The Republic of Kiribati is situated on the Equator in the Western Pacific Ocean, roughly halfway between Hawaii and New Guinea. It used to be known as the Gilbert Islands and it is remembered for the epic battle that took place at Tarawa atoll in World War II. More recently, Kiribati made television news when it became the first nation to welcome the dawn of the year 2000. For Bahá’ís, Tarawa remains forever tied to the memory of Samuel and Lynde Tranter, their complete devotion to Bahá’u’lláh, and their great compassion for their fellow men.
It was the future Hand of the Cause John Robarts, who was so impressed by Sam’s unfailing courtesy and trustworthiness at his service station in downtown Toronto, that he persuaded Sam to switch careers and to join his group of insurance consultants. Next, he urged Sam to study the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh, and then he invited him to join the Bahá’í Community.
Sam and his wife Lynde soon became pillars of the Ontario home front, frequently to the point of exhaustion. When Sam “retired”, they decided to pioneer to the Pacific and live among islanders who seemed forgotten by the rest of the planet. Plagued by a severe lack of education and surrounded by poverty and decay, these people clung to a meager and often precarious existence on barren atolls that surrounded shallow lagoons.
Lynde settled in as a schoolteacher and Sam went to work with practical help, while both prayed for the region’s progress. We have all seen places where wrecked cars are simply dumped and left to rust. But here it was not at all unusual to discover dead persons who had been abandoned without funeral. Sam was regarded with high esteem, almost with awe, when he made it his business to gently collect the dead and give them a decent burial in the hard coral.
Amid such conditions, disease could be of epidemic proportions. Sam once caught a terrible virus while on a visit to a neighboring island. His life was saved when a priest who traveled on the same boat happened to carry with him the only medicine that could have helped.
After struggling and praying for five long years, Sam and Lynde began at last to notice promising change. They had firmly made up their minds to live out their lives in Kiribati to help her people until their energies were spent. Just one more year and they would be given permanent residency status. But God had willed otherwise. Their permit to stay that crucial extra year was denied and they eventually returned to Ontario’s Haliburton. There, in quiet moments, they would converse in Gilbertese as their prayers took them back to their beloved islands.
Samuel Tranter passed to the Abhá Kingdom on November 15, 1999 in Lindsay, Ontario, not far from where he was born 82 years earlier almost to the day. Sam and his cheerful, stalwart, and ever-loving companion Lynde, shall always be remembered for having belonged to that small band of truly great Canadians who had set out to conquer the world with the love of Bahá’u’lláh.
- Harry Liedtke, Central Okanagan G, January 6, 2000
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