It was neither her first nor her last pioneer experience. Between 1942 and 1946 she pioneered to Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador and Brazil. After World War II she went to Madrid, Spain where she helped raise the first local spiritual assembly and she did the same thing in Barcelona the following year.

In July of 1953 she went to the Stockholm Intercontinental Teaching Conference where she offered to pioneer to Mallorca in one of the Balearic Islands, She stayed about one year before returning to Barcelona in August of 1954 where she attended the Iberian Teaching Conference that was attended by 60 people. Late that nine, she and nine others were arrested by the police and interrogated for 18 hours. They had thought that the Bahá'í were Communists.

In 1956 she moved to Portugal where she was elected to the first Iberian Regional Spiritual Assembly. After three years she was forced to leave by the authorities because of her Bahá'í activities, holding property and owning a telephone.

She was asked to go to Luxembourg where she spent nine years but made little progress in establishing the Faith. She was then asked to got to Malaga, Spain and by 1972 Malaga had a local spiritual assembly so she pioneered to Margella in 1979.

The National Spiritual Assembly asked her to write a history of the Faith in Spain which was completed in 1980.

As was her wish, she passed to the Abha Kingdom in 1985, still a pioneer. [KoB346-347; Wikipedia]

See also Also see Bahá'í World 19 pages 715-721 or 692-697 in the print version and Bahá'í News #586 January 1980 p2-5.

This latter assembly, Spiritual Assembly of West Africa, Ivory Coast; Mali, and Upper Volta, had jurisdiction over the following countries: Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Gambia, Senegal, Portuguese Guinea, and Cape Verde Islands. [BW14p96; BN No 393 Dec 1964 p2 ]

The National Spiritual Assembly of the Indian Ocean was formed with its seat in Port Louis had jurisdiction over the following countries: Mauritius, Chagos Archipelago, Rodriguez Island, Malagasy Republic, (formerly Madagascar; name changed in 1958) Seychelles Islands, Comoro Islands, and Reunion Island. [BW14p96; BW15:195]

The conference was seen as an historic one in that it was the first to which participants had come to order to discuss the whole area of the European Arctic and sub-Arctic stretching from Finland in the west in Greenland in the east, from Svalbard in the extreme north to the Scottish islands in the south.

Iceland is the only country in Europe that has planned and systematically carried out, year by year, a program of proclamation (now in its fourth year) that has taken the Faith throughout the entire country, north, south, east and west. (Betty Reed, Continental Board of Counsellors for Europe) [BN No 525 8 December 1974 p11]

Because she was not able to find employment she departed on the 22nd of December and was replaced by Kay Zinky in February 1954. She was an American from Colorado Spring, Colorado, whose husband, a non-Bahá'í, supported her during her stay of one year, until February 1954. Margaret and Larry Rowdon with their daughter Ayn arrived in the summer of 1954. They stayed until 1969. During this time the rest of their children, Leslie, Ruth, Devin, Karen and Bret were born. [CBN No 49 Feb 1954 p2; CBN No 54Jul 1954 p2] [CBN Vol 18 No 1 May 2005 p24-26; HB25; BW13:453; KoB278-280]

The first person to declare on the Magdalens was Carole Bates, originally from Nova Scotia. [HB116]

Bill was well-known in Quebec and the Maritimes for his ten years of service at the Laurentian Bahá'í School at Beaulac, Quebec, his travel teaching in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, and his wholehearted participation in regional activities when the Magdalens were a part of the Prince Edward Island teaching region.

He served Bahá'í communities across Canada from Saanich, B.C., Beloeil, Quebec, and lastly to the Magdalen Islands where Bill, his wife Percilla and daughter Barbara pioneered for the last fifteen years of his life. [BC Vol 10 No 1 March 1988 p15]

Larry Rowdon was born in St Catherines, ON in 1923. He was educated in Canada and abroad, serving with the Canadian Armed Forces and gravely wounded in the Normandy landings in 1944. He became a Bahá'í in 1951 while living in Kingston, ON, then later with his wife Margaret and their year-old daughter Ayn, pioneered (1954-1969 to the Magdalen Islands. This is the story of the early part of their lives, living and raising a family on this archipelago. [CBN No 24 December 1951 p3; CBN No 68 Sep 1955 p3]
• See a book review by Will C. van den Hoonaard.