'Searching for my mother, I found myselfin a hospital ward. It was a strange hospital and strange patients: in the middle of the ward, on the floor, stood a large cofFin with a silver cross. Some of the patients lay motionless on their beds, but others, completely wound in their bedsheets as if in shrouds, jumped and frolicked on their beds ... I then understood that it was an insane asylum.
'I found myself later in another corridor, searching for the way out, which I could not see. Suddenly at the end of the corridor I saw a woman in a nurse's uniform, and her proud bearing gave me to understand that she was one of the heads ofthe hospital. I ran to her and asked for the way out. But she made an incomprehensible sound, looked at me with strange eyes - and in her eyes I saw also: madness. And I was afraid. Not for any personal danger to myself, but the thought terrified me that those who were in charge of that hospital were just as insane as the patients. And I awoke with terror, invoking the name of God.
'Later, during the day, when I thought about that dream, I understood its meaning and I understood why I had become so terrified. The hospital was the world. The patients wound in shrouds, and still insanely jumping on their beds, are the peoples of the world. And here is why the situation was terrifying: because those who are in charge of that great hospital, the world, are insane themselves. How could they find the way out? Suddenly I thought: too bad that I awoke. I could still go and see the Chief of StafF! And hardly had I thought that, when I remembered another dream, which I had dreamed when I went back to sleep after waking up:
'There was a garden, famous throughout the world. The most beautiful garden in the world, the garden every traveler greatly wishes to see and which is the object of many trips. I went out of an old gray house . . . and walked in that incomparable garden, where grapevines wound about marble columns, where the air was clean and sweet- smelling, and where the clear blue sky radiated peace and tranquillity. I came back into the old dark house and said to the people who were there: why don't you go into the garden? I am going back there! They answered: Not so quickly! The police are standing at the door and let the people in only one after another and for only one time! The police? I answered with surprise. I was in that garden, I walked freely, and no police forbade me to go in!'
Then Lidia offered her interpretation of the dream. 'Here is the future of the world, after the most bitter tests: the wondrous garden of mankind, the spiritual garden, the long-promised and long-awaited garden, the Kingdom of God to be founded upon earth! The police who stand guard at the entrance and stop the people from going in are our own prejudices, egotistical desires, limits, hatreds - everything that impedes entry into the Spiritual Realm. And yet the garden is waiting, the beautiful, promised garden! One after another the people go out of the old gray and dark house; one after another they go into the garden of the spirit.
'No guidebook, published by travel companies, contains a description of this most wonderful garden! No official of any of those companies will show you the way there. But, dear samideano, continue to read the books about the Baha'i Faith. The way is shown there. Persist and have courage in your search. Cast off from your eyes the veils of custom and tradition. Search with a free, independent and unfettered mind, and with a free, warm heart. Sooner or later you will surely reach the goal!'
While staying in Detroit, Lidia made a two-day visit to Urbana, Illinois, during which she gave several public talks and a Cseh demonstration lesson. Margaret Kunz Ruhe, who at the time was a senior at the University of Illinois and chairman of the Baha'f Youth Club there, was to meet Lidia at the railroad station. She wondered how she would recognize Lidia, but was assured that if she wore a green stair on her coat, Lidia would recognize her.
'As the train from Chicago pulled to a standstill', Mrs Ruhe later recalled, 'the passengers poured off, and I watched them for some time with considerable apprehension and concern. At last a small, shy, blond, bespectacled lady stood beside me and softly introduced herself as Miss Zamenhof. She was warm, loving, sweet and rather retiring and modest in her manner and disposition. She was quiet with the signs of being more an introvert than an extrovert. She wore large glasses with strong lenses which gave her a rather scholarly and somewhat owlish look.
'She was a different person when she stood before us as our teacher. She was dynamic, and spoke in a vibrating, powerful voice. I recall that at one point she lifted a chair high in the air as she taught us the word in Esperanto . . . During her days in Urbana, she illumined the hearts and the minds with her knowledge, her sincerity and her inspiration.'
In May 1938 Lidia retumed to Illinois at the invitation of the National Spiritual Assembly, to attend the Baha'1 Annual Convention, where delegates from all over the United States and, at that time, Canada, would elect the National Assembly for the following year. It was held in Chicago and Wilmette, the location of the Baha'i House of Worship. There Lidia finally met Josephine Kruka. 'Have had several glorious days with Lidia, 'Josephine wrote to Della afterwards. 'I love her dearly.'Josephine told Della that at the Convention, May Maxwell, whom Lidia had met several times in France, read from her notes of conversations with Shoghi Effendi in Haifa. Mrs Maxwell told the gathering 'that Shoghi Effendi had said that the Baha'is must adopt Esperanto as the International Languagefor thepresent. There was', Josephine added, 'a silence- '[2]
Lidia was deeply moved by the House of Worship in Wilmette. 'That Temple gave me very sweet feelings,' she wrote to Della. 'There I felt as if at home: in my spiritual home.' But two sad events had occurred at the Convention. News arrived from Palestine that Munirih Khanum. the wife of'Abdu'1-Baha, had passed away. The cable was read to the stunned audience on Saturday, May 1. Later that
same day, Mrs Grace Robarts Ober collapsed after delivering a report to the Convention and had to be assisted from the hall. Soon word came that she was gravely ill and the gathering began to say healing prayers for her. Mrs Ober's husband, Harlan, had been serving as the Convention chairman, but when his wife was stricken he hurried to be with her and a substitute chairman had to be found. The reports continued; there was another urgent request for healing prayers. But a few moments later, a member of the National Assembly came to the platform to announce that Mrs Ober had died.
The news of the two deaths, Lidia wrote, 'put a pall of great sorrow on the conference. But as you wrote, one cannot grieve overly, when one thinks what joy awaits those who passed away; for the Holy Mother - reunion with the beloved Master ['Abdu'1-Baha], and for Grace Ober - well, I think that such a death, right after the inspiring talk, in the Temple, in the midst of the prayers of the friends, is something so beautiful, so joyous, that we can only wish a similar privilege for ourselves and at the same time realize that such a privilege must be well earned through a life of service.'
Lidia was asked to speak twice that day, 'once, a few minutes after Mrs Ober was carried out, before we knew she had died, and I spoke for a few moments although all my thoughts were concentrated on Mrs Ober, and I felt that her illness was very serious.' Later, the same evening, she spoke about Munirih Khanum. whom she had met in Haifa. Again, at one of the sessions in Chicago, she was asked to address the audience. 'I gave a very short talk,' she explained, 'because it is still difficult for me to speak in English without prior preparation.'