Marion Carpenter Yazdi

Who was Marion Carpenter Yazdi?

Marion Bernice Yazdi, born October 9, 1902 at Marcellus, Cass County, Michigan, died February 2, 1996 at Natick, Middlesex County, Massachusetts or at Wellesley, Norfolk County, Massachusetts, was the first Bahá'í student at the University of California at Berkeley, and at Stanford University. She was a daughter of Crowell E. and Elizabeth Carpenter, natives of Michigan and Ohio, respectively, who moved from Schoolcraft, Kalamazoo County, Michigan to Santa Paula, Ventura County, California between the 1910 and 1920 censuses.

She married in 1926 to Ali M. Yazdi, a native of Persia who immigrated to the United States in 1920. He was a civil engineer, and a noted Bahá'í writer and lecturer who served in the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'ís of the United States and as chairman of the Local Spiritual Assembly of Berkeley, California for 30 years. His life and service were commemorated by Marion in her 1982 book, Youth in the Vanguard: Memoirs and Letters Collected by the First Bahá'í Student at Berkeley and at Stanford University.