Transcript of a talk given by Catharine Nourse in 1961.

Curtis Kelsey and Fujita

1922

I had the privilege of visiting the Guardian, as 4 or 5, a group of Americans who made the first pilgrimage after Shoghi Effendi had been appointed to the Guardianship. When I was there, the Guardian was very ill and was still recovering from the terrific load he realise he would have to carry on his shoulders. . .

. . . Everyone was thrilled to see this great light descend from Mt Carmel. It was very, very wonderful. And we had lots of fun because my mother asked Shoghi Effendi if there wasn’t something she could do for him. And he said ‘Yes, there is.’ He said, ‘You could take Curtis Kelsey and Fujita to Egypt and give them a vacation.

Now, those of you who know Fujita, he used to be the chauffeur for Mrs True when they were all very young. He was a little Japanese man of about this height. He was the tiniest thing I have ever seen, just like a little gnome. And when he was in Haifa, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá went to him one day and started pulling his chin and He said, ‘I’m going to give you a beard.’ So every day, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá pulled his chin and pretty soon he had a nice beard down to about here and it made him look very distinguished. He looked more like an elf then anything I’d ever seen. He was quite a gentleman. He walked with a cane and he wore a little bowler hat, a British top hat. Oh, he was very meticulous and he dressed beautifully. He was quite the time when we were there because he had fallen in love with a little Persian girl and he wanted to marry her very badly. They were all very excited about it, but the family stepped in and wouldn’t let him, so Fujita was going through the depths of despair when we took him down to Egypt with us.

Both of my brothers were very tall and we went to Egypt and we took Curtis Kelsey and we took Fujita. We stayed at the Shepherd Hotel, that’s one of the big hotels in Cairo and when we went in to dinner every night, people stood and watched us and watched us. Finally one night, the proprietor of the hotel, or the manager, the night manager, came up to me and he looked so distressed and he looked at these boys and asked, ‘Is he the papa?’

So, we had a wonderful time because ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had Fujita that someday they would stand him on a table and they would kiss that beard and that happened when we took him to Egypt. He met with the men one evening in a meeting where the women weren’t allowed to go and he was very embarrassed when he came out to us and he said that they done just what ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had said. They had stood him on a little card table and all the Persians had come around and kissed his beard because ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had given it to him. . .