Keith Ransom-Kehler, the First American Martyr

Keith Ransom-Kehler, an American Bahá'í teacher, died in Iṣfáhán in October 1933, after more than a year of teaching work in Persia undertaken at the request of Shoghi Effendi.

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Before her Persian mission she had travelled widely as a teacher. In early 1932 she went to India after working in Australia and New Zealand, where, a letter written on the Guardian's behalf said, her work had been "brilliant." The Guardian himself wrote to an Indian believer that he trusted her visit would "lend a fresh impetus" to the work there. From India she went to Haifa, where she rested before starting for Persia.

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A letter written on the Guardian's behalf after her passing gives the purpose of the Persian journey: she had been "entrusted by the Guardian with the mission of acquainting our Persian brethren with the basic principles of the Administration and of liberating them from the appalling persecutions to which they have been lately subjected." In *God Passes By* Shoghi Effendi records that she pleaded the cause of her persecuted brethren in numerous interviews with ministers, ecclesiastics and government officials, and addressed seven petitions to the Sháh.

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Heedless, he wrote, of the warnings of age and ill-health, she at last died in Iṣfáhán, and she was buried there.

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The Guardian's cablegram of October 30, 1933, read in part:

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> Keith's precious life offered up in sacrifice to beloved Cause in > Bahá'u'lláh's native land. On Persian soil, for Persia's sake, she > encountered, challenged and fought the forces of darkness with high > distinction, indomitable will, unswerving, exemplary loyalty. The mass of > her helpless Persian brethren mourns the sudden loss of their valiant > emancipator. American believers grateful and proud of the memory of their > first and distinguished martyr.

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In the same cable he mourned "an invaluable collaborator, an unfailing counselor, an esteemed and faithful friend," and wrote that her international services had entitled her "to an eminent rank among the Hands of the Cause of Bahá'u'lláh." Years later he named her among three heroines of the Formative Age: "Keith Ransom-Kehler, whose dust sleeps in far-off Isfáhán."

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*A retelling drawn from Shoghi Effendi's **God Passes By**, **Messages to America** and **Dawn of a New Day**, where the quotations can be found.*

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