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.
Sarah Farmer had made the remark many times that she longed
to have the Green Acre property electrified. Harry Randall did this for her
with the approval of the Trustees of the Fellowship. The buildings, and even
the lane from the main road down to the Inn, were wired. Sarah was carried to
see it all, with an expression of obvious pleasure at seeing her father's
invention in use.
In early November Sarah became ill; she called Harry to her
bedside and asked him to take over her work at Green Acre because he was the
one she trusted. He was appalled by her request - how could he take on such a
responsibility when his time and strength seemed to be stretched to the limit
already? But she was weak and not expected to live, so how could he refuse her?
Sarah Farmer did not have long to live. She went into a coma
and died of pneumonia on 23 November 1916. Fred Lunt, Harlan and Harry
conducted the funeral service, with Harry putting the burial ring on her
finger. Mrs. Edwards tells us in her diary that the flowers received were
beautiful and that Sarah was buried in the family plot behind her house, on the
edge of the pines.
It was the close of a full and complex life. Daughter of a
charitable mother and a brilliant father whose inventions would change the
world and who felt money should not be accepted for God-inspired work, Sarah,
like her parents, believed in helping humanity, and sought to fulfill this end
through the aims of Green Acre and her acceptance of the Baha'i Faith. She was
a leader and an initiator, yet she was a pawn for power-hungry individuals and
charlatans who drugged and locked her away until rescued by friends. In
recognition of her vision of the New Age and acceptance of it, she was named a
Disciple of 'Abdu'l-Baha by Shoghi Effendi.
(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)
