The Sisters at Les Ruches Boarding School

family and childhood 1879 – 1899 is this woman who was the only female member of the Committee of Experts of the League of Nations? Who is this woman who compiled a book that took its place with the sacred writings of the Bahá’í Faith? Who is this amazing woman who learned fluent Persian? Who is this accomplished woman whose death was reported in the major newspapers of the time on both sides of the Atlantic? Who is this woman who shares a burial site with Natalie Barney?

This woman is Madame Dreyfus-Barney, born Laura Clifford Barney. Some people may know her by her greatest achievement, which was compiling the book Some Answered Questions, which was to hold invaluable significance for the followers of a new religion, the Bahá’í Faith. Many will not know her. Yet, in addition to the book she compiled in her twenties, she accomplished much more during her long life.

Laura lived in two different worlds: one of her wealthy family and the other of her spiritual family. Her privileged family mingled with the elite social, political and artistic circles of Washington, D.C.; New York; Bar Harbor, Maine; and later Paris. She had another world of her own, that of significant people in ‘Akká, Palestine (today’s Israel), who in the early years of the 20th century spoke Persian and wore oriental garb and turbans. Later in life she mingled with those who believed in the unity of mankind and worked towards peace, equality and women’s rights. Her family members spoke English and were fluent in French but she spoke an additional language, Persian, well enough to be able to ask questions of a spiritual leader from the East.

Laura Alice Clifford Barney was born on November 30, 1879 to Alice Pike Barney, artist and philanthropist, and Albert Clifford Barney, a wealthy industrialist, in Mount Auburn near Cincinnati, Ohio. To understand Laura’s story, one must begin by learning about her parents and their lineage.

The Lineage of Laura’s Mother, Alice Pike

Alice Pike was descended from an aristocratic French family that included her great-great-grandfather Ennemond Meuillion, a trained doctor who arrived in Louisiana around 1770. 3 Her great-grandmother, Ursula, born in 1784, was Meuillion’s second child by a second marriage. Though petite, she was a determined young woman and refused