Violet McKinley
From Bahaikipedia
Violet Jessie McKinley (May 25, 1882 - August 16, 1959) was a pioneer and Knight of Bahá'u'lláh, named for pioneering to Cyprus.
Born at Enfield, north of London, into the prosperous trading environment of the late Victorian epoch, Violet McKinley (née Watson) was blessed with two great spiritual advantages: an extremely delicate constitution, which kept the thought of the other world very close, and a persistently inquiring mind - she always wanted to know 'Why?' This condition was stimulated by an orthodox but solid education at home. Too frail to go to school, she had a continental governess for eight years, with hard study of the nineteenth century romantics: Schiller, Goethe, Victor Hugo, Heine, Lamartine, etc. Her study was conducted all in German on week, all in French the other, and this, coupled with a deep religious sense that had been instilled in her by a very narrow but thoroughly sincere and right minded nurse during her early childhood, developed a viewpoint totally unsympathetic to the shallow and materialistic background of her class and daily life.
Just before the first World War she left her family and went to live with friends where she could have freedom to act as she thought right. Always interested in ideas and intolerant of the narrow dogmatism offered to her as 'religion', she now studied what she could find of the other beliefs of the world, coming into contact with the Theosophical Society which commended itself to her as being rather broadminded with regard to doctrine. It was while going to meetings at the Theosophical lodge in Exeter, where she was living after the war, that she met Dr. McKinley, an Irish surgeon, who had abandoned operative medicine for osteopathy and dietetics. Like her, he was dissatisfied with orthodoxy, yet sure that there must be come master them of life to put right the tortured world that had succeeded the armistice. They were married in 1922 and went to live in Oxford where their child, Hugh, was born two years later.
At a meeting of Theosophists in that city, soon after their arrival, they heard a Mr. H. Wooller give a talk on the Bahá'í Faith. They were deeply impressed and he lent them Dr. Esslemont's book Bahá'u'lláh and the New Era. They read this through together and on coming to the end they looked at each other and simultaneously said, 'This is it! This is what we've been looking for.' Although Bahá'ís were not formally registered in those days a number of people left the Theosophical Lodge at the same time as the McKinleys and thought of themselves as being in the 'Bahá'í Movement' (Subsequent inquiry has ascertained that Mr. Wooller himself did not become a declared believer in later years, though he spoke at Oxford as 'a member'.)
Almost immediately after hearing of and wholeheartedly accepting the Faith of Bahá'u'lláh, Dr. McKinley was taken seriously ill. The family moved to Cornwall for his health but he passed away there in 1927, leaving Violet with a very young child to bring up and with extremely restricted means; naturally she had no commercial qualifications. She lived very quietly in that part of the world until 1932 when she and Hugh went for a holiday to London. While there she found out the address of the London Bahá'í Centre and wrote asking for an appointment to talk of the Faith with some of the friends. This was a wonderful meeting and she went back to Cornwall radiant and inspired, but still deprived of any but written contact with the believers. Lifelong friendships with Mrs. Isobel Slade, Miss Evelyn Baxter (who was to become the Knight of Bahá'u'lláh for Channel Islands) and Mrs. Routh date from that meetings.
Three years later Violet moved to Devonshire for Hugh's education. In 1936 she met Mark Tobey at Darington Hall, Bernard Leach, Arnold van Ogtrop and also Charles and Helen Bishop who were then visiting Torquay from the Bahá'í International Bureau in Geneva. When the first Local Spiritual Assembly was established in Torquay, a little later on, she was one of the members, although living several miles out of the country; civic limits were not applied in those days.
On leaving school Hugh went to work on the land, and from the beginning of the second World War was 'frozen' in this occupation until 1946 when a providential road accident enabled him to be classified as a disabled person for the purposes of the Act. Forthwith Violet and he moved into Torquay town to assist in the work for the Cause there. The next year, after consultation, they made a pioneer move to Cardiff, and assisted in the formation of the first Local Spiritual Assembly there. Further pioneer moves to London and to Brighton took place in 1950 and 1952.
As soon as Violet and Hugh read the communication from Shoghi Effendi calling upon the believers, at the onset of the Ten Year Crusade, to arise for the purpose of establishing the Cause of Bahá'u'lláh throughout the world they cabled the National Spiritual Assembly of the British Isles offering to go anywhere. A project as worked out in consultation, and confirmed at the subsequent intercontinental conference held in Stockholm, routing them to Cyprus, Hugh departing first, and Violet following in November 1953. Cyprus has a unique reputation in Bahá'í history as the place of exile of Mírzá Yahyá , the treacherous half-brother of Bahá'u'lláh, stigmatized by Shoghi Effendi in God Passes By as 'Arch-breaker of the Covenant of the Báb...' Tests and difficulties fell think and fast for the pioneers who were laboring under the conditions already made arduous because of a heated and militant political situation. They were sustained by their recollection of their pilgrimage to the Holy Land and the assurances given them on that occasion by Shoghi Effendi that whatever pool of negative force might have been left by Mírzá Yahyá, and however great the tests that wold assuredly confront those who arose to offset this baleful influence, the ultimate victory would be, in proportion, overwhelming.
An influx of pioneers from America, the Netherlands and Iran, as well as the confirmations of local believers, resulted in the formation of a Local Spiritual Assembly in the capital, Nicosia, in 1956. Two years later the McKinleys were encouraged to move to Famagusta, the very place where Mírzá Yahyá had lived and died.
By this time Violet's health was entirely broken; too weak to stand, she could only lie in bed, occasionally getting up in her room Amidst rabid communal strife and terrorism no organized teaching work could be initiated, but individually two o three people were attracted and their interest aroused. During the ten-day period of her final illness, books were placed in the library of the Army Educational Centre serving Eastern Cyprus. Violet McKinley passed away shortly after down on 16 August 1959. Informed of her passing, the Hands of the Cause residing in the Holy Land, who were then serving as the custodians of the Faith in the interregnum before the election of the Universal House of Justice, cabled in terms that con only constitute her crowning epitaph:
| “ | GRIEVED PASSING DEVOTED SELFSACRIFICING KNIGHT BAHAULLAH VIOLET MCKINLEY HIGHLY ESTEEMED BY BELOVED GUARDIAN EXAMPLE PERSEVERANCE UNFORGETTABLE PRAYING HOLY SHRINES PROGRESS SOUL REALS BEYOND STOP FEEL IMPELLED BUILD HER GRAVE TRIBUTE HISTORIC SERVICE | ” |
Violet's grave in the English Cemetery at Famagusta, is marked by a plain slab of Carrara marble bearing the nine-pointed star and a quotation from the Writings of Bahá'u'lláh, secured from Italy and put into place during the early 1960s. It has been visited by some of the Hands of the Cause and other distinguished Bahá'ís
[edit] References
- The Universal House of Justice [1993]. The Bahá'í World - An International Record Vol XVI 1973-1976 pages 512-514. Haifa, Israel: World Centre Publications.
