THE BAHA'I WORLD XIX IN MEMORIAM page 611

SYLVIA IOAS 1895-1983
SADDENED PASSING DEVOTED MAIDSERVANT BAHAULLAH SYLVIA IOAS. HER LONG YEARS SERVICE DIVINE THRESHOLD CONSTANT SUPPORT CLOSE COLLABORATION HER DISTINGUISHED HUSBAND CROWNED BY HER APPOINTMENT BY BELOVED GUARDIAN AS MEMBER INTERNATIONAL BAHAI COUNCIL AND HER SUBSEQUENT ELECTION SAME HISTORIC INSTITUTION AS ITS VICE PRESIDENT. HER GRACIOUS MANNER CHEERFUL DISPOSITION HOSPITABLE SPIRIT REMAIN AS INDELIBLE IMPRESSIONS HER FRUITFUL LIFE. FERVENTLY PRAYING HOLY SHRINES HER RADIANT SOUL MAY BE RICHLY REWARDED ABHA KINGDOM. URGE NATIONAL ASSEMBLIES HOLD BEFITTING MEMORIAL SERVICES.
Universal House of Justice 25 August 1983
Sylvia Kuhlman Ioas was born on 19 September 1895 in Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A. Her mother was Czech, her father's family came from Munich. She was reared in a stable, loving family.
It was Leroy Ioas who brought the knowledge of Baha'u'llah into her life. He was to remain her guide, teacher and companion. She became a Baha'i shortly before their marriage in Chicago in 1919. Within a short time her immediate family also became Baha'is.
Sylvia and Leroy settled in San Francisco, California, where they spent twenty-eight rich and fruitful years. Both served the Faith vigorously but in quite different ways: Leroy, the teacher, the organizer, the speaker; Sylvia, the warm hostess, the faithful sustainer. One of her charming characteristics was to feel those she loved could do anything; this surely gave strength to both her husband and the burgeoning communities he labored to build in the Bay area. Those years in San Francisco were passed in a life by which she felt deeply fulfilled: raising her two daughters, making a home, helping her husband, content to be in the background, with a genuine and unassumed modesty. Her home was the scene of many Baha'i gatherings, happy evenings that knit the community together. It was the meeting place for the weekend National Teaching Committee meetings that shaped the goals and successes of the first Seven Year Plan. Her cottage in Geyserville was a magnet for the deepening of Baha'is and visitors.
In 1946, Leroy was promoted by his employer, the Southern Pacific Railroad; this meant a move to Chicago. It was a difficult decision, but when Shoghi Effendi indicated that it would be good for Leroy to be closer to the National Baha'i Center, they made plans to leave San Francisco. They settled in Wilmette, close to the House of Worship. The few short years there were a kind of flowering after lean years: Leroy had a fine position, they had a lovely home, Sylvia was able to travel more extensively than she had. She loved activity as she loved people, and to the close of her days was instantly ready to go out, to do, to see. In Wilmette she particularly loved the nearness of the Temple where she could serve as a guide.
Sylvia was alone when the cablegram arrived from Haifa appointing her husband a Hand of the Cause. She telephoned him at his office; both were stunned by the news. He cabled Shoghi Effendi that he was overcome by a sense of unworthiness. When invited shortly thereafter to move to Haifa, Leroy wondered whether he could accept: he was several years from retirement, with family charges. It was Sylvia who said, 'Of course you will, Roy!' He later wrote to one of his brothers: 'Sylvia has been a tower of spiritual strength, much stronger than I, and the one who has aided me in carrying this through. How God ever gave me such a wonderful wife, I don't know, but thank God He did.'
Sylvia perceived the grandeur of the atmosphere she was moving into. Yet the move was traumatic for her, as she rid herself of everything she had gathered over thirty years, and set out with very few possessions. It was in some way her personal world she gave away. And she did it alone, as Leroy went on almost immediately to Haifa. She later wrote a friend, 'I had never had to do anything like that before; I didn't know how to begin.'
Life in Haifa was not easy. It was a period of great austerity and lack of accustomed privacy. One of the Hands of the Cause paid tribute to the spirit in which Sylvia took up this challenging life: 'Very few persons who worked in Haifa in those austere years could display so much poise, dignity and wisdom as dear Sylvia did.' And he added: 'Sylvia's angelic presence in that Holy Spot made things better for every¬one.'
Sylvia's learning was intuitive rather than intellectual. In Haifa she was frequently in the presence of Shoghi Effendi; she breathed the Holy atmosphere of the Shrines; she came to the knowledge of how the triumphs of the Faith were achieved. Under these influences it was as if she became a new person, developing capacities that had lain dormant. She served tirelessly, cleaning the Shrines with other wives of the Hands of the Cause, helping to run the Pilgrim House where they lived, greeting visitors, spending long hours with Baha'i pilgrims on visits to Bahji and Mazra'ih. One of them remembered, and suggests that she touched many lives in this quiet way.
In May 1955 she was honored by Shoghi Effendi, the first personal honor to come to her. The Guardian appointed her to the International Baha'i Council, the ninth member of that august body. Leroy was very proud of this distinction that came to her. She was further honored by election to that body in 1961. She worked on it with all the capacity she had. In 1963, when the work of the Council was ended, the members received this tribute: 'All the Hands present at our meeting in Bahji wish to express to the members of the Council their deep appreciation of the services they have rendered the Cause of God ... collectively and severally they have greatly contributed to strengthening the World Centre of the Faith
During the World Congress, Leroy suffered a pneumonia that was diagnosed as fatal, from which the prayers of the friends in London saved him. He was to live two additional years, years of diminishing physical strength during which he and Sylvia undertook a long teaching trip. He had become, said a friend, spiritually irresistible; the harvest of their travels was rich. For Sylvia, the two years were a time of increasing concern, as she cared for him day and night, and faced step by step the realization of his loss. One afternoon two months before his death, Leroy turned to his daughter and said with a strange intensity: 'She's an angel! She's an angel!'
Leroy's death was one of the several great sorrows of her life. In the eighteen years she lived without him, she was valiant and uncomplaining, but not without pain: 'I miss him so very much. He was a tower of strength to me, even when sick; he had such loving ideas, so many kind thoughts for everyone.' She met her personal tragedies with a quality of faith that was unchanging and without doubts. This caused her prayers to be very powerful.
Though she had to leave Haifa, it always remained home. Her thoughts were there; her energy came from there. When visiting the Holy Land with her family nine years later, she looked down as Lod Airport came into view and said joyously, 'Oh, I'm home!'
She lived as a widow first in Wilmette, where loving friends eased the transition to her life alone. She was busy with the Local Assembly and with guiding. In 1968 she moved to Alexandria, Virginia, to be near her grandchildren. There a close Baha'i community gave her spiritual support and opportunities for service. She was a member for ten years of the Spiritual Assembly; she held firesides; she took part in teaching projects, opening areas in Southern Virginia; she scrubbed the Baha'i Center so that a children's school could be opened; she took her grandchildren to summer schools and conferences, to Alaska and Bermuda. But then, she loved to sit down with a volume of The Baha'i World and just read. Often when one called this was what she was doing. Perhaps it took her back. Certainly she brought a breath of Haifa, and the historical perspective she acquired there, to all who knew her in those years. She retained her affectionate nature and cheerfulness, even as her memory faded in the last years. She passed away on 24 August 1983. She is buried in Washington, D.C. next to her daughter, Farrukh.
In a long letter of devotion written to 'Abdu'l-Baha in 1919, Leroy asked 'Abdu'1-Baha to remember her: 'O my Lord, may Thy blessings and confirmation descend upon my dear wife that she may be of the utmost firmness and steadfastness in the Covenant and Testament, and render always greater service in the Cause.'
ANITA IOAS CHAPMAN

Baha’i Chronicles
Sylvia Kulman married Leroy Ioas in 1919, and soon after that the young couple moved to San Francisco. For a while the two newlyweds lived at the Bahá’í Center, and assumed the responsibility of keeping the Center open. Later, after they had moved into a home, they hosted many Bahá’í study classes in that same residence.
Leroy once described his wife as a “tower of spiritual strength.” His description managed to highlight her support for his many activities. In addition to providing her husband with a tremendous amount of support, Sylvia helped Leroy to champion the cause of Bahá’u’lláh, while providing him with a loving companion.
Shoghi Effendi recognized the extent to which Sylvia’s efforts aided the progress of the teaching work. Here is what the Guardian wrote in 1946, after Leroy got a promotion and was transferred to Chicago. That transfer represented the fulfillment of the Leroy’s desire to assist the NSA in a more active fashion. It also provided the Guardian with the chance to pen these remarks to Sylvia:
Without the steady faith and tireless devotion [that Leroy] brought to bear on the teaching work of North America, the Plan might not have gone as smoothly to victory as it did.
In December of 1951, Leroy became a Hand of the Cause. After consulting with his wife Sylvia and with Mrs. Amelia Collins, he and Sylvia prepared to go to Haifa. The two of them arrived in Haifa on March 17, 1952.
While in Haifa, Sylvia helped to welcome all the Bahá’ís on pilgrimage. She also agreed to serve as a witness, when a witness was needed. Her willingness to serve in that manner allowed her to be present at a most momentous occasion.
On December 2, 1957, the title to the Shrine of Bahá’u’lláh, the Mansion of Bahji and all other buildings and lands that had been owned by the covenant breakers were passed to Israel’s branch of the U.S. NSA. Documentation of that transfer was signed by Leroy Ioas, and the signed document showed that Sylvia had served as the witness, as that same transfer was made official.
In 1964, Sylvia joined her husband as he embarked on a visit to the United States. During his visit he spoke a numerous Bahá’í gatherings. The National Spiritual Assembly appreciated the efforts extended by Leroy and Sylvia; in fact the Assembly acknowledged those same efforts in a letter that it sent to the Hand of the Cause on August 25, 1964. Here is a passage from the letter:
“We cannot express in words how grateful we are to you and Sylvia for the inspiration which you have given to so many hundreds of new believers.”
That same trip managed to put a real toll on Leroy’s health. He and Sylvia returned to Haifa in October of 1964, and Leroy passed to the next kingdom on July 23, 1965. Sylvia offered her husband unwavering support and undying companionship throughout the final months of his life.
Editor’s Note:
According to daugther Anita Ioas in the book “LeRoy Ioas – Hand of the Cause”, Sylvia Kuhlman died on August 24, 1983 in Alexandria, Virginia and is buried in Washington, DC. A special thanks to Don Calkins who researched and obtained this fact in addition to her date of birth.