From: We are Baha'is
John David Bosch was born at Neu-St. Johann, Canton St. Gall,
Switzerland, on August 1, 1855. His parents were Michael Johann Bosch and Maria
Biegmann; he had three brothers
and three sisters, and was his parents' fifth child. When he was nine, his
mother died, and he was then brought up by his oldest sister, whom he loved all
his life. After attending elementary and “repletitionary" school in Neu-St. Johann,
he left Switzerland with a sister and her husband (the Zuberbuhlers), arrived
in America in 1879, and went to Amboy, Nebraska where on arrival the
Zuberbuhlers purchased a farm. He practised his trade of cooper. "helped
with the building of the railroad, and also farmed." He was in Los
Angeles, California between 1884 and 1889, and became a citizen of the United
States in Los Angeles County in 1887, the document also being registered in
Sonoma County in 1892. He married Kathe Krieg in '85 or '86, the marriage
ending in divorce around '89. It was about this period that he went to Germany,
France and Spain to study winemaking. After holding various good positions in
the Valley of the Moon, he purchased the thirty-five acres constituting the
original extent of his Geyserville property on October 26, 1901 from Emily B.
Smith of Geyserville.
In 1905, John
became a Baha'i, his teachers
being Mrs. Beckwith, Mrs.
Goodall, Mrs. Cooper and Thornton Chase. John was delegate from California and Honolulu to the first Baha'i Temple Unity Convention, Chicago, March 21, 1906. In April, 1912, when superintendent of the Northern Sonoma County Wineries, he went East to be with ‘Abdu’l-Baha, and on his return was instrumental in appealing to the Master to visit the West. He was
Thornton Chase's literary executor. On
January 19, 1914 he married Louise
Sophie Stapfer of Zurich,
Switzerland, in San Francisco.
In 1920, with Louise, he left for Tahiti in March, pioneering there and leaving
in September. In November, 1921, he
and Louise were present in Haifa at
the time of the Master's
passing. Appointed by the National
Spiritual Assembly with two other
to locate a place for thee establishment of a center "along the lines of Green Acre" John offered his property for this purpose,
the institution beginning its
functions in 1927. From this period
on, he continued to serve in
many ways until his long, final illness.
He passed away July 22, 1946, and was buried in Olive Hill cemetery, Geyserville, following a befitting memorial service
held July 24 in the Baha’i Hall,
Geyserville School. Under the
auspices of the National Spiritual
Assembly, memorial service was also
held for him in the Baha'i House of Worship, November 24. His tomb is covered with a long plaque (the work of John Quinn) made of hammered bronze and bearing the Greatest Name. The underbrush has
all been cleared away, exposing a
whole new range of mountains,
the western mountains that shut
Geyserville off from the sea. When
we saw the place recently, we knew we were watching one of the loveliest views in the world. It was a soft autumn day, "The
mountains seem so near," Louise
said dreamily. "That means
rain." (Marzieh Gail, Baha’i News July, 1974)
