questions about the Faith. Indeed only recently in Adelaide one of the Bahá'ís recounted the circumstances of her initial encounter with the Faith. She attended two meetings in succession when Mother was present, and had questions in her mind that she wanted answers to but was too shy to ask. Mother answered both questions. Phyl Cameron was so taken with this that she plucked up courage after the second question was answered to mention that twice Mother had answered her unasked questions, to which Mother replied that Bahá'u'lláh uses us in mysterious ways.

THEIR ACTIVITIES

Miraculously, (or was it?) Father eventually secured a position with Nestles, which enabled him to travel the length and breadth of the continent.

With Father's job taking him all over the country, it was possible for them to spend some time in all the state capital cities, setting up a flat, meeting up with like minded people who were searching outside mainstream religion such as the New Thought Society, for example, whose rooms were shared by the Bahá'ís in Adelaide even after my parents became Bahá'ís, the Theosophists and people open to non-conventional form of treatment for the improvement of health.

Mother would organise meetings while Father was away, and when he returned he would be the principal speaker. They would hold regular meetings which attracted large numbers of people. But you can't have meetings with large numbers of people without meeting people and inviting them. And that's exactly what they did. Harold and Florence Fitzner recorded that "Father taught wherever he could. He never missed an opportunity. On trains. At railway stations. Hotel lounges. Dining rooms, Cafes. In the street. At work etc."[26] And so this pattern was repeated over and over, as the Dunns moved from city to city to interest people in the Bahá'í Faith.

Further, Mother would involve others too in charitable works, also collecting clothes for distribution to the poor and the like.

A great network of correspondence grew up over the years. The Guardian had encouraged the Dunns and other Bahá'ís to correspond with him to share news. Mother and Father wrote regularly to the Guardian recounting all their visits and activities such that the Guardian wrote in his book God Passes By first published in 1944, three years after the passing of Hyde Dunn, that "he was able to carry the Message to no less than seven hundred towns throughout that Commonwealth."[27]

When my parents became Bahá'ís there were all manner of carefully typewritten copies of Tablets and letters from the Master and Shoghi Effendi. These were the lifeline of the early believers. "Father used to sit up late at night after a hard day's work and type out these precious Tablets then he would distribute them to the friends at the meetings. It was this kind of personal self sacrifice which so endeared Mother and Father Dunn to the friends."[28] Late in his life when Father was going blind, he would still type out the Holy Words, with Mother dictating to him, because by that time he had learnt where the keys were. He apologised for his errors, though of course sense could still be made of what he had typed.

In consequence of typing so much material to share with all, Father and Mother, were constantly being immersed in the sea of knowledge, the gems from which they shared with others constantly. For example Mother said that 'Abdu'l-Bahá had told one of the early Bahá'ís that "ambition in the Cause was an abomination to God", as referred to in the Getsinger notes.[29] Our Bahá'í Writings are a treasure trove of personal guidance for our prosperity, both spiritually and materially.

Whenever a letter was received from the Guardian there was such excitement and anticipation of its contents. Equally, at Convention time, there was always a communication from the Guardian and how excited and eager everybody was to hear what he had to say. In spite of the handful of books which were available then, the knowledge of the friends was truly remarkable.

Although Mother was very proud of her nursing achievements, she nevertheless considered herself to be uneducated, and made this very clear in one of her letters to Eric and Marjory Bowes.[30] In spite of the lack of formal education, however, her simple letters written in her large scrawl provided the sustenance and encouragement the Bahá'ís needed. For example, in passing she would briefly mention an up coming Bahá'í event and how wonderful it would be to meet up.

Mother used to tell us that when she was on pilgrimage, the Guardian used to send the daily newspaper to her every morning. From that she said she understood she should keep up to date with world affairs, which she always did and would make comment. But she was human and liked reading the women's magazines, the Reader's Digest and listening to Blue Hills on the radio.

We especially remember Mother as a wonderful source of inspiration and consolation. She was always full of praise for people's achievements and always gave encouragement to others. She never complained.

TO SUM UP

From all the forgoing there are a number of conclusions we have drawn:

1. The Dunns had total dedication to the achievement of their goals and unswerving belief. Although there were times when they felt they were unequal to the task they had set themselves, they never, never doubted the validity and greatness of the Cause they were espousing.
2. Their self sacrifice was unquestionable, there is no doubt they gave everything they had.
3. They were self-starters, individuals who took the initiative to do things, to organise meetings, and to get things done. They persevered and persisted.
4. They knew their source of assistance and used it. In other words they turned to the Holy Writings for answers to their problems and they knew how to pray and call on that source of power and assistance, to tune in their radio receivers to the Master Channel in the skies (and they didn't have satellites in those days). They knew how to refill their cups and restore their souls. They had 'Abdu'l-Bahá and the Guardian as guiding supports in a similar way as the Bahá'ís have the Universal House of Justice today.
5. They never missed an opportunity to tell people about the Faith of Bahá'u'lláh. Father was perhaps the first "street teacher", the way he invited Mother to her first Bahá'í meeting being a prime example.
6. Wherever they went they held regular meetings as those who attended testify.
7. They wrote regularly to the Bahá'ís giving every encouragement, sharing with everyone the guidance and direction given by the Master and the Guardian.
8. They had absolute obedience to Bahá'u'lláh's teachings, to 'Abdu'l-Bahá and the Guardian, because they believed that the solutions to all the world's problems lies in the healing message of the Bahá'í Faith.
9. They were engaged in the charitable assistance of others, giving selflessly of their time and substance.
10. They radiated love and joy and were humble.

So, they had a goal, they had a plan, they had a DREAM. Their dream was fully realized, because their plan contained the ingredients for total success. We too can be successful with our plans and dreams if we use the right ingredients.

References