In 1965, they had their first child, Bahia, in Provo, Utah, where Bruce was teaching at a local college. June 9th, 1962, in Wichita, Kansas, Bruce and Jean were married. Before long, Jean relented, and the courtship began.

At first, Jean wasn’t as taken with Bruce as he was with her, but he was persistent, and eventually managed to convince her (and her father) he was the right man. In 1962, on a trip to visit the Bahá’í temple in Willamette, Illinois, Bruce first laid eyes on a volunteer usher who took his breath away. This was the beginning of Bruce’s lifelong relationship with the Bahá’í faith. Once he had finally recovered, Bruce’s shelter company was practically shuttered, and he saw this as a sign. After telling a friend who had tried to convert him to Bahá’í he had no time to read, a sudden scooter accident left Bruce with 14 broken bones, bedridden, and miraculously, plenty of time to read. By 1961, Bruce and Maxine had separated and divorced.

Bradley, Bruce and Maxine’s youngest child, was born in 1959 with cystic fibrosis, and only lived for about two months. At around this time, Bruce acquired a general contractors license, and formed the American Shelter Company where he would go on to build 22 bomb shelters in Kansas. Brian was born there in 1957, and after Bruce struggled to find steady work, he took Maxine and his family back to Kansas. He moved his family to Chicago to find work and there he also took courses at McCormick Seminary. At some point in time, Bruce also took Philosophy courses (Absolute Idealism), as well as Institutional Economics at Wichita State University. In 1956, he graduated with a triple major in Religion, Philosophy and Bible, alongside other graduates with whom he would already have graduated from high school had he not joined the Air Force. Having earned a GED and three years of college credits while in the Air Force, Bruce only needed about a year of college studies to complete his B.A. While living there, Bruce and Maxine’s second child, Brenda, was born in 1955. Following his discharge after four years of service in the Air Force, Bruce moved his family to Winfield, KS and enrolled in Southwestern College where his father earned a degree in chemistry about three decades prior. While Bruce deployed as an air traffic controller in Thule, Greenland, Maxine gave birth to their first child, Bert Allen (Timothy) at Fort MacPherson, GA. Based in Atlanta, Georgia, Bruce met Maxine, a striking local high school student who he fell in love with, and within six weeks, they had decided to get married. As an airman, he found freedom in never aspiring to rise above his rank, and when his time wasn’t consumed by ‘permanent KP duty’, he was busy enrolling in advanced radio training courses. Too young to enlist, Bruce faked his parents signatures on the consent form that would allow him to join the Air Force underage. Bruce’s journey out of Kansas began when he decided to drop out of high school halfway through his senior year to join the military. For those who knew him, ‘not fitting in’ was a phrase that not only defined Bruce, it followed him throughout his life. Well beyond his years, the young Bruce found himself more comfortable in the company of adults than children his age, he was respected by his teachers as an astute pupil, and was bullied by his peers for not fitting in. Born April 14, 1934, in Winfield, Kansas to Bert and Violet Beach, it was clear from an early age that Bruce was not interested in living his life ‘by the book,’ but chose instead to live a ‘storybook’ life, similar to the lives of the heroes in the books he devoured as a young boy. Bruce Mansfield Beach Bruce Mansfield Beach 1934-2021 There are very few people who have lived a life as unbelievable as Bruce Beach.

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