Dallas County
BAHÁʼÍS OF DALLAS COUNTY, IOWA By Diane Findlay September 2022
Dallas County lies just west of Polk County and the Des Moines metropolitan area. Bob and I moved to rural Dallas County in 1983, after sixteen months pioneering in Antigua in the Leeward Islands. We loved our
time on the island but had been unable to land permanent jobs and needed to leave long before we were ready. Bob was invited to return to his field service engineering job with Westinghouse, working out of Des Moines. We were glad to return Iowa but knew we didn’t want to live right in the city. Our good friends Jan and Pete King and their kids, who were similar ages to our kids, had moved to a little town just northwest of the metro called Dallas Center in 1980. We had visited them there and liked the feel of it. Kings were kind enough to let us camp out in the lower level of their house while we looked for a place of our own, preferably in the country. Sure enough, we found an acreage with an old farmhouse outside of town and moved in during the fall. While there were Baháʼís in Dallas Center, and perhaps other incorporated towns in Dallas County, before we arrived, I don’t believe there had been a registered Baháʼí group for the unincorporated areas of the County before we settled here.
While we often went to Des Moines for Baháʼís activities, we also “practiced” holding Feasts with the Kings in their home or ours and began to host holy days and other gatherings at our home or in Dallas Center. A Canadian family we had worked with in Antigua, Len & Mona Balogh and their children, John and Krista, joined us for a time in early 1984 on our acreage and worked with us on things like a Baháʼí table at Dallas Center’s annual Fall Festival and occasional firesides in our home. In 1984 the Kings moved out of state for work. Still, we were full of energy, enthusiasm, and plans, though we certainly found (and still find) rural Dallas County a “hard nut to crack” in terms of receptivity. Eventually, the Baloghs returned to Canada, though John stayed with us for a full school year and participated in the earliest youth retreats we hosted on our acreage in the 1980s, described in another story on this site. We hosted several well-attended Ayyam-i-Ha parties in Dallas Center during the ‘80s, featuring entertainment that attracted some of our new friends in the wider community. One year we had music by Norris & Lee (Curtis and Cindy Mickunas), one year Rainbow the Clown, one year a professional puppet show, and one year a local magician. We combined Ayyam-i-Ha celebration with service, including projects like visiting the nursing home/care facility in Dallas Center, donating books to the libraries and Child Services and canned goods to the food pantry, and participating in local blood drives. We were active in our children’s schools and their sports activities, meeting lots of people and talking about the Faith at every opportunity. We became, and continue to be, known in the community as Baháʼís.
In 1990, we reached out to several likeminded friends and cooked up a major effort which culminated in the Dallas County Peace Fair, in June of that year. We found surprising support from key individuals and organizations in the County, allowing us to hold the event at the Dallas County Fairgrounds near Adel. A reporter friend working for THE DALLAS COUNTY NEWS got involved and convinced the publication to put out a special issue about the Fair. Many groups, churches, businesses, and organizations set up displays and we offered food, music, games, and talks that were all, in retrospect, focused on positive community building. A highlight was moving the crowd into an open field where we lined up in configuration to spell out “We are One,” while a local pilot flew over and took a photo. While it was not specifically a Baháʼí-sponsored event, we were central to the planning and the spirit and, of course, had a Baháʼí booth offering friendly conversation and free literature. It was a great day! There was talk of making it an annual event but we simply didn’t have the resources to carry that off.
For many years, we ran quarterly ads in THE DALLAS COUNTY NEWS featuring brief quotations from the Writings and offering information. We had some response to the ads. In one case, a young woman named Melissa Moots contacted us for information. We learned she was living in a care facility for special needs adults near Adel. We began visiting her regularly to say prayers and talk about the Faith. While her comprehension of the Teachings and ability to remember and integrate them into her daily life were limited, it was obvious to us that her interest and attraction to the Faith were genuine and sincere. We began Book 1 with her and, occasionally, her friends at the Care Center that she invited to join us. We were not able to stay on task with the book but did develop a warm bond with Melissa and eventually, after she moved to a group home in Atlantic, Iowa, facilitated her enrollment. We continue to visit her occasionally and to share prayers and meaningful conversations. Melissa talks about the Faith in her home and work settings and has shared our visits and prayers with her friends and housemates.
Over the years, we’ve had a few seekers who expressed sincere interest in investigating the Faith, and even a few declarations. Deb and Kurt Waters, also of rural Dallas Center, declared and were active with us for a time in the mid-1990s, after which they moved away.
In about 2007, responding to the priorities of the current Plan, we began to host concurrent study circles and children’s classes, focused on virtues education for the kids and the Ruhi sequence of courses for adults, which evolved into thematic deepening-style sessions for the adults. Those alternate Sunday morning gatherings continued almost until the Covid pandemic forced us to stop in-person gatherings. During that time we worked with two different groups of children, who eventually outgrew children’s classes. For a brief time, the first group explored Junior Youth Empowerment materials with help from longtime Ames Baháʼí, Vicki Abel. In addition to a few Baháʼís in the area, including Deb Kever, Paul Olsen and his son Eliot, and Renee Parsons and her three children, those gatherings were attended by friends of the Faith, including Emily Wu and her daughter Angela, Robin Kever and her sons, and Virginia Howell.
Also during that time we hosted quarterly just-for-fun parties for Baháʼís and friends, featuring some arts activity each time. There’s a picture below of some familiar faces, participating in a readers theater sharing of Dr. Seuss’ BARTHOLOMEW AND THE OOBLEK.
Our efforts during those years were greatly aided by the capable and dedicated efforts of our friend and neighbor down the road, Debra Knoll. Debbie had investigated the Faith off and on for several years and declared in about 2000. She was actively involved in our local efforts and the Greater Des Moines community for about ten years before personal and family concerns caused her to step back from the Faith. We couldn’t have done it all without her!
In 2019, as part of the global celebration of the centenary of the Twin Holy Birthdays, we hosted a program at the Brenton Arboretum, south of Dallas Center, at which we dedicated a beautiful white oak tree we’d adopted in Honor of That Bab and Baha’u’llah. The tree and plaque are there for all to see, hopefully for many years to come.
Over the years we’ve continued to host holy days, reflection meetings, and other gatherings for the Greater Des Moines Baháʼí community and for Iowa Cluster 7, which includes Des Moines, Ames, and surrounding communities. Shifting focus with the changing needs of the Plans and the realities of our situation, we’ve formed a teaching team with Cindy Reddy, of nearby Urbandale, and established a pattern of regular interfaith devotional gatherings via zoom. We also stumbled onto an approach to devotionals which has proved effective when other attempts to involve local non-Baháʼí friends have not. We host a monthly group which combines interfaith devotional readings, discussion of books related to social justice, and service activities. Early in 2021, as we struggled to find service efforts we could carry out mid-pandemic, we consulted and approached the Dallas County Sheriff about working with the library for inmates at the County Jail. He enthusiastically agreed and we have been expanding and maintaining the collection and the book carts which the inmates access on a regular basis for over a year. The project has attracted local and even national media attention and now involves more non-Baháʼí friends than Baháʼís in active service, supported by generous donations of used books from the wider community.
We have also found that participating in like-minded organizations and volunteering in the community offer us opportunities to be of service and to make people aware of the Faith. While we have yet to see anything like the long-desired “entry by troops,” we consider ourselves homefront pioneers. We’ve planted many seeds and continue to enjoy “reading our reality,” trying and learning new things, and being of service in ways that build solid bonds of friendship and invite seekers to learn about the Faith.
The photos below are from the 1980s through 2019.
