PREFACE What happens to a story that is never told? It’s like the story never happened. A story needs to be told for it to live on and continue . . . And the stories that definitely should be told are the ones that have an impact on our life and others’ lives. Anonymous
I first became interested in Laura Barney in 2000 when I learned that Studio House, her home in Washington, D.C., which had been donated to the Smithsonian Institution in 1960, was being sold and its contents auctioned owing to the expense of maintaining it. At that time, all I knew was that she was a Bahá’í, that her mother, Alice Pike Barney, may also have been one, and that Laura Barney had compiled an important book for the Bahá’í Faith. This book, entitled Some Answered Questions, was a compilation of oral commentaries made by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, the son of the prophet-founder of the Bahá’í Faith. Therefore, I decided to visit Studio House to see the furniture and objects that belonged to the Barney family. I later learned that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had visited that house at least three times in 1912 during His tour of the United States and Canada. Studio House was commissioned and built by Laura’s mother, Alice Pike Barney, in 1902. Laura and her sister, Natalie Barney, inherited it in 1931 upon the death of their mother. In 1960 they donated Studio House and its contents to the Smithsonian Institution, a group of museums and research centers, to be used as a cultural center. The house had unusual but exciting architectural features and was designated in 1995 a historical site by the city of Washington, D.C., thus preserving it from destruction. Prominent people, including artists, authors, musicians and diplomats, and even two presidents of the United States, William H. Taft and Theodore Roosevelt, had frequented the opulent rooms of Studio House. xvii
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