Remembering Dr. Ferre, by Candee Grant
Submitted November 2025
Candee shares a memory of her time at Parsons College in Fairfield, Iowa in the late 1960s, where that was a surge of Bahá’í activity resulting in many declarations and an active campus community:
[I’m] Remembering Dr. Nells Ferre who was a scholar in residence at the college. John and William Hatcher, two of his leading students from Vanderbilt, significantly became Bahá’ís. William Hatcher would often visit and help Dr. Ferre understand the faith better. So, too, would another dynamite teacher named Winston Evans who worked closely with Dr. Ferre. Dr. Ferre loved the faith and would regularly encourage others to investigate the faith, even though he himself could not detach his love for Christ and transfer to a new lampshade.
