February 2. On this date in 2001, Rose Perkal died. An American Bahá'í who served on the National Spiritual Assembly of Alaska, she was named a Knight of Bahá’u’lláh for the Kodiak Islands. She later pioneered to South Africa and served on the its National Spiritual Assembly. She also established the Bahá'í Faith in the Bantustan of Ciskei.

 

February 2. On this date in 2001, Rose Perkal died. An American Bahá'í who served on the National Spiritual Assembly of Alaska, she was named a Knight of Bahá’u’lláh for the Kodiak Islands. She later pioneered to South Africa and served on the its National Spiritual Assembly. She also established the Bahá'í Faith in the Bantustan of Ciskei.

Rose Perkal Grosnoff was born April 13, 1904 in New York into a Russian-Jewish household were she grew up speaking Yiddish. She became a Baha’i in 1948. In response to the call for Bahá'ís to settle in remote areas during the Ten Year Crusade, Rose pioneered in 1953 from New York to the Kodiak Islands in Alaska, for which she was named a Knight of Bahá’u’lláh. Shortly after her arrival to the Kodiak Islands on July 8, 1953, she wrote the following:

God is good to me and I am grateful for having the opportunity of being able to serve the Cause in such clean, progressive surroundings . . . At first one may be a little dismayed as I was when I first came in, but then as one looks around with the eyes of a Bahá'í, he sees a wonderful future for this lovely island . . . When one begins to investigate, there are great possibilities for not only the person seeking to do business but also for a wonderful Bahá'í Community . . . There is beauty here. The ruggedness of Maine, hills, green foliage, high grass, islands . . . The more I am amazed at the insight and knowledge the Guardian has in selecting these posts. Everything here is rugged, but already you can see the growth of a modern town – a new civilization.

Rose Perkal lived in the Kodiak Islands for one year, and moved to Anchorage in September 1954. She moved from Anchorage to Hamilton Acres, just outside Fairbanks, to help establish a Local Spiritual Assembly and was elected as corresponding secretary of the Local Spiritual Assembly of Fairbanks when it was established in 1955. She married Ken Yarno around this time. By 1956 she had moved to the Tanana Valley, and was elected to the Tanana Valley Local Spiritual Assembly as secretary when it was established in April 1956. She was elected to the inaugural National Spiritual Assembly of Alaska when it was established in 1957 and served on the body until 1959.

In 1960 she moved to Switzerland, answering a call for pioneers, and helped establish a Local Spiritual Assembly in Locarno in 1961. In 1966 she moved to California, and by 1967 she was the Secretary of the Local Spiritual Assembly of Southern California. She pioneered to Capetown, South Africa in 1969, briefly visiting the Dominican Republic en route, and was appointed as the Secretary of the South African National Teaching Committee. In late 1970 she established the Bahá'í Faith in the Bantustan of Ciskei, converting a woman in East London who helped her teach in surrounding villages. She married George Gates while in South Africa and they settled in East London.

Rose was elected to the National Spiritual Assembly of South Africa in 1973, and served on it until 1985. In 1978 she visited Haifa as a delegate of the South African Assembly to the International Convention. During the 1970's she was in a serious car accident, had her identification stolen, and her husband George died, but she remained at her pioneer post. She attended the establishment of an independent National Spiritual Assembly of Ciskei in 1985. She returned to the United States in 1985 at the request of her children, but planned to pioneer to Dominica in 1986. While visiting her son in California on her way to Dominica it was decided that she needed nursing home care and she remained in California for the rest of her life. She died in Anaheim, California on February 2, 2001, at the age of 96, and was buried at Fairhaven Memorial Park.