Kate Cowan Ives (1863-1927) was the first woman in the Occident to accept the Baha'i Faith and to remain steadfast in her newfound religion. Originally from Newfoundland, her parents had settled in the "Boston States." Kate Ives moved from Massachusetts to Chicago and, from the moment of her conversion in 1894 at the age of twenty-one, remained steadfast. Like many other Canadians who came to the movement later, she would contribute to the development of the Green Acre Baha'i School in Eliot, Maine
(Robert Stockman, Baha’i Faith in America, vol. 1, pp. 36-37).(Will C. van den Hoonaard, ‘The Origins of the Baha'i Community of Canada, 1898-1948’)