Lua Getsinger

Louise "Lua" Aurora Getsinger (née Moore) (1 November 1871, Hume, NY – 2 May 1916, Cairo, Egypt), known as Lua Getsinger, was one of the first Western members of the Bahá'í Faith, becoming a member in 1897. A prominent disciple of `Abdu'l-Bahá, she was given the title "Herald of the Covenant" and "Mother Teacher of the West" by 'Abdu'l-Baha.

Lua was the sixth of 10 children born to Ellen McBride (born 1843) and her husband Reuben D. Moore in Hume, New York, a rural small town located in northwestern New York State's Wyoming County, about 90 kilometers south of Lake Ontario.

Since her youth she had tended to a colorful mode of dress and avoiding fashions of the day. When `Abdu'l-Bahá asked her to travel in the East for him he asked her to dress in a less conspicuous fashion. She then designed a form of dress with a royal dark blue of inset panels of different fabric with silk trimmings.

‘Abdu’l-Bahá gave her the title “Livá” and a “Banner”, given her service to the Faith in numerous places like Paris and throughout the American continent; she taught Bahá’u’lláh’s Principles of Unity and Peace in India and represented the Faith in visits to Muzaffari’d-Dín Shah of Persia when he visited Paris, and to the Maharajah of Jalowar, India.

Lua Getsinger died unexpectedly of heart failure while in Egypt on May 2, 1916, at the age of forty three.