Alyce Janssen

From Bahaikipedia

Alyce Barbara May Janssen (1900 - December 10, 1964) was a pioneer and Knight of Bahá'u'lláh, named for pioneering to Spanish Morocco.

To capture a picture of Alyce one would visualize neatly bobbed graying brown hair, sparking blue-gray eyes, a small stature and an enchanting smile. Deeply spiritual in nature and vivacious and loving in personality, her warm appeal and genuine concern for the rights and equalities of all races attracted many responsive souls who became confirmed in the Cause of Bahá'u'lláh.

Although handicapped by age and poor health Alyce successfully pioneered in several foreign lands including Switzerland, Italy and the Canary Islands. As part of an interracial party of five crusaders, she assisted in establishing the Faith in Ceuta, Spanish Morocco. The writer of this memoir (Luella McKay), whose family together with Alyce and others composed that pioneer team, recalls with profound tenderness the feeling of oneness, the mutual sharing of resources both tangible and intangible, that marked every step of what might otherwise have been a harrowing and distressing experience: the bedsprings without mattresses, the leaks in the ceilings, the unwanted lice, the bugs in the flour. These physical inconveniences intensified our fervor and increased our dedication to the goal we had set out to accomplish. The courage, understanding, love and fortitude that characterized the spirit of our dearly loved spiritual sister, Alyce, as we met each new hardship, was a splendid example and a source of great inspiration to us all.

Alyce ended her days on earth in Santa Rosa, California, on December 10, 1964, mourned by her family and a wide circle of friends whose lives she touched: the sad of heart for whom she performed countless deeds of kindness, the discouraged and disillusioned to whom she offered words of comfort, the little bands of Arab and Spanish children who clustered around to hear her beautiful stories related in her special brand of broken Spanish, and those to whom she so generously gave of her material goods. Our sadness at or loss is sweetened by the certain knowledge that Alyce has won an everlasting crown.

From a letter written by Luella McKay

[edit] References

• The Universal House of Justice [1974]. The Bahá'í World - An International Record Vol XIV 1963-1968 - From a letter written by Luella McKay. Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, England: Broadwater Press Limited.