An Attracted Soul–Kingsley Barbour White by Marie Scheffer
Submitted January 2024
Here is what I know about an early admirer of the Faith in Sioux City, Mr. Kingsley Barbour White (1885 – 1967). Some time after Mr. White died, Marilyn Larson, one of his 4 daughters, came to my house to give me a very old book on the Faith that had belonged to her father. I think it was an original of Tablets of ‘Abdu’l-Baha Abbas vol. 2 but I’m not sure. She said Mr. White had been born in Boston and had attended school at the University of Illinois in Urbana. He later worked as a city building inspector in Sioux City. Mr. White learned of the Faith at college in Urbana. He remained Presbyterian but had great love for the Faith. Mrs. Larson said that her father took her to a spot on the north side of Sioux City and told her that he wanted to buy the land and build a Baha’i temple there, though he never did so.
Marie is unsure when White’s daughter visited her and she learned of this sweet story–probably sometime within a few years either side of 2000.