Wellesca Pollock Allen Dyar (February 12, 1871 – 1940) was an American educator and an early adherent to Baháʼí Faith in the United States. She was at the center of a Washington, D.C., society scandal in 1916.
Early life Wellesca Pollock was the youngest survivor of the thirteen children born to Louise Plessner Pollock and George H. Pollock, at Weston, Massachusetts. Her brother, George Freeman Pollock, was the founder of Skyland Resort in Virginia.Reed L. Engle, In the Light of the Mountain Moon: An Illustrated History of Skyland Resort (Shenandoah National Park Association 2003). Their mother was an educator prominent in the kindergarten movement."Glowing Tribute to Mrs. Pollock's Memory" Evening Times (May 5, 1902): 5. via Newspapers.com Wellesca trained as a teacher, graduating from her mother's Washington Normal Kindergarten Institute in 1891.John Kelly, "Wellesca Pollock, Before She Met Harrison G. Dyar" Washington Post (October 30, 2012).
Career Wellesca Pollock trained kindergarten teachers with her mother in Washington, D.C., and taught a kindergarten class for African-American children in the capital. In 1900 she began to identify as a follower of the Baháʼí Faith, and used the Persian name "Aseyeh" in that context. She traveled to Egypt, Syria, and Palestine to meet ʻAbdu'l-Bahá in 1907.Untitled news item, Evening Star (April 1, 1907): 5. via Newspapers.com
Wellesca Pollock made some significant money selling real estate in Washington, D.C."Rifles' Armory Sold" Washington Post (July 3, 1910): 1. via Newspapers.com She also did part-time work at the Smithsonian Institution, assisting entomologist and fellow Baháʼí Harrison Gray Dyar Jr.Harrison G. Dyar, North American Lepidoptera (United States Government Printing Office 1902): viii.Harrison G. Dyar, "The Life History of a Second Epiplemid" Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Washington (1903): 131.
Personal life Wellesca Pollock was at the center of a public scandalRyan P. Smith, "The Bizarre Tale of the Tunnels, Trysts, and Taxa of a Smithsonian Entomologist" Smithsonian Magazine (May 13, 2016). when it became known that "Wilfred P. Allen", her absent husband, the father of her three sons (born 1908, 1911, and 1913), was a fiction."Wellesca P. Allen, appellant v. Wilfred P. Allen, respondent" Reports of Cases Determined by the Supreme Court of the State of Nevada 44(October 1920): 243. Her partner was in fact entomologist Harrison Gray Dyar Jr., who had another, legal, wife."Story is Said to be History of Real Life" Oregon Daily Journal (March 4, 1916): 13. via Newspapers.com The couple officially married after Dyar's divorce, in 1921. Dyar named a Mexican species of moth, Parasa wellesca, for her.Marc Epstein, Moths, Myths, and Mosquitoes: The Eccentric Life of Harrison G. Dyar Jr. (Oxford University Press 2016): 62. Wellesca Pollock Dyar was widowed when Harrison died in 1929,Pamela M. Henson, "Harrison Gray Dyar Jr." Baha'i Library Online (2005). and she died in 1940, aged 69 years.John Kelly, "Dyar and Wellesca, Together at Last and Above Ground" Washington Post (November 6, 2012).
References
External links Wellesca Dyar's gravesite on Find a Grave.