January 1. On this date in 1962,
Amelia Collins, later named a Hand of the Cause of God, died in Haifa, Israel.
She donated vast sums of her husband's mining fortunes to several projects at the Bahá’í World Centre, and the Collins Gate at Bahji is named after her.
Amelia Engelder Collins was born June 7, 1873 to Catherine Groff and Conrad Engelder, a German emigrant and Lutheran clergyman. She was the seventh child of a family of nine sons and five daughters.
She married Thomas H. Collins, a mining engineer, and lived in Calumet, Michigan and later Bisbee, Arizona. Collins met great success in Bisbee by developing the porphyry copper mining operations that eventually become the
Phelps-Dodge Mining Company. They moved to California during the 1920s where Millie, as she was affectionately known, became a Baha’i and made her first pilgrimage to Haifa in early 1923. Thomas Collins accompanied her and was shown great kindness by Shoghi Effendi.
During a cruise to Iceland in 1924, Millie met Holmfridur Arnadottir, the first Icelandic Bahá’í, and became good friends. Later, in 1939, she supported the publication of the first translation of Bahá’í literature in Icelandic: Esslemont’s
Bahá’u’lláh and the New Era. In 1924, Millie was elected to the National Spiritual Assembly of the United States and Canada. She was a member of this body until 1933. Then again in 1938, she was re-elected and served until Shoghi Effendi called her to service at the Bahá’i World Center. In addition, she served as a member of the National Teaching, Assembly Development, and Inter-America Committees. She visited with and assisted most of the Assemblies within the United States and Canada with their consolidation work and those of South and Central America in teaching work during the First and Second Seven Year Plans, 1937-1953.
Thomas Collins, although having never having converted to the Bahá’i Faith, supported Millie’s Bahá’i activities. These included the financial contributions that maintained the solvency of the
Geyserville School. In 1937, he unexpectedly died from a heart attack. Shoghi Effendi asked the Bahá’is at the Geyserville summer school to hold a befitting memorial service.
After arranging her substantial estate in order, one that would eventually establish the institutions of the Bahá’i World Center, Millie later that same year made her second pilgrimage to Haifa where she developed a friendship with Shoghi Effendi's wife, Amatu'l-Bahá Rúhíyyih Khánum. In a letter to her, shortly after this pilgrimage, Shoghi Effendi wrote "The days you spent under the shadow of the Holy Shrines will long be remembered with joy and gratitude. I have during these days increasingly appreciated and admired the profound sense of devotion, the passionate fervor, the intense love and attachment that animates you in the service of the Holy Cause. For such noble qualities I feel thankful, and I am certain that the fruits they will yield will be equally outstanding and memorable. Rest assured and be happy."
Shoghi Effendi, in 1937, sent a sacred gift to the American Bahá’i Community through Millie. This was the lock of Baha’u’llah’s hair that had been preserved by the Greatest Holy Leaf, to be placed beneath the dome of the American Bahá’i Temple. She presented the gift during the 1938 National Bahá'i Convention mounted in a silver frame, the first of many sacred gifts from Shoghi Effendi to become part of the National Bahá’i Archives.
In 1945, Millie was invited by Holmfridur Arnadottir to come to Iceland. In response, Shoghi Effendi replied through his secretary: "As he cabled you, he feels your presence in America more important than Iceland at this time... The Small Assemblies in America are badly in need of Bahá’i’ education..." He went on to say that Millie was one of those needed for this task and to travel to Iceland could jeopardize her health. Millie was the first to initiate the teaching of the American Indians in accordance to 'Abdú’l-Bahá’s Tablets of the Divine Plan. In 1948, the first Indian Bahá’i Assembly on the American continent was formed on the Omaha Indian Reservation at Macy, Nebraska.
Millie’s travels for the Faith at the request of Shoghi Effendi were extensive. These included the arrangements, in 1942, for the design and erection of the memorial to May Maxwell, Amatu'l-Bahá Rúhíyyih Khánum's mother in Buenos Aires. She even located a block of Carrara marble with the right characteristics for the project. Travel arrangements were nearly impossible because of the wartime conditions. In 1946 and 1949, Millie made additional trips to Latin America to attend conferences and teaching work.
In 1947, Shoghi Effendi proclaimed that Millie Collins has been made his ninth Hand of the Cause of God. Millie Collins traveled several times to Europe after the close of World War II. In 1951, she traveled at the request of Shoghi Effendi to Turkey and Egypt. While in Cairo, despite becoming so ill that she could hardly stand, she gave an address to a large public meeting at the Hazíratu’l-Quds.
Although Millie lived very simply, she made generous contributions to the Faith. In 1944, she sent Shoghi Effendi a generous contribution that covered most of the cost of constructing the superstructure for the Shrine of the Báb on Mount Carmel. Other contributions include: purchase of property on Mount Carmel (1926); development and extension of the Geyserville School properties in northern California (1936); at Davison, Michigan, the first publication of Bahá’i literature in Amharic (1934); first contribution to the Bahíyyih Khánum Fund toward the erection of the Mother Temple of America (1939): Contribution to the Persian Temple Fund (1939); defrayed cost of publication of four volumes of The Bahá’i World; Additional contributions to the Mother Temple Works, gifts of property near the Temple and to the Temple Dependency Fund, and various teaching projects, donations toward the purchase of nineteen supplementary Temple sites in Latin-America, Europe and Asia; contributions to aid embellishment of the area surrounding the Tomb of Bahá’u’lláh at Bahji and erection and furnishing of the International Archives building on Mount Carmel; the donation of the entire sum for the purchase of the Temple site on Mount Carmel (1953).
In 1953, Shoghi Effendi acknowledged in his message to the twelve Annual Conventions, Millie’s "munificent donation" toward the purchase of many Hazíratu’l-Quds and endowments on five continents and in his last Convention message in 1957 for the donations for the building of the Mother Temples in Europe, Australia and Africa. Shoghi Effendi named the main gate to the Shrine of Bahá’u’lláh in Bahji in her honor.
Shoghi Effendi appointed Millie Collins in January 1951 as the vice -president of the International Bahá'i Council, and she went to live in Haifa. This work continued for the rest of her life. In 1953, as part of the Ten Year World Crusade, she and Amatu'l-Bahá Rúhíyyih Khánum represented Shoghi Effendi at the All-American Conference in Chicago.
Shoghi Effendi died on November 4, 1957. Millie was planning to meet him in Haifa, and upon her arrival there, heard the news of his unexpected death in London where he was shopping for furniture and ornaments for the International Archives Building. Millie immediately departed for London to join Amatu'l-Bahá Rúhíyyih Khánum in her time of need. Millie gave Amatu'l-Bahá Rúhíyyih Khánum emotional support during the proceeding four years. In October 1961, Millie fell and fractured her arm, requiring hospitalization. Despite her frailness, she returned to Haifa to assist the Hands of the Cause in regard to the first election of the Universal House of Justice. She had to be carried in a wheelchair to the meetings being held at Bahji, and was able to attend all but one.
On the afternoon of January 1, 1962, at the age of 91, Millie Collins died while being held in the arms of Amatu'l-Bahá Rúhíyyih Khánum. Her body is buried in the Bahá’i cemetery at the foot of Mt. Carmel.
