What? A Baha’i Mayor? A Homefront Pioneering Story
by Dan Himes, Submitted September 2023
NOTE: This story takes place in, rather than “beyond” Iowa. But since it’s about longtime Iowa Baha’is moving into the state and deliberately choosing to serve as homefront pioneers, it seems to belong here.
It was 1974 and I was looking for a place to live. We, my family and I – my wife Fay, daughter Shamin, 7, and Darius, 3 – had recently returned from pioneering in Papua New Guinea. Darius had gotten very ill, so in September of 1973, my wife Fay had brought the kids back to the US while I finished the school year teaching at the Teacher’s college in PNG.
When I left PNG on the 10th of December, 1973, which happened to be the day PNG achieved “Self-Government,” I joined Fay at her sister’s home in Rochester, MN while I looked for a job. Fortunately, I had a good enough reputation with Deere & Company that they took me back. This new job had to do with managing the Personnel system for salaried employees at Deere.
So, this got us back to the Quad Cities, and we quickly rented an apartment in Davenport, in the same building my parents were in. But, we viewed ourselves as pioneers and didn’t really want to live in an established Baha’i community, so we began to look for a house to buy, outside of the city. I mentioned my job because, early that spring, Deere sent me to a week-long seminar about personnel systems in, I believe, San Antonio! That didn’t stop my wonderful wife from continuing to look at real estate ads in the local newspaper! So, when I got home, there was a surprise for me. Not only had she found a possible home we could afford, she had put money down on it! She basically purchased the place before I even saw it! And it was about 20 miles west of Davenport while my job was across the river (Mississippi) on the south east edge of the Quad Cities!
So, we went out to look at the place! It was in a little town (less than 130 residents even counting dogs!) called New Liberty. It included not only the lot for the house, but about ½ acre out back, across a small alley way, as part of the property. It was perfect for our needs at that time – except for my daily drive to work at Deere’s corporate offices! But I acquiesced and we bought the house. It’s a good thing, too, because by that time, early summer of 1974, we knew that a certain personage was going to make an appearance. David was born in September of that year!
We moved to New Liberty in June or July of 1974. Another reason we knew it was the right house for us was that the address was 630 Main Street (for you numerology fans)! And we were given a P.O Box – number 63 – and we were the 9th house on the right as you came into town on Highway 130! Definitely the right place!
During closing I discovered the age of the place – it had been built in 1892 (or ’97)! That summer I did a little checking on the electrical service to the house. It had a 60-amp fuse box in the basement – that’s right, fuses not breakers! At one point I took the face plate off an outlet in the living room to check it, and behold! There was no box! The face plate was screwed to a stud beneath the window and a piece of the stud was chipped away to make room for the wiring and connection! I also pulled up a floorboard in the attic. Anybody know what “nail-knob and tube” wiring is?!! In short, the building was a tinderbox waiting for an ignition spark!
Needless to say, I inquired of the seniors in the town – my neighbors – regarding our fire protection. They said, “Oh yeah, we’ve got our own fire department with a truck. It’s totally a volunteer department, oh, and you are on it! Come and take a look at the firehouse!” So I did! This got me introduced to the town elders – the old guys that really ran the place. Ultimately, I got some fireman training and got to hold a hose pointing into a second-floor window of a building on fire as a training exercise!
We got settled in and tried to become participating members of the community. The kids (two at that time) went to school up the road about 7 miles in Bennett, so riding the school bus became part of their lives. Of course, one of the things we tried to do was to find a way to open the community to the Baha’i Faith. I think it took us a couple of years, but we finally came up with the idea of having a monthly gathering – a fireside. We picked Saturday evening and called it Baha’i Saturday Night Live! Fay would put on a large pot of chili, get out the bread, cheese and crackers and we’d invite a speaker and all the nearby friends as well as neighbors and have a fun evening. It turned out to be very successful for the Baha’is, but seekers were hard to find.
Our nearest Baha’i community was in Davenport, about 20 miles in toward town. And like many communities at that time, was not very racially diverse even though there was a substantial black population in Davenport. But there was one black gentleman, I believe his name was Leonard Thomas, and some of the Davenport friends would bring him to our Saturday Night Live events. We knew he had an impact on the community because after Leonard had been out to our place our next door neighbor (the 10th house on the right!) wouldn’t talk to us for several weeks!
Then in 1977, about three years from our move-in date, the election season rolled around. I discovered that the town had a town council of five members and a mayor. As Baha’is we didn’t participate in any partisan politics. I don’t think I had ever voted in a two-year local election and I didn’t vote then. But then, sometime in that first week on November, 1977, somebody notified me that I had been elected to the city council for a two-year term! How could that be? Well, all the ballots for the town officials were blank ballots for voters to write in the names. Enough people had learned my name and written it in that I was elected! And that happened for the next three voting times!
Now put this into context. Out of maybe 130 residents, how many voted? Maybe 30 to 40 optimistically. I remember asking how many votes I got and I think the answer was between 12 and 15!! As a Baha’i can I even be on the council? I wasn’t too worried about it since there was no campaigning and no partisan politics involved but I decided to call our Auxiliary Board Member for protection, who happened to be Mrs. Javidukht Khadem at the time. She agreed that it would not be a problem since there was no campaigning or partisanship involved. I hadn’t even voted for myself!
I served eight years on the council. At some point during a council meeting the question came up as to who may become the next Mayor. This was before the election in 1985. One of the councilmen turned to me and said, “Well, it’s your turn next! We basically just take turns!” Again, I was totally surprised! There was no electioneering. They just agreed as to whose turn it was and spread the word. An article in the county newspaper reported on the election. I had received 21 votes (none from me!) and one other person got 2 votes. So, on Jan 2 1986, I was Mayor of New Liberty for the next two years.
Talk about your big nothing-burger! I never had to do any act, proclamation, or anything because I was Mayor! It was a title that ended up, for me at least, with no real implications. The bottom line is that homefront pioneering can be fun, challenging and take you places you never would experience any other way!