One of the most precious things in a family is the family photo album, showing family members and important events in a family over several generations. My Bahá'í family heritage photo page introduces our origins as a Bahá'í family. This first page is more of an historical record of the different generations of my family down through the years, as well as a summary autobiography, and is arranged chronologically. My father was an avid photographer, so my childhood was reasonably well documented in photographs, and many of the earlier pictures are his. I shall add to these albums as I have the opportunity to scan old pictures. Further parts illustrating my studies and career, and my departure as a Bahá'í pioneer and service in international organizations, follow.

Make me as dust in the pathway of Thy loved ones, and grant that I may offer up my soul for the earth ennobled by the footsteps of Thy chosen ones in Thy path...
Tablet of Visitation of 'Abdu'l-Bahá

The focus here is on the personal and Bahá'í dimensions of our family life. There is another page on My Life of Service with a more professional focus. Other relevant pages provide more detailed photo albums, and are generally linked from this page for those who want to go further. Some special places in my California childhood, such as the Geyserville Bahá'í Summer School, the Monterey Peninsula, Yosemite in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and my grandmother's summer home at Inverness on Tomales Bay, are described in separate sections at the bottom of this page with links where relevant. Travel pictures are mostly on the Travel page. See also my former Homes and Gardens, my Chalet in the forest in France since 2000, and my Activities there. Some other pages for particular events are also linked from this page. For other views on my service to humanity from a more professional perspective in addition to My Life of Service, there is my full Curriculum Vitae with a chronology of my professional activities, and my full bibliography with a list of all of my publications and, for most, links to their content.

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ROOTS

My maternal great-grandfather, Charles Holmes Smitten, was born in Barbados, in a family descended from minor Swedish nobility in Estonia, emigrating to England after the collapse of the Swedish empire, and then to Barbados in the 1600s. He remembered as a child being taken by his black nanny from the mansion down the drive lined by mahogany trees to the beach to bathe. When England freed the slaves in 1834 and the economy collapsed, the family emigrated to New York, but Charles did not get on with his step-mother and ran away to sea at the age of 12, becoming a cabin boy on one of the clipper ships sailing between New York and San Francisco around Cape Horn. He worked his way up to First Mate (second in command) on the largest of the clipper ships, the “Great Republic”, before leaving in California during the gold rush. As a good manager of men, he was put in charge of the largest gold mine in the Sierra Nevada, the Empire Mine in Grass Valley, where my grandmother Alice Lucille Smitten was born. “Maymay”, as we knew her, was one of the first women to attend the University of California in 1900, and was befriended by Phoebe Hearst, an early Bahá’í who invited ‘Abdu’l-Bahá to her estate at Pleasanton north of San Francisco. In his later years, Charles Smitten had a summer home at Inverness and the first sailboat on Tomales Bay north of San Francisco, where the San Andreas Fault enters the ocean, and where we often vacationed.

The coat of arms of the Smitten family

My maternal great-grandfather was a stone mason from Alsace who emigrated to America to build the bridges on the railway in Pennsylvania before going on to California to work on construction in San Francisco, where my grandfather George Frederic Lyon was born. George had to leave school young to go to work, initially as the first elevator boy in the first elevator in San Francisco in the White House department store, where I can remember going shopping with my mother. Then he got a job for a real estate company collecting rents in the poorest neighborhoods. He worked his way up in the real estate business, developing the communities of Burlingame and Hillsborough south of San Francisco, and pioneering agriculture on a large ranch in the San Joaquin Valley. There is a Lyon Street in San Francisco.

George Lyon married Lucille Smitten in 1904, after his first wife died, and their honeymoon took them on a grand tour of Europe. We found in the guestbook of the Cheshire Cheese restaurant in London a drawing they made of sunset at the Golden Gate where the ocean enters San Francisco Bay (before the bridge was built). They lived in San Francisco until 1906 and the great earthquake. Maymay remembered being awakened early in the morning by her room shaking. She jumped out of bed before the bed was thrown against the door. Another jolt knocked it away and she was able to go outside. They camped in front of their house watching the city burn, but fortunately the fire was stopped before it reached their street. They then moved down to Hillsborough and built a beautiful home there, where my mother Joyce Cowling Lyon was born in August 1908, the fourth of 5 children.

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Inscription and sketch of the Golden Gate by George F. Lyon and Lucille Lyon in the guest book of the Cheshire Cheese restaurant, London 1904; Grandmother Maymay 1962; 1972

My paternal great-grandparents were Norwegian and Swedish immigrants who settled in Kansas. My great-grandfather was John Hansen when he left Norway, but became John Dahl when he went through Ellis Island. Probably some immigration officer said there were too many Hansens and he should pick something else. My grandfather Arthur Ludwig Dahl Sr. studied law and became personal secretary to Gifford Pinchot, the founder of the US Forest Service, in Washington, D.C. Pinchot later invited ‘Abdu’l-Bahá to his home in 1912. My grandmother, born Ella Merritt, became an orphan when her itinerant pastor father abandoned the family, and was adopted and renamed Lenna Tillot by a family in Flemingsburg, Kentucky. She was valedictory of her high school (I have her handwritten talk), and became a government typist in Washington, D.C. in Teddy Roosevelt’s administration, where she met and married my grandfather. They moved to California in 1906, but had to stay some time in Los Angeles until San Francisco was rebuilt. My grandfather became corporate secretary to the Hammond Engineering Company that build dredges for gold mining. He was also a journalist and wrote articles for Scientific American, among others. My grandmother also wrote, and had a short story published. After my grandfather died in 1953, grandmother lived with us until her passing.

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Grandparents Arthur Sr. and Lenna Dahl, September 1943; September 1946

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Lenna Dahl, December 1950; 1961

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Arthur Dahl Sr. Dec.1950; grandfather passed away in June 1953

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THE CAILLARD SIDE OF THE FAMILY

My wife Martine is the descendent through her mother of a distinguished family of Belgian scientists and artists. One ancestor, François-Antoine CURTET, 1763-1830, was born in the village of Chaumont just across the valley from my chalet in Haute Savoie, France, became a doctor in Napoleon's armies, was stationed in Brussels at a military hospital, stayed to establish the medical school in Brussels, with a distinguished medical and scientific career. The square in Chaumont between the church and the town hall is named for him.

François-Antoine Curtet, b. Chaumont 1763 - d. Brussels 1830

Curtet's daughter married Adolfe QUETELET, 1796-1874, the famous Belgian scientist and founder of the science of statistics. Martine's grandmother, who was Quetelet's great granddaughter, gave us as a wedding present a portrait of the famous German scientist and naturalist Alexander von Humboldt, autographed by him and given to Adolphe Quetelet.

Martine's mother Francine de Moor was thus from the Belgian aristocracy, but raised by a relative in the Pyrenees in the south of France. Martine's paternal grandparents were famous movie stars in silent films in France, and her grandfather directed the Comédie Française before moving to the south of France. Her father Claude Caillard had a long career with Radio and Television Luxembourg, where Martine was born in 1949, the fifth of eight children. He also loved the sea, build a 15 meter ketch and sailed it across the Atlantic and back after retirement, when they settled in Brittany where we lived for a year on our return from New Caledonia.

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Francine Caillard 2007: Claude Caillard

My father-in-law Claude Caillard passed away in 2012 and my mother-in-law Francine Caillard né de Moor in May 2015

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THE DAHL FAMILY

My mother, Joyce Cowling Lyon, born in Hillsborough in 1908, attended the Castilleja School in Palo Alto, and then Stanford University, majoring in social sciences. Her roommate and best friend was Marion Holley (later Hofman), whose mother was a Bahá’í and invited to two girls to the first Bahá’í summer school on the Bosch Ranch in Geyserville, north of San Francisco, in 1927. Marzieh Gail, daughter of Ali-Kuli Khan, who met ‘Abdu’l-Bahá as a child, was also at Stanford at that time. After graduation in 1929, my mother went to Paris for a year, and Mrs. Holley wrote to Laura Dreyfus Barney to keep after her. She was invited to attend the Bahá’í meetings at the Scott Studio in Paris, and when she left to take the ship back to America, was given some of Bahá’u’lláh’s writings to read. By the time she reached America, she was a Bahá’í. She and her best friend Marion were the youth members on the first National Teaching Committee chaired by Leroy Ioas, and she organized children’s classes for Leroy’s children. When May Maxwell was on a trip to San Francisco, my mother was asked to drive her to her appointments. May commented that she was of a marriageable age, did she have someone in mind? May suggested that she consider her brother Greg’s friend Arthur, and they eventually married.

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Mother in garden, Palo Alto, October 1949; Pebble Beach, September 1955; Pebble Beach 1957

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Mother, Pebble Beach 1963; ca. 1990; 2005, age 97

My father, Arthur Ludwig Dahl Jr., was born in San Francisco on 5 November 1913, an only child whose mother was very protective. They later moved to Burlingame where my father attended high school and played clarinet in the band. One of his friends was Gregory Lyon, Joyce’s younger brother. The crash of 1929 and the great depression wiped out the mining industry, and my grandfather, a broken man, sold life insurance for the rest of his career. My father attended Stanford, and received an MBA from the Stanford Business School, also becoming a certified public accountant. In the summers, he worked for the Curry Company that ran the concessions in Yosemite National Park, starting a life-long love for the high Sierras.

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Dad in Carmel, March 1954; Inverness, October 1955; Pebble Beach 1957

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Dad, May 1963; April 1974; Big Sur 1977

Dad and Mother

PALO ALTO TO 1954

My parents first lived in College Terrace near the university while my father finished his studies at Stanford, and then moved to 2150 Byron Street in Palo Alto. My father became a partner in an investment counseling firm in San Francisco, and commuted to the city by train every day. My older brother Keith was born in September 1940. Japan bombed Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, throwing America into World War II. My mother told me that she felt a strong desire to create new life to replace those lost in the war. I was born 9 months later on 13 August 1942.

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Me with my mother, 1942. As a baby, I had carrot red hair.

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Me with mother and dad at 2 months

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with brother Keith, mother and collie Bruce, May-June 1943

My early childhood was close to ideal, with walks in the foothills behind Stanford; visits to feed the ducks in the Palo Alto yacht harbor; trips to the Monterey Peninsula: Carmel, Pebble Beach and Point Lobos, the beautiful coastline south of San Francisco; stays at my grandmother’s summer home at Inverness on Tomales Bay north of San Francisco; and visits to Yosemite. Love of nature came at a very early age. We had an active Bahá’í community in Palo Alto, with a local spiritual assembly, children’s classes and other activities. Every summer we would go for a week to the Geyserville Bahá’í Summer School with Bahá’í children’s classes and a chance to catch up with friends from all over the western United States.

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with dad, in swing, with Keith and mother at park, June 1943

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Keith and me; Keith's third birthday with grandparents, Maymay, Uncle George and two cousins, Sept.1943; Palo Alto yacht harbor and ducks March 1944

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Me with Keith and mother, March 1944

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Marion Holley Hofman holding me, Keith, mother and Mildred Nicholls, March 1944; Stanford golf course; me in garden, April 1944

I usually got on well with my older brother Keith. My interest in marine biology obviously started very early (1944).

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Our home at 2150 Byron St., Palo Alto; me with mother and Keith, April-June 1944

When I was 3 ½, I became very ill and paralyzed. The doctors first thought it was polio, but it turned out to be Guillan-Barré Syndrome that burns out nerve endings. Fortunately penicillin had been discovered, and I can remember lying on my stomach in the hospital receiving injections into my buttocks. There was also a troubling emotional association. Not long before, my mother’s beloved collie Bruce became too old, went to the dog hospital, and never returned. I expected the same thing would happen to me. Fortunately I recovered fully.

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Keith, Mother, Roger and me; now we were three; Keith and me, July 1946

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With visiting Bahá'ís the Babos and Edris Rice-Wray; mother, me and Keith at the San Francisco zoo; with Dad's cousin Elmer Hoeffner, July-August 1946

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With Mother in the garden, Sept.1946; Roger, Uncle Greg, me, Mother, February 1947

In 1946, my parents bought a new larger house in Palo Alto one block down at 2350 Byron Street. There were many children on the block, so we had many friends. Bill Hewlett (founder of Hewlett-Packard), lived one house down the street. His daughter Eleanor was in my class at Stanford, and his son Walter was a classmate of my brother Greg at Harvard. My brother Roger was born in 1946 and Gregory in 1948.

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Our new house at 2350 Byron Street, Palo Alto, California

Our garden play area was written up in Sunset Magazine

We often went to my Grandmother Maymay's summer house near Inverness on Tomales Bay, north of San Francisco, where there were indian middens, trails through the forest with an indian chief's stone throne, a boathouse and dock, and a private beach with a stream running down it that we could dam up and divert (until the next high tide).

Wading in the bay water was cold in April 1947

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Maymay, Mother, me and Keith at Inverness, March 1947; Me, Keith, Uncle Greg at Inverness; with Mother, April 1947

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Keith and me with Easter eggs, April 1947; three boys, May 1947; Roger and me, August 1947

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Trip to the Monterey Peninsula, August 1947, with Dahl grandparents at Monterey Pier; Keith and me at Point Lobos

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My portrait November 1947; Roger and me with puppy Fluffy, March 1948

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Me with Fluffy, March 1948; at the Herbert's (mother's sister) June 1948; with Nancy Phillips (our Bahá'í friend from Phoenix) and children, July 1948

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Family at Christmas, Dec.1948; with grandparents; with presents; my portrait March 1949

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Dahl family October 1948; March 1949; Picnic at Inverness July 1949

My birthday with Byron Street friends, ca. 1949

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Me, Roger and Mother at Westridge Dec.1949; 4 boys with Alberta Glass, March 1950; Family at Easter, April 1950

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In the poppy fields at Stanford, April 1950; me December 1950

Every summer we went to Wawona in Yosemite National Park, where we stayed in the big old hotel while my father played golf and we hunted for golf balls in the river, or walked through the Sequoias.

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Me at Christmas 1950, age 8, and riding horseback at Wawona

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Glacier Point, Yosemite, August 1951; Greg's third birthday party June 1951

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Mother and boys, Pt. Lobos, Sept.1951; family at Inverness, Oct.1951; me building sand castles at beach, Inverness, Oct.1951

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Family Christmas pictures at Stanford University 1951; my pile of blocks

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Mother, me and Keith, foot of Yosemite Falls, April 1952; first experience of snow, Yosemite Badger Pass April 1952; Me and snowman, Badger Pass

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Me, mother, Keith, Happy Isles, Yosemite Valley, April 1952

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Our close Bahá'í friends Nancy Phillips and family from Phoenix, airport 1951; in our garden, July 1952

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Keith and me, Wawona golf course; family on Wawona golf course; Tenaya Lake, Yosemite, Aug.1952

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High Sierra Camps: Tuolomne Meadows; May Lake; Glen Aulin, Yosemite, Aug.1952

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Glen Aulin, Yosemite, Aug.1952

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Tuolomne Meadows; Glen Aulin trail; me on donkey after I broke a toe, Glen Aulin trail, Yosemite, Aug.1952; portrait 1952

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Pool in garden, Palo Alto, Sept.1952

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Christmas family picture at our Palo Alto home, December 1952; me in the garden with a hairstyle again in fashion

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The four Dahl brothers, Arthur, Keith, Roger, Gregory 1952; Keith, mother, me, San Francisco Ferry, April 1953

When I was 10 in 1953, my parents decided that Keith and I should get to know our country (my father was not interested in foreign travel). We took the train across the country to Chicago to attend the dedication of the Bahá’í House of Worship in Wilmette, Illinois, and the conference launching the Ten Year Crusade. A picture of Keith and me at the conference sitting on the stage with the Hands of the Cause is hanging in the Mansion of Bahá’u’lláh in Bahji, Israel.

Baha'i Conference in Chicago 1953. Hands of the Cause to the right

Me and Keith sitting with the children on stage, far left in second row

I remember sitting in the front row at the session where Ruhiyyih Khanum, the wife of the Guardian of the Bahá’í Faith, called on volunteers to pioneer to the many countries that had not yet been opened to the Faith, and I saw many friends get up on stage. I wanted to go, but was only 10 years old. Becoming a pioneer some day became the goal of my life. After Chicago, we also visited New York.

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After Chicago, we visited New York: Empire State Building; carriage ride; Museum of Modern Art, May 1953

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Mother and me, MoMA, New York; four boys and mother, Alta Mesa, California, June 1953

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Wawona Point; horseback riding at Wawona, Yosemite, Aug.1953

After riding horses at Wawona, it became a favorite activity and my main sport all through high school and as an undergraduate at university.

Riding at Wawona, Yosemite National Park

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Me on horseback, Wawona; Washburn Point, Yosemite, Aug.1953

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My 11th birthday party, Palo Alto, with Byron Street friends; swimming at Maymay's pool; Auntie Lucille, Uncle George, cousins George and John Herbert at Maymay's pool, Hillsborough, Aug.1953

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Family at Stedman's, Carmel; Family at Carmel Beach, Aug.1953

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Me at Carmel Beach, Aug.1953; me on boat, Oregon, Sept.1953, when we drove up the Pacific Coast

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Mother, me, Keith, Mt. Shasta, Aug.1953; Christmas decorations at our Palo Alto home, Dec.1953

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Christmas family picture, Yosemite, Aug.1953

For primary school, we attended the Ford Country Day School in Los Altos, except for my second grade at the local public school (not successful, ruined my handwriting) and the third grade at the Peninsula School in Menlo Park. My last year, sixth grade, the school moved to an amazing mansion above Los Altos, built in the 1920s by an investor who shot himself there after the 1929 crash. It was in the style of a British manor house, with 13th century brocades on the walls, and a ballroom with a gilded ceiling from the Doge’s Palace in Venice, all gold leaf with oil paintings. Our classroom, the former dining room, had wood paneling in the gothic style of François 1e of France. It was only on graduating, when I won an award as the best male student, that I realized that schooling could be graded.

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Me, Roger, Gregory; me at Ford Country Day School, Los Altos, Dec.1953; my graduation from Ford School, June 1954

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Ford School commencement, June 1955; the ballroom of the mansion

For our next big trip in the spring of 1954, we flew to Chicago to attend the national Bahá’í convention, picked up a new car in Detroit, and drove home down and across the United States, visiting my grandmother’s home in Flemingsburg, Kentucky, New Orleans, El Paso, the Grand Canyon, Death Valley and Hollywood.

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Visiting Bahá'í friends John and Valera Allen before they pioneered to Swaziland; me and Keith at the Grand Canyon in Arizona, May 1954

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PEBBLE BEACH 1954-1964

In 1954, the Guardian of the Bahá’i Faith warned of the dangers to America’s cities and advised those who could to move to more rural areas to pioneer and teach the Faith. My father took early retirement, managing his own investments, and we prepared to move down to the Monterey Peninsula. The first year, 1954-55, Keith and I went to boarding school at the Robert Louis Stevenson School in Pebble Beach, founded two years before. We were 64 students in the 1st to 12th grades. My parents then organized their move in mid-1955, first to a rented house on the 17 Mile Drive in Pebble Beach, while they bought a 3 acre lot and built a new house in the Del Monte Forest, with a beautiful view of Carmel Bay and Point Lobos, where we moved in 1956. In 1957 my father was elected to the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States (until 1968), and became treasurer the next year. I also turned 15 and declared my faith in Bahá’u’lláh the month before the passing of the Guardian in September 1957.

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Mother and me, Pebble Beach; Dad and Grandmother, Pebble Beach, September 1954; Stevenson School students lunch at our home in Palo Alto, October 1954

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Gregory's birthday, June 1954

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Christmas family pictures, Palo Alto, 1954

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Roger, me and Nancy Robison, last days in Palo Alto; Mother and Greg at my desk, Palo Alto, April 1955 before the rest of the family moved to Pebble Beach

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Stevenson School ski trip to Badger Pass, Yosemite, February 1955;  r. Headmaster Robert Ricklefs (left) and Dennis Ketcham (right), son of Hank Ketcham and inspiration for "Dennis the Menace"

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Our rented house in Del Monte Forest, with Phillips family, July 1955; Waiting for the school bus

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Life at our rented house, Del Monte Forest, May 1956

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Life at our rented house, Del Monte Forest, May 1956

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Our dog Fluffy joined us; Dennis the Menace playground, Monterey, March 1956; Monterey wharf, July 1956

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Pebble Beach lot for our new house 1955; picnic for Roger's birthday on Pebble Beach lot, May 1955

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Picnic on lot; house under construction, August 1955; view from the Pebble Beach house

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Me, mother, Maymay, Dad at Inverness, Oct.1955

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Lunch with Uncle Greg, Aunt Teresa, Maymay, Inverness, Oct.1955

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Christmas family picture, Inverness, Oct.1955; me 1956

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Mr. and Mrs. Ricklefs from Stevenson School, and my parents, Pebble Beach house, March 1956; house under construction

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Stevenson School graduation 1956; with Cleora Bruce (our babysitter from childhood) and husband June 1956; me 1957

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Geyserville Summer School, July 1956

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Me and Greg at Geyserville; me in Redwood grove, July 1956; my birthday in new Pebble Beach home with Grove Becker, Greg's guitar teacher, Aug.1956

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Christmas family picture, Pebble Beach house, Dec.1956

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Maymay, Uncle Greg and Teresa, Great Aunt Helen and Uncle Percy, Dec.1956; with DuPrau family March 1957; Wolcotts, Phillips, Dahls, June 1957

In August 1957, when I turned 15, I declared my faith in Bahá'u'lláh and officially joined the Bahá'í community. Nancy Phillips, a close family friend, gave me special classes to ensure that I had a deep enough understanding of the Bahá'í Faith to make such a decision.

Nancy Phillips, a wonderful Bahá'í from Arizona

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Firuz Kazemzadeh, Ali and Marion Yazdi, Dahls, July 1957; grandmother's birthday; Grove Becker, Greg's guitar teacher who lived with us, November 1957

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Waiting for school bus, 11 November 1957

My first published article, written in my high school freshman English class in 1957, appeared in the school newspaper Tusitala, vol. 1, no. 4, in June 1957.

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Christmas family picture 1957; family at Christmas 1957

I continued my love of nature through high school, going bird watching with one of our teachers, collecting natural history specimens, and saving my allowance to buy a microscope. One person who had an important influence on me from an early age was Vinson Brown, a Bahá’í and natural scientist, who published nature guides and an Amateur Naturalist’s Handbook. At our Geyserville summer school children’s classes, he would take us on field trips to the tide pools on the coast and taught us about the kingdoms of God (mineral, vegetable, animal, human). He gave me an autographed copy of his book “How to Make a Home Nature Museum”, and using it I stuffed my first animal, a gopher caught by our gardener, when I was 10. My high school biology teacher was completing his Ph.D. in marine biology at the Hopkins Marine Station in Pacific Grove, so we learned lots of marine biology.

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Me in tide pools, March 1958; Stevenson School commencement June 1958 when my brother Keith graduated

I had summer jobs at the Stevenson school, first in maintenance, then as the first librarian organizing and cataloguing the school library along with Roger Ricklefs. My senior year I trained one of the teachers to be the regular librarian.

Christmas party in the school library with Mrs. Jones, Librarian, Mrs. Bowhay, primary school teacher and first librarian, Frank Keith, Arnold Bowhay, Chemistry teacher, and me

The school had a guitar teacher, Grove Becker, who came to live with us to teach my brother Gregory to play the guitar. Greg later used his talent in Bahá'í teaching projects around the world.

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Greg playing at recital for Grove Becker's students, with me recording, May 1958; with Sophie Huenken, Feb.1958

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Me with my mother and Grove Becker

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Yosemite, Aug.1958: Tuolomne Meadows, trail to Glen Aulin

We stayed at May Lake High Sierra Camp, and could hike up to the top of Mount Hoffmann (3,309 m, 10,855 ft).

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Yosemite, Aug.1958: Mt. Hoffmann; me on Mt. Hoffmann

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Yosemite, Aug.1958: Trail to Yosemite Valley

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Family at Pebble Beach, Sept.1958; Grandmother, June 1958; Me with carnival hat, Dec.1958

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Stevenson School carnival, December 1958: me with Bruce's; with my best friend Bobby Ricklefs; Mr. Ricklefs at my booth

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Pebble Beach, me at home, Nov.1958; rock garden I made, September 1958

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Leaving for Geyserville July 1958; after Christmas, Dec.1958

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Christmas family picture, Dec.1958; after Christmas, Dec.1958

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Pebble Beach with new dog Becky April 1959; with Robison family, April 1959; Stevenson graduation with Bruce's, June 1959

Our Pebble Beach home became a gathering place with many visitors and events, with family friends, visiting Bahá'ís, weddings, receptions, and student groups.

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Stanford Baha'i Club party

We continued as day students at the Stevenson School until my graduation in 1960. The summer after my junior year I took part in an experimental program at the new University of California at Santa Barbara to give high school juniors an early experience of college, and took a course in Biology.

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Me at University of California Santa Barbara with family, July 1959; Tuolomne Meadows, Yosemite, Aug.1959

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Yosemite, Aug.1959: me at Tuolomne Meadows; family at Vogelsang

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Yosemite, Aug.1959: Vogelsang; trail to Tuolomne Meadows

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At home, Pebble Beach, Aug. 1959; with DuPrau family, Pebble Beach, April 1960; me in 1958

My senior year at Stevenson, I was editor of the yearbook, but then missed the last part of the school year so that we could go on Bahá’í Pilgrimage to Haifa, Israel in May 1960 and then travelled around Europe as a family for three months. My father gave me his old Leica, so I began my activity as a photographer (those photos are still to be scanned and are not yet included here). Unfortunately, in Edinburgh, I came down with appendicitis and spent 10 days in the hospital while the rest of the family visited England.

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Waiting at New York airport to fly to Europe 4 May 1960; visit to site for Bahá'í Temple near Frankfurt 9 May 1960; ruins of ancient Greece

Our pilgrimage as a family to the Bahá'í World Centre in Haifa, Israel, in May 1960 was a very special experience. We were only six from the West, staying in the Western Pilgrim House in Haifa and in the Mansion at Bahji, and there were nine pilgrims from the East (Iran). Over nine days, we visited the Shrines of the Bab and Bahá'u'lláh, the prison in Akka where He was held, the houses he occupied in Akka and finally the Mansion in Bahji where He spent his last years while still a prisoner.

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Haifa from top of Mt. Carmel 15 May 1960; Mansion at Bahji with pilgrims 19 May 1960; Akka courtyard 19 May 1960

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House of Abbud, Akka, 19 May 1960; family at entrance to Garden of Ridvan 19 May 1960; Keith and Gregory at Collins Gate, Bahji 20 May 1960

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Pilgrims on Arc by Archives 21 May 1960; family at Shrine of the Bab, Haifa 22 May 1960; Roger's birthday dinner Western Pilgrim House 22 May 1960

After our pilgrimage, we traveled around Europe with a car and driver, starting from Rome and going up to Switzerland, France, and finally England.

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Family at lunch in Tiberias 20 May 1960; St. Peter's Square, Rome, 28 May 1960; Market in Florence 2 June 1960

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After Israel, we traveled through Italy, here Fiesole, 1 June 1960; Piazza St.Marco, Venice, 7 June 1960; me on boat on Lake Como June 1960

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Me and mother Geneva 27 June 1960; Lunch in Geneva 27 June 1960; Wengen, Switzerland with Prof. Spiegelberg (comparative religion, Stanford) 25 June 1960

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Portofino 30 June 1960

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Monte Carlo 2 July 1960; lunch in Les Baux, France, 4 July 1960; Greg and me, Avignon, France, 4 July 1960

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Versailles, France, 10 July 1960; London Zoo 15 July 1960

London, visit to Guardian's grave 15 July 1960

When I was 18, I was asked to teach my first adult class at the Geyserville Bahá’í Summer School, on the theme of the Learned in ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s Secret of Divine Civilization. The high standard for learning that 'Abdu'l-Bahá defined in that book, to have comprehensive knowledge while avoiding desire "that has reduced to ashes uncounted lifetime harvests of the learned" and never seeking distinction, became a guiding principle for my whole life of study and service, even if it seems unattainable.

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Geyserville, group photo 14 August 1960; Leroy Ioas (longtime family friend and Hand of the Cause) at Geyserville 14 August 1960

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Christmas family portrait 1960; Christmas at Herberts with extended family 25 Dec.1960; our longtime babysitter Cleora Bruce, her daughter and husband

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STANFORD UNIVERSITY 1960-1964

My brother Keith had already started studying at Stanford, and I was granted early admission and joined him there 1960-1964. At Stanford, I was attracted to biology, but also dabbled in archaeology and other subjects. We had a small Bahá'í Club on campus, with Dwight Allen as our faculty advisor. It was easy to go home during the vacations.

Stanford University

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Grandmother 1961; me in Pebble Beach 1961; me at Stanford (taken in a mirror) 1961

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Christmas family portrait 1961

My sophomore year I attended Stanford-in-France at its overseas campus in Tours for six months 1961-62. We studied French, the philosophy of art, and economic development, and had 3-day weekends and longer field trips to get to know the country (see photo album). I was the only Bahá'í in Tours, and was in touch with only a few other Bahá'ís, but I did put a Bahá'í book in the library.

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Tours, view from Stanford-in-France; me in Madrid while at Stanford-in-France

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Me in my room at Stanford-in-France, Tours, 1961; room decorations from Morocco

There was a retrospective of paintings by our Bahá'í friend Mark Tobey at the Louvre, Musée des Arts Decoratifs, in Paris in late 1961, so I visited it on weekends, meeting my parents and Mark on one occasion.

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Mark Tobey at the Louvre in Paris in October 1961, with me and my mother; Belgium, me with Lea Nys and Ben Levy 1961

I took delivery of a new car, and over the Christmas vacation, with three other students, we drove down to Spain visiting Barcelona, Valencia, Granada, Malaga, down to Gibraltar, a short ferry trip to Tangiers, Morocco, and back up to Seville for Christmas, Toledo, Madrid for the New Year, and up to the north coast and back to Tours (see photo album). I had already learned some French starting in the first grade at the Ford School, and studied French with a Frenchwoman all through high school, so I became reasonably fluent, an advantage later in my career.

Back at Stanford, I shared a room in a dormitory and was active in the Stanford Bahá'í Club. My sport was horseback riding at the Old Red Stanford Barn, left over from when Senator Stanford raised racing trotters, and Eadweard Muybridge made one of the first motion pictures to determine if there was ever a moment when a trotter had all four feet off the ground.

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Jumping on the grounds of the Stanford Barn 1961

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Jumping in May 1963

In the summers, I was a teacher and dormitory counsellor at the Stevenson School summer session.

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My room-mate had an interesting concept for room decoration; my side (middle) was more restrained in 1961; by 1963, my side (right) was more elaborate; ready for a costume party at Stanford, 1961

In the summer of 1962, we went to the Seattle World's Fair, and on to Vancouver Island.

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Family at Seattle World's Fair 1962; on Vancouver Island

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On Vancouver Island; me 1962

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Christmas family portrait 1962; family at Christmas; extended family Christmas 1962

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Grandmother Maymay 1962; me 1962; Ako Ito, Japanese foreign student who lived with us and became a excellent guitarist

I declared my major in biology, and took a course in evolution (we did not then talk much about ecology) with Paul Ehrlich. My senior year, I had a departmental honors project with Peter Raven on chromosome differences in plants. Both became famous later. I also took an experimental spring course in biological research at the Hopkins Marine Station of Stanford University in Pacific Grove, on Monterey Bay. It was a single 15 unit course, in which we had lectures by different specialists on the organism we were to study (the periwinkle Littorina), defined a research question, carried out experiments to answer it, and wrote up the results in a form ready to publish in a scientific journal, all in 10 weeks. I was interested in their food preferences under different environmental conditions and locations on the shoreline.

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Me about 1964; Keith golfing with Dad, Nancy Phillips 1961

In 1963, we all attended the Bahá'í World Congress in the Royal Albert Hall in London, England, commemorating the hundredth anniversary of the Declaration of Bahá'u'lláh.

Bahá'í World Congress in Royal Albert Hall in London, England

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Greg, Roger, Mother and me in front of Royal Albert Hall; Monterey Peninsula Baha'is

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Baha'is in front of Albert Memorial; Nancy Phillips, Doris Holley, Roger

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Keith and my parents visiting the Frankfurt Temple partly finished May 1963; Mother in Basle

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Family in High Sierras, Soda Springs, Yosemite, Aug.1963; me; me reading Tolstoy's War and Peace, White Wolf, Yosemite

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Family at White Wolf, Yosemite, 1963; Keith in the army, Fort Ord, Sept.1963

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Christmas family portrait, Pebble Beach, 1963; Keith at home, Sept.1963

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Family at Christmas 1963; Mother, Marion Hofman, Mildred Nicholls 1964

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My graduation from Stanford 1964; with Eleanor Hewlett, Tina Coffey

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Geyserville Bahá'í Summer School

John and Louise Bosch, Swiss immigrants who helped establish the wine industry in California, had a ranch at Geyserville north of San Francisco. When they became Bahá'ís, they pulled up the vines and planted fruit trees. In 1926, they started the first Bahá'í Summer School, which developed with a dormitory, meeting hall, children's classrooms, library, a Redwood Grove, and a large Douglas Fir under which unity feasts were held. My mother had attended the first summer school, and we went there every summer for classes and to meet Bahá'í friends from all over the Western United States.

Unity Feast, Geyserville 1960

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Geyserville school from the hill behind; Collins Dormitory and Collins Hall

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Big tree and Bosch farmhouse; cafeteria

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Geyserville, big tree, cafeteria, auditorium from back

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Trails above Geyserville, July 1956; me in the Redwood Grove, Geyserville 1956

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Mother, me, Roger, Greg on upper trail; view from upper trail

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Mother with her children's class; group with Dad on right

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Geyserville, dinner under big tree

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Unity Feast 1960; Leroy Ioas; Florence Mayberry

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Mother and Dad at Geyserville; Roger; Gregory 1961

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National Spiritual Assembly at Geyserville 1966 with my father on the right; David Ruhe speaking for NSA

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Inverness

North of San Francisco, the San Andreas Fault enters the Pacific Ocean, creating Tomales Bay, with Point Reyes on the Pacific on the outer side of the peninsula, and Inverness on the inside along the bay. My grandmother Maymay had a large property along the bay with a dock, boathouse and private beach where a stream entered the bay. Her summer home on the bluff was on an indian midden. We often gathered there with other members of her family in the summers.

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Inverness summer home from boat; family picnic on beach with Uncle Ken and Uncle Greg; Maymay at Inverness, Sept.1944

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Mother and Dad at Inverness, June 1944; me, Keith and Uncle Greg at Inverness, May 1947

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Boat at Inverness 1949; picnic at Inverness 1949; family at Inverness, Oct.1951

 
Me, Mother, Maymay at Inverness 1955

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Monterey Peninsula

The Monterey Peninsula south of San Francisco has been described as the most beautiful meeting place of land and water in the world. In includes the city of Monterey, the first capital of California in Spanish and Mexican times, the village of Carmel-by-the-Sea with its Spanish mission founded in 1776 and a beach around Carmel Bay, the gated community of the Del Monte Forest between them including Pebble Beach and several golf courses; and Point Lobos State Park south of Carmel Bay, from where Highway 1 winds down the rugged coast to Big Sur. My parents honeymooned there, we often went there on vacations, and eventually moved to Pebble Beach in 1955.

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Mother at Pt. Lobos 1945; flowers at Pebble Beach 1945; view from our house, Pebble Beach 1956

Mother and me at Pebble Beach, 1954

At the southern side of Carmel Bay is Point Lobos State Park, a particularly beautiful coastline as you will see below.

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Point Lobos

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Me and mother, Point Lobos, April 1973

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Yosemite

The Sierra Nevada mountains along the eastern side of California, and especially Yosemite National Park and its high Sierra camps and trails, was always a favorite place for family trips. We avoided staying in crowded Yosemite Valley, often starting at the old Wawona Hotel and then going up to Tuolumne Meadows and the High Sierra camps.

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Wawona Hotel, Aug.1947; Glacier Point, Yosemite, 1951; Toulumne Meadows Camp, Yosemite, 1952

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Mt. Hoffmann, Aug.1958; Trail to Yosemite Valley, Aug.1958; Vogelsang, Yosemite, August 1959

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