In 1936, Effie returned to her homeland, Australia, where she looked after the National Archives over a long period. Her last years were spent in a small flat in the Hazíratu’l-Quds in Sydney at the invitation of the National Spiritual Assembly of Australia and New Zealand who had been requested by the Guardian to take care of her until her passing on January 2nd, 1968.
Note 5. (Letter No. 15)
Mrs Amy Dewing and her son Bertram were among New Zealand’s earliest Bahá’ís; Mrs Dewing came from an orthodox Church of England background and viewed with disapproval her son’s questioning attitude which led him to describe himself as a Rationalist. They heard of and accepted the Truth of the Bahá’í Cause after meeting with “Mother” and “Father” Dunn in Devonport, Auckland and, in 1926, both of them served as members of the first Local Spiritual Assembly in Auckland. Amy Dewing, as one of a small and persevering group of New Zealand believers, was active in spreading the Message as was her son through whose efforts a Bahá’í magazine was published in Australia and New Zealand to promote the teachings. Prior to her passing in 1957, Amy Dewing witnessed the emergence of the New Zealand community as an independent entity.
Having travelled extensively overseas, Bertram Dewing eventually settled in Auckland. A tireless worker for the Faith, he was a member of the first Local Spiritual Assembly in Devonport in 1951 and in 1958 was elected to the second National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of New Zealand. He pioneered to Hokianga in the same year and a decade later assisted in spreading the Faith to New Plymouth where he worked for the Cause with unabated zeal until he passed to the Abhá Kingdom in 1972 at the age of seventy.
Note 6. (Letter No. 16)
Dr Habíb, whose older brother attained martyrdom, was born in 1888 at Kermánsháh, Persia and was given the name Mu’ayyad (meaning ‘confirmed’) by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. At the age of twenty-one, when en route to Beirut to begin his medical studies at the American University, he spent a month in the Holy Land with ‘Abdu’l-Bahá who took a personal interest in his progress. Thereafter he returned each summer to serve the Cause, extending hospitality to visitors and pilgrims, recording daily events, acquiring spiritual knowledge from outstanding Bahá’í scholars and being entrusted with the receipt and dispatch of Tablets. Referring to Habíb’s student days, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá extolled the young man’s influence, detachment and sanctity, saying “the fragrance of Beirut” perfumed His nostrils.