Louhelen Baháʼí School is one of three leading institutions owned by the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baháʼís of the United States. The others are Green Acre Baháʼí School and Bosch Baháʼí School.
Louhelen is near Davison, Michigan.
The school property was bought for Baháʼí purposes in 1930 by the new married couple Lou and Helen Eggleston and they hosted a picnic that year. The first school session was held in 1931 and was run via a committee organized by the national community through the 1930s and 40s. Innovations in the period were adding distinct sessions for youth and junior youth and practicum laboratory sessions. All the while the material setting was also advanced. In 1947 the Egglestons donated the school property valued over $50k and the National Spiritual Assembly of the US bought the residence which was organically part of the school. The work of maintaining the site was then kept by two committees and on-site managers though the Egglestons continued to associate with the school into the early 1950s. Lou died in 1953 while their daughter assisted the school in 1955. For a period of two years, however, the school was shut down as were all the Baháʼí schools, in 1949 and 1950 to conserve resources for the cost of finishing the Baháʼí House of Worship in Wilmette and to clearly establish the thrust of work of promulgating the religion in Latin America.
Activities resumed and continued through the 1960s into the early 1970s. However a safety situation developed and in 1974 the school was closed by the national assembly. An investment of $1.8 million followed with plans drawn up and construction projects carried out from 1980 to 1982 and the school re-opened with some buildings restored, others replaced and the mission more explicitly being a residential college and conference center.
A number of subject areas have been advanced across the periods of the school. One was race unity, a subject at the school explicitly since 1932 when Maye Gift's talks on race led to a compilation that was well received in multiple reprints. The school welcomed inter-racial couples, members of diverse races, and a project supporting black students going to attend integrating schools in Greenville, SC, in 1964 was undertaken and a socioeconomic development program Understanding Racism initiative in 1986. Books were also developed from other presentations at the school - some of Stanwood Cobb's work was gathered from working for a school session, and the text of The Divine Art of Living evolved from presentations. Moslem and Christian subjects were studied early on. Later a residential college program supported students who stayed at the school and were students in area colleges. Scholars of the religion gathered annually at the school in the form of the Association for Baháʼí Studies and the Irfan Colloquia and attracted performers like Andy Grammer, and Kevin Locke. The school also supported a grandparents-and-grandkids program of learning indigenous Indian cultural history. Jr youth projects have been posted to YouTube.
Early history
Pre-history
The Genesee County area was developed by Euro-Americans following the development of an Indiana Territory and its dissolution. Then, the region went through transitions from a territory to a state. Freeman Sweers established the farm near Davison, Michigan in the latter 1800s and sold to a D. P. Hall. In 1924, Sweers bought into a development in Florida. About the time of the Great Depression in the United States and in bad condition, the farm was bought by Lou (Lewis W.) and Helen Eggleston. Lou was born about 1873, worked in heating industry, and then, at about the age of 50, Lou married Helen and bought the farm, then about 268 acres. Helen was daughter of E. D. and Mrs. Whitney, of Lansing.
1930
Helen, still going by her maiden name of Whitney, sent a message to the Baháʼí News, early monthly periodical of the religion, published in October 1930, of the intention of setting it up as a dairy farm "to operate as far as possible along Baha'i lines". In the face of the extending troubles of the Depression that year, a picnic was held; it was one of two informal picnics Baháʼís held in Michigan that year.
The name "Louhelen", a contraction of their first names, was originally used as in "Louhelen Ranch". Louhelen was also the name of their daughter and they also had a son Lewis Jr. both of which came along later.
Central States Baha'i School in the 1930s
1931
The July 1931 edition of Baháʼí News published the announcement of the program at the Central States Baháʼí Summer School, the first name of the school, August 1–9 with lodgings and two meals a day for $10-$12 for the week and noted correspondence should be sent to Helen Whitney Eggleston to an address in Detroit. The faculty included Harlan and Grace Ober, already active in the religion many years in the Boston area and Green Acre Baháʼí School, Mabel and Howard Ives, Dorothy Baker, Fanny Knobloch, and Maye Harvey Gift. Mary Collison and Miss McKay were support staff. The Obers and Ives planned the school as a committee. 35 Baha'is and friends from six states attended all the sessions and about 50 others, mainly from Detroit and Flint, came as day students to one or more classes. Baker's entire family attended. The sessions were held that year in a wooded area sloping down to a clear stream, either in a lodge on the hillside or in an open-air amphitheater nearby. Some 20 people attended the first day and about 90 total attended at least one day of activities.
The Egglestons devoted themselves to developing the school's facilities. A small barn was partitioned into private rooms and became a Pullman type lodge, providing long narrow rooms. A dining porch was added to the main house to improve the serving of meals. 80 acres of the Eggleston farm were allotted to be used by the school. A ravine was named Ridvan Garden. Details were covered in the two main periodicals of the religion of the day - Baháʼí News, and Star of the West, the oldest large scale journal of the religion in the US, in December, 1931. Topics of the sessions included economics, the problem of greed and it's amelioration and another was practical and inspirational approaches to being trustworthy. There was also a daily class in public speaking, study of ʻAbdu'l-Bahá's talks, a leading figure of the religion, children's classes, and international subjects. Recreational activities in the afternoon included swimming and horse-back riding. The author of the Star of the West article recalled there being a log cabin overlooking the ravine. Bertha Hyde Kirkpatrick, a Baha'i since at least 1927, was present at this first session and would long serve the school.
Noting the need for a center of activity between the coasts and the progress of the Eggleston and noted some 35 attendees with 90 at least some session. A message from Shoghi Effendi, then head of the religion, was quoted "To achieve success in such manner the first year is certainly beyond what we could expect."
1932
In 1932, the summer school became a recognized Baháʼí institution. A committee was appointed by the National Spiritual Assembly of the United States consisting of Lou Eggleston, Dorothy Baker, and Bertha Hyde Kirkpatrick. Subjects and faculty were published ahead of time. The cost for participants was published at $9 to $12 for room with 2 meals per day for nine days and suggesting dinners in nearby Davison. In addition to the school July 31 to August 9, events and meetings happened beyond the school session. A specific inter-community conference took place July 31. Faculty and subjects included Bishop Brown (Baháʼí administration,) and Mrs. Brown (outline for the study of The Dawn-Breakers,) Pearl Easterbrook (prayer and meditation,) Albert Vail (study of The Dawn-Breakers,) Dorothy Baker (who oversaw a youth meeting of some 18-20 and had many supplemental presentations by other faculty,) Ruth Moffett (the Temple being built, and spiritual illumination,) Maye Harvey Gift (amity work – in 1935 Gift would co-produced the first compilation of Baha'i references to race issues, circulated more in 1942 which was revised and republished in expanded form in 1943,*
and 1956,* also owned by Rev. Martin Luther King Jr,) Elizabeth Greenleaf, chair of the new national youth committee (on youth consultation,) as well as some youth. Several of the faculty – Vail, Gift, and Easterbrook being leaders from various Illinois communities – Urbana and Peoria especially – though Vail had already more of a nation visibility and had given up a likely winning career as a unitarian universalist minister and in the case of Easterbook position in the New Thought movement. In addition to Baker's family, Jakob Kunz's daughters attended.
A meeting was arranged by local Rev. J. M. Pengelly who became interested from the 1931 meeting where he attended the classes by Harlan Ober. Pengelly also invited Ruth Moffett to address his church group.
Average attendance during the school approached 60 (twice the previous year) and filled the accommodations. An additional 10-20 from Detroit attended some days. 18-20 youth attended and some paid their way by service. Dorothy Baker supervised the youth who held their own forum, daily elected a chair from their own group and called for two short talks for each session followed by an open forum limiting the speaker to not comment further. Albert Vail's study of The Dawn-Breakers, included instruction on Muslim history. Also $50 was gathered for donation to the Temple construction following a fundraiser by Orcella Rexford. She had attended at the urging of friends at the last minute and later wrote an article for Star of the West. She recalled driving past the ranch house on the winding driveway with a nine-sided building hosting water resources and staying in one of the new cabins. She noted the Pullman Lodge was two-story and that people had come from as far as California and Maine as well as one who had finished a round-the-world trip. Half the attendees were called youth and looked forward to "doing something". The closing night the youth presented an original play "O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us to see ourself as others see us" quoting Robert Burns and imitating various of the elders present.
Again the Egglestons looked at improving, adding, and remodeling buildings between this session and the next.
1933