The Lineage of Laura’s Father, Albert Barney

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.

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some questions answered: the life of laura barney

That year I became deeply interested in learning about the life of Laura Barney and began my research. I started by checking the many boxes of documents that had been removed from Studio House and were being kept in the Smithsonian Institution Archives to see if there were any important materials. I found interesting documents, newspaper clippings and letters exchanged with her mother and others, etc. In time, however, I found to my amazement that only limited information about her life had been published.

My life found a new goal exactly one century after Laura found a new religion, the Bahá’í Faith, in 1900. As had Laura one hundred years before, I discovered something new to guide and engage me. The research about her life became my passion and daily thoughts. I found it more interesting as I moved forward. There were many questions to be answered. My interest in Laura, which had started with her Bahá’í activities, expanded to her other achievements in the arenas of women’s rights, peace building and humanitarian efforts. Her family life was also fascinating. During the years that I researched and wrote about her life and achievements for articles, papers and this biography, I lived in two different eras – one was the time in which she lived and the other was my own.

Her story was awe-inspiring and every new discovery about it was captivating. Our paths may even have crossed since she was still alive and living in Paris when I was studying there in 1973 and 1974. My place of residence was not far from hers. Did I ever see this distinguished lady at gatherings at the Bahá’í Center in Paris? If so, I would not have known at that time that she would become the focus of my research for over two decades. Had I known about this incredible woman then when she was approaching the end of her life, I would have visited and asked her many questions. Instead, to write her biography, I had to suffice with her correspondence, references in history books, archival materials, and transcribed interviews with individuals who had met her.

By some strange twist of fate, Laura, who had rendered enormous service and whose memory needed to be cherished in history, received little in the way of acknowledgment, whereas her sister Natalie appeared in many memoirs and was the subject of several full-length biographies. Proper recognition has eluded Laura both within her faith group as well as in the outside world. One reason may be the unfortunate fact that her diaries and important documents were stolen during World War

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