August 12. On this date in 2016, John W. Conkling died in Austin, Texas. He served on the staff of the Bahá’í World Center, as secretary of the U.S. National Teaching Committee and as a member of other national and regional committees. He helped establish two Bahá’í communities in the Intermountain West and was elected as a delegate to more than a dozen Bahá’í National Conventions from five states.

 

August 12. On this date in 2016, John W. Conkling died in Austin, Texas. He served on the staff of the Bahá’í World Center, as secretary of the U.S. National Teaching Committee and as a member of other national and regional committees. He helped establish two Bahá’í communities in the Intermountain West and was elected as a delegate to more than a dozen Bahá’í National Conventions from five states.

John Conkling served at World Center, co-founded local Bahá’í communities

John W. Conkling, an able teacher and administrator of the Faith and an avid student of its history, served on the staff of the Bahá’í World Center, as secretary of the U.S. National Teaching Committee and as a member of other national and regional committees. He helped establish two Bahá’í communities in the Intermountain West and was elected as a delegate to more than a dozen Bahá’í National Conventions from five states. 

John passed away August 12, 2016, at age 91. He had lived in Austin, Texas, since concluding his service at the World Center in 1995.

A message of tribute on behalf of the Universal House of Justice praises him as a “stalwart servant of the Blessed Beauty” and notes, “His devoted service to the Cause for more than six decades, including his distinguished labors at your National Center and later at the Bahá’í World Centre, is recalled with fond admiration.”

The National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States wrote in a letter to John’s wife, Eleanore, “His modesty, quiet devotion, integrity, trustworthiness, and nobility of character comprise a rich legacy of good that will assuredly inspire for long years to come all who knew and admired him.”

Born in 1924 to Ronald and Miriam Conkling, John grew up in Nebraska and New Mexico. After three years’ Army service in India during World War II, he completed studies for a communication degree at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. It was there he met Eleanore, a co-worker at a children’s home. They were married in her home state of Missouri in 1950 and moved to Denver, Colorado, where their first two daughters were born. Over the years he worked in the writing/editing, merchandising and insurance fields.

John first learned about the Bahá’í Faith at age 19 from Kay Zinky, a friend of his mother’s in Colorado who in later years was honored as a Knight of Bahá’u’lláh for her international Bahá’í service. While studying at Northwestern, John and Eleanore investigated the Faith more fully, and joined formally in 1952 in Denver. Over the next two decades, John was called to serve on several committees to foster the spread of the Bahá’í teachings more widely, serving areas ranging from individual states to the 11-state Western region. He was elected as a National Convention delegate for the first time in 1953, a service for which he was also periodically elected in later years when the Conklings lived in Utah, Idaho, Illinois and Texas. For two years he was a trustee of the now-discontinued International Bahá’í School in Colorado.

The family moved as homefront pioneers in 1956 to Provo, Utah, where they had a third daughter. Their service was instrumental in founding a Local Spiritual Assembly and maintaining it a number of years. John took many opportunities to share the Bahá’í teachings, including a talk about the Faith at a Brigham Young University religion class. Moving to Idaho Falls, Idaho, in 1963, they again helped build its local Bahá’í community and establish an enduring Spiritual Assembly.

Over the years the Conklings hosted many friends and inquirers at fireside meetings and other programs. From his studies of Bahá’í teachings and history, John developed a presentation on the Divine Plan, with visual aids on the cycles of revelation and eras, epochs and stages in the Faith’s unfoldment, that he used in many firesides and summer schools.

John was appointed in 1974 as a member of the National Teaching Committee, and his service as its secretary in 1976–1980 required him and Eleanore to return to the Chicago area. As they worked at the Bahá’í National Center in Wilmette and Evanston for five years, John also served on the National Education Committee and the National Public Information Committee.

In 1981 the Conklings were called to join the staff at the Bahá’í World Center, where John served in the purchasing office and later in the Office of the Secretariat of the Universal House of Justice.

After retiring in 1995 and moving to Austin, John served on that city’s Spiritual Assembly until a few years ago, many years as its secretary. He continued to exercise his love of Bahá’í history, researching ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s 1909–1913 travels outside the Holy Land and archivally digitizing maps and graphics found in various volumes of The Bahá’í World. His intimate familiarity with the writings of the Guardian gave him keen insights into the development of the Administrative Order and the functioning of Bahá’í institutions.

In addition to his wife, Eleanore, John Conkling’s survivors include three daughters, Diedre, Martha and Sarah; and six grandchildren.