August 2. On this date in 1953, Fred Schechter arrived in Djibouti City for which he was named a Knight of Baha'u'llah for French Somaliland. He also travelled as a pioneer to several countries in Latin America and served thirteen years as a Continental Counsellorin the Americas and served on the International Teaching Centrefrom 1993 to 1998.

 

August 2. On this date in 1953, Fred Schechter arrived in Djibouti City for which he was named a Knight of Baha'u'llah for French Somaliland. He also travelled as a pioneer to several countries in Latin America and served thirteen years as a Continental Counsellorin the Americas and served on the International Teaching Centrefrom 1993 to 1998.

Born in 1927 to a Jewish family in Brooklyn, New York, Fred Schechter served in the Navy then attended Syracuse University. A comparative religion course provided his first serious look at the Bahá’í Faith, and he became a believer in spring 1949. He soon focused his studies on library science and administration after being advised such a degree could help him find work in many parts of the world. By the time he earned a master’s degree in 1952 he was serving on the Local Spiritual Assembly and a regional teaching committee, and exploring the possibility of international pioneering.

He first went to Kenya to help fulfill the Two Year Plan assigned to the British Bahá’í community. A few months later Shoghi Effendi asked the Bahá’ís to disperse to meet goals of the Ten Year Crusade of 1953–1963, so in October 1953 Fred arrived in French Somaliland. He was one of three honored by Shoghi Effendi as Knights of Bahá’u’lláh for their roles in opening that territory to the Faith. Lack of employment kept that stay brief, and his job search took him to Ethiopia before he landed in Cape Town, South Africa, in 1954. A year later Fred made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, where he conversed with the Guardian.

Continuing to respond to the needs of the Bahá’í community’s development, in 1957 he accepted an invitation by William Sears, then an Auxiliary Board member and later a Hand of the Cause, to move to his family’s farm near Johannesburg. Based there, he helped to teach the Faith and to prepare for election of the Regional Spiritual Assembly of South and West Africa, established only a year earlier. 

Soon the goals of the Crusade were met in Africa. But the needs were still acute in South America, so Fred, along with Bill Sears Jr., traveled to Uruguay. During a campaign to strengthen the Bahá’í community there, Fred met his life partner, fellow Bahá’í Julia Bulling, and they married in her home country of Chile in 1960. Bill Sears Jr. married Julia’s sister Mariel. Months passed before Fred and Julia settled down; to meet Bahá’í community needs they traveled to the Dominican Republic and then to Ecuador, where their first son was born. It emerged that Uruguay was where they were needed most, so they returned to live there through 1965, welcoming a second son. Fred and Julia were members of Uruguay’s National Spiritual Assembly, with Fred serving as secretary.

Economic conditions caused them to move to the United States, and their daughter was born there. Living for many years in La Mesa, California, Fred continued to teach and support the Faith energetically, serving the region as a member of a teaching committee and later as an Auxiliary Board member. He was elected several times as a delegate to the Bahá’í National Convention. In 1980 he began 13 years’ service as a member of the Continental Board of Counselors for the Americas. He retired in 1990 from the administration of the San Diego Public Library System. In 1993 he was called to the Bahá’í World Center to serve as a Counselor member of the International Teaching Center, returning to California in 1998.

For years Fred offered courses at Bosch and Louhelen Bahá’í Schools, the Southern California summer school and other gatherings, speaking on Bahá’í history, the Guardian and the Hands of the Cause, the worldwide Plans, and other topics.

Fred’s wife, Julia Bulling Schechter, preceded him in death. His survivors include their three children, Charles, Jim and Amy; and eight grandchildren.