Named by Shoghi Effendi as a Disciple of 'Abdu'l-Baha, she
will also be known to posterity as the originator of the concept of the first
universal platform in America, which, during its first 33 years, developed into
the Green Acre school and conference center (comprising some 200 acres along
the banks of the Piscataqua River in Eliot, Maine, four miles up from the sea
and opposite the city of Portsmouth, New Hampshire). One writer said of her in
1928, "She stands as the actual fulfiller of Emerson in terms of applied
influence" and "The roll of speakers who have taken part in the Green
Acre Conferences represent well-nigh the flower of modem liberal thought."
It was typical of her vision that when opening the center on 4 July 1894 she
raised, at the end of the ceremony, a flag of world peace. Two years after the
opening, she found and embraced the Faith. She went immediately to see
'Abdu'l-Baha in 'Akka to offer her services to Him. The letters He addressed to
her during subsequent years continued to guide her in her work. When He came to
America in 1912, He spent a week in August at Green Acre (although Sarah
herself was by this time confined to a sanitarium in Portsmouth, which she left
for a few hours to welcome Him). Green Acre continues to flourish and develop
as a Baha'i school, thereby fulfilling the vision of this remarkable woman and
in accordance with the guidance given by 'Abdu'l-Baha in its earliest days.
…Read more
(Adapted from ‘Historical Dictionary of the Baha’i Faith’ by
Hugh Adamson, and ‘William Henry Randall, Disciple of ‘Abdu'l-Baha’, Bahiyyih
Randall Winckler in collaboration with M. R. Garis)
