Emory University
The story of Meher Baba groups in Georgia begins at Emory University in the fall of 1967. Charles Haynes had just entered the university as a freshman. Sometime that fall he sent Meher Baba a postcard with an aerial view of the campus.
Mani Irani, Meher Baba’s sister, told Charles later that Baba held the postcard between his two palms and gave it back to her. Charles’ name is in Mani’s handwriting.
Atlanta
Charles, of course, told other people about Meher Baba. They got together informally at first, and then at the instigation of Neva Bethel, an older Emory employee, they began to meet regularly at the Alumni Memorial Building, whose initials (AMB) seemed only fitting,
Eventually the Meher Baba followers in Atlanta expanded and opened a center on Virginia Avenue. Here is a photo of the group around 1975.
Bottom Row: Janet (Massey) Files, Charles Haynes, Georgia, Alan Levinson, Mary Barrett Ernst, Shelley Marrich, Mary Biskup, Judith Shotwell.
2nd Row: Teddy Vigodsky, Jay Faulkner, Barbara Katzenberg, Jenny (Califf) Zenner, Cynthia Connor, Karyl (Swanson) Tych, Rick Flinn.
3rd Row: Bob Ahrens, Unknown mother and child, Annie (Larson) Hall, Jean (Berman) Vigodsky, Darwin Berman,
Top Row: Ricky Califf, Perry Flinn, John Cranshaw, Pat (Griffin) Echeveste, Meredith Klein, Bob Schofield, Rick Berman, Warren Hix.
Another Baba person who lived for a while in the Atlanta area was Gary Mullins, who attended the 1962 East-West Gathering and had a personal interview with Meher Baba.
Sometime after the Virginia Avenue center closed, the group rented space in Little Five Points. Meetings were also held there until budget constraints led to meetings in people’s homes.
Athens
The Athens Baba group started around 1970-73. Betty Pound, a student at the University of Georgia, found out about Meher Baba while going to summer school in Chapel Hill and later visited Meher Spiritual Center in South Carolina. She and Charlie Gard’ner started a refugee project at the University of Georgia with some Bangladesh students during the time when West Pakistan invaded East Pakistan.
In 1971, a number of people visited Meher Center for the first time–Charlie, Trudy (Charlie’s girlfriend), and John Leiter. In 1972, while attending Baba’s Birthday party at Emory, they met two others studying in Athens: Jere Hodgin and Rick Berman. Several from the group visited Baba’s home in India beginning in 1972-1973. Others later included Robert and Felice Ahrens and Jenny (Califf) Zenner.
The early group met on Thursday nights to talk about Baba, drink beer, eat pizza, and watch the TV series “Kung Fu” with David Carradine as a Shaolin monk.
To quote Charlie Gard’ner, “This was the beginning of the group…A band of upstanding stalwart lovers of God.”
For a glimpse of the past, view the Archives.