Allahu Abha [?]

Teheran, Persia - Jan. 29th, 1918 -

My Dear Mrs. Platt, Your letter written in September was received only last night and of course a source of great joy to us and also Dr. Moody and Miss Stewart. Two weeks ago the lovely package came and everything in it so welcome you can only understand where you know the absolute dearth of the smallest and most necessary things, the box was badly broken and we believe some of the sealing wax was lost. The only sure way of having anything safely delivered is if they are covered with a strong piece of cloth and sewn with strong thread.

How wonderfully strange things come to us when most needed! Yesterday I was in the classroom of the very little girls and told the teacher I had some “busy work” ready for her but could not find proper needles. I had mounted drawing paper on stiff wrapping paper perforating with outlines of circles, apples and pears to be worked in simplest stitches with colored mercerized cotton which I can buy here, but not the needles and when I opened your letter and the two papers of needles dropped out, I said to Miss S, now our troubles with the cards for the baby class is ended. The hair nets will make us both look a bit neater [page 2, image 7] which I am sure you would say is most necessary. All the paper dolls in The Ladies Home Journal I mount on strong paper and when let out they are used for prizes, but the magazines are first read up at The Legation, our German friend Mrs. Draeger besides the 4 of us. Mr. Caldwell gave me paper that the newspapers come in and I made very little books of 8 papers, one for each very little girl, cut out the advertising pictures in the back of magazines, and if a little girl does well she has one pasted in her book at the end of each week, when her book is full she is given a larger one her name written under it and put on the wall and at the end of the year all are given her to take home, larger books were made for the second and third classes and for the 4th and 5th larger girls are given single pictures at the end of the week if attendance behavior etc. is good enough to deserve it.

The working affairs of the school are being much better conducted than last year when through personal enmity among themselves the schools were made a target, but this year both the boys and girls schools have been put in the hands of a society of young men who follow all Miss K’s suggestions even in the working of the boys school where she taught English until last year when [page 3, image 8] they permitted her to devote all her time to the girls[.] This year she is giving cooking lessons to the 7th class as well as sewing and housekeeping[.] The latter is very difficult to teach here, since all the furniture in many houses consists of the rugs on the floor, and their very simple cooking utensils, a very small proportion of people have tables and chairs and much smaller still have bedsteads. They sleep on the floor on often a very thin mattress.

In all the schools here each teacher goes to the different classes teaching only one subject but Miss K. has trained her girls to each one take charge of a class and teach all the subjects, in the opinion of the people at large the school has a fine reputation and Miss K. is constantly having requests for teachers to go to other schools as well as mothers who want brides for their sons which of course is not allowed. Perhaps you do not know how the matrimonial arrangements are carried on here. Among the Mohammedans it is quite a common thing for a girl of 9 to be engaged or even married but among the Bahais they are supposed to not give their daughters in marriage until 15. Sometimes the mother of the groom or his sister visits among her acquain[page 4, image 9]-tances and selects a prospective bride. He sends her a ring, the families meet, eat sweets and the next ceremony is the engagement where relatives and friends are invited and the Mullah stands outside or behind a curtain where he may not see a woman’s face, asks her questions and announces how much money the groom gives, he also must buy her engagement and wedding dress. Sometimes at the engagement services the groom comes in when for the first time he sees her face, and the marriage ceremony takes place later on which consists in many women sitting around eating sweets and drinking tea where the bride is dressed, painted and everbros blacked to make a continuous line and after we can hardly recognize the otherwise good looking girl. We have often taken the bride to the groom’s house where all the women and friends of his family are waiting for her in the woman’s part of the house and in the men’s rooms are a crowd of the groom’s men friends. Not all the weddings are conducted alike and some of the brides we have seen recently are dressed very nicely and look indeed pretty, but the real ceremony that is binding is at the engagement; there is no other, sometimes the bride goes to her new [page 5, image 10] home the day of the engagement, all being finished in one day. The following day the groom’s mother gives a luncheon to which we are generally invited.

I wrote you a letter I think about six weeks ago sending by a young American who was going to America by the way of Japan. We think him a very nice young man he is from Haverstraw, N.Y. We gave him some information regarding the revelation, enough to make him question more and introduced him to some of the Bahais in America. We met him at the Legation Christmas Day, only he and the 4 of us were there to a [have or home? unclear] dinner, after which we sat around the grate fire and Mr. Caldwell read to us, he is now enjoying Sidney Lanier for which I most heartily thank you. I am sure no one can read Sunrise and several others without liking them very much.

I do not believe Mrs. Caldwell ever received your letter. She takes a most peculiar position not recognizing the possibility of Divinity even in Christ altho, she accepts everything we say regarding the Bahai teachings, one can enjoy telling her things up to a certain point when a great strong wall is reached, perhaps through your [illegible] you can see why and when it [page 6, image 11] will be overcome.

I knew & liked many Christian Scientists but having been a Homeopathic doctor before, I thought some of the claims absurd. but when one studies the real science of Homeopathy and realize[s] it is not the material action of the drugs we so much rely upon but the vital force which acts dynamically it makes it seem so natural to accept other means of cure, and since we cannot dispute facts such as cures I have personally seen under hypnotises and so called mental healing we must acknowledge truth wherever we see it. I studied astrology and palmistry because I wanted to be able to recognize fakirs [? i think?? or fakir?] and see what there was in it, and while I think the process is interesting and in astrology if properly handled may be most useful[.] When I became a Bahai I lost interest in it but am glad to have dipped a bit into it.

How good of you to have taken Miss Straiton to hear the lovely Mrs. Ford. She can charm anyone and attract any audience.

If you are in California now [page 7, image 12] you may be seeing the lovely Bahais there as well as escaping the disagreeable air & wind of N.Y. City.

Last winter here was [“one” scribbled out] continuously springlike, even the geraniums were not hurt by cold. and the lack of snow and rain of the real spring resulted in great lack of water. gardens dried up, and at the end of Aug. trees were almost entirely devoid of leaves. Scarcity of wheat has made bread very expensive and to many an impossible luxury. everything is so frightfully expensive even if procurable. people have been afraid of worse conditions because the farmers would not plant wheat but there has been some rain and tho very little a great deal of snow on the surrounding mountains so there will at least be some water for next year.

How wonderfully good of you to save money for the school! but the American dollar is only worth one half what it generally is and I believe it may be better in the end for you to send materials as Miss K can tell you for they cannot be found here. [paragraph] Mr Jefferson has not reached here yet and now today I have heard that [page 8, image 13] Mr Henselwood the young American of whom I wrote you has not yet gone out of the country so my letter to you is so far only reached a distance of a weeks journey from here.

How we will rejoice when we hear that you will be coming to Persia and hope we can make you comfortable. Mrs Beede of course has a place waiting for her if I have to stand in the street myself. we live so much more comfortably than people may think we do, our house is very nice for a Persian one, we have very nice coffee with real cream in the a.m. and altho. we have but one servant we are good to him and he is very faithful, of course we are not quite as clean as we want to be for this is a country with plenty of dust (excuse the bad ink.)

The reason I have not sent you the lace is because of the uncertainty of mail service and how much trouble it would be to censor it properly.

What a delightful experience it must have been to go to a Mashrak ul Ascar convention. We 4 have our Mashrak ul Ascar meetings each month on the 9th and since our German friends announced themselves as Bahais, Dr and Mrs Draeger of the German school we [page 9, image 14] included them and each month meet at one of our houses, recently we have be request taken in a Persian, Dr Arosto whose brother is Mirza Lotfullah in London, we meet about 7.30 or 8 p.m. but you see there is difference of 9 hours in time bet.[between] here and America you are all busily engaged in another way.

Much has been said about Persian weddings the manner of conducting which changes, there are “modes” with them as with dress, but you seldom hear about their funerals. generally not more than two hours elapses between the last breath of the person and their being put underground. The body may be washed at home or at a small place in the cemetery. The usual way is to wrap them in cloths entirely concealing the body and it is carried thro. the streets in a crude wooden coffin shaped box with only a loose cloth covering the body either prepared or unprepared for burial, and is put directly in the ground with any box, covered with earth. The Bahais are commanded to say certain prayers while washing the body and if possible to dress it in silk and place it in a box. The relatives and friends gather, men in one & the women in their part of the house and a most terrible weeping and wailing is kept up, often for ten days if they can afford it, for they employ special women to perform like one act plays of a very heart rending character & bearing no relation or reference to the person who has died. The object being to excite the emotions of the people [page 10, image 15] and make them cry noisily. We went to one where a man had died and the performers had the dead man’s clothes which they threw over the head of the widow. I think there is very little grief connected with the performance but they think it their duty, also that the tears they shed helps each one personally to be sure to enter Paradise.

The Jews, Mohammedans & Zoroastrians each have a different practice which as a custom they follow even as Bahais but the Zoroastrians seem most horrible. They believe Earth, air, fire and water are defiled by the body of the dead so they wash the body in wine if they can afford it, then it is carried to a place called “The Tower of Silence” and placed on an iron grating exposed to birds of prey that soon devour it and even follow the bearers of the body seen from a long distance before they reach the tower. The Bahais have been commanded to prepare a special place for the dead and abandon this custom, already one has been started in Yazd, but civilization is a very slow grower in these parts. whenever any one of you especially the women plan to come to Persia you must let us give you many practical hints.

I am astonished when I realize how much paper I have covered and not now enough space in which to write the thanks I want to send you or the love we 4 bear to all of you.

Miss Holmes is one of the noblest & best of women be sure to know her well & give her a great deal of love from us. Yours in El Baha, Sarah A. Clock.