Remembering a dear friend

The last time I saw Jean Putters, he and Betty had come to our wedding. I was so happy to have them there, as I have always really loved them.

I have known Jean and Betty since I was a child, when my brother Darren and I had become friends with their daughter Stacey at Sylvan Lake Bahá’í summer school. We would go and stay with the Putters in Devon some weekends. Jean made the best scrambled eggs!

It was really during our overlapping period of service at the Bahá’í World Centre in Haifa Israel, in 1990-91, though, that I came to really love Jean and Betty. They were my “Haifa parents”, or “Mama and Papa Putty”. Jean arrived there several months before Betty, to work with the Mount Carmel Projects Office, which was responsible for the building projects on the Arc and Terraces (which were completed and officially inaugurated in 2001, during my second term of service there). Jean was an electrical engineer and supervised design and installation of some of the electrical work for this project. One of the first projects he did was to install some lights in the colonnade of the Shrine of the Bab. He told me that the architect, William Sutherland Maxwell, had designed and intended for these lights to be installed, but back in the early 1950s it wasn't possible. It wasn't until the time of this project that there were actually lights that were suitable, that wouldn't need changing every three months.

Here he is with Saeed Abounoor up on the scaffolding, working on the lights.

He also undertook a major project to light the area around the Shrine of Bahá’u’lláh during the Holy Year in 1992, on the commemoration of the ascension of Bahá’u’lláh. I was not there myself, but have seen photos and heard about how beautiful it looked.

Jean had come to Haifa several months ahead of Betty, and once he had a car, wanted to learn as much about Israel as he could before she got there, so that when she arrived he could show her the sights. So, Coral and Susan (who is also a niece of his son-in-law Bijan) and I benefited, and travelled with him to some of these places. A particularly memorable trip to the Sea of Galilee found us near an archaeological site (Susita) that also happened to be next to the ruins of a Syrian outpost during the Golan Heights war. All I can remember is that it was so windy, we thought we would be blown off the ridge. And the barbed wire that lined the path was actually intended to separate it from some old minefields. That barbed wire had blown off course so I can’t remember if we actually went forward to the site or decided to forego the possibility we might actually step onto the minefield. It was the wind, and the enjoyment of the company that I remember.

Jean was always encouraging people to get married, and in fact was happy to chauffeur many bridal couples in his Volvo on their wedding day. Whenever I would see him and Betty, his face would light up and I knew that, when he asked how I was, he was really asking “do you have news for me?” His face would light up with a combination of mischief and love. See, Jean and Betty were a model couple in many ways. I remember Betty giving me some advice about marriage, she said instead of making sure that your intended fulfilled all the lists I had been compiling of “must haves”, “would like to have”, “would prefer not to live with” and “can’t stand” qualities, the most important thing was “is this the person you want to spend time with most? If you want to go see a movie, is he the person you’d want to go with?” So that to me represented not only practical advice, but also their situation: they were each other’s best friend.

My heart aches for Betty, for Debbie and Tim, John and Susan, and Stacey and Bijan, and their families, and for all of us who were fortunate enough to know and love Jean Putters, and who will miss his presence in our lives. I am sure his spirit is soaring in the next world.

His obituary in the Edmonton Journal is particularly lovely so I’m providing the link here: http://www.legacy.com/Link.asp?I=LS000020360431X