Twain Harte man pioneering for peace

Ed Diliberto’s interests have taken him from Roosevelt’s Youth Corps in the Great Depression, to learning hypnosis, teaching children in banana republics, and traveling the world as a pioneer for peace and human unity.

Raised in the Roman Catholic church, Diliberto, 73, discovered the Baha’i faith as an adult and spent the last 40 years devoted to bringing awareness of persecution of the innocent and promoting world peace as a Baha’i pioneer.

The diminutive Diliberto smiles, jokes and gestures when talking, but his passion and depth of knowledge are apparent as he discusses his faith and subjects related to it.

“You could describe me as a late bloomer, married young, flunked out of school,” Diliberto joked from his home in Twain Harte. “I’ve had many careers in my life. But I’ve always been a person who was curious.”

Diliberto was born in 1936 to a Sicilian father and French-Canadian mother in Huntington Park, Los Angeles County.

Diliberto’s curiosity led him to learn hypnosis in junior high from a girl at his school who claimed it helped her remember what she’d studied. He did it with his friends and at parties, but stopped after he stuck a guy in the hand with a pin and he didn’t feel it.

Diliberto said he felt that was taking hypnosis a bit overboard.

“I can still do those tricks,” Diliberto said with a glint in his hazel eyes.

While attending Woodrow Wilson High School in Long Beach, Diliberto was a junior when he met his future wife, Evelyn “Ev” McGrew, a sophomore. Their first date was to a Christmas dance in 1953. They went to beach parties, movies, dances, and both participated in Greek organizations.

"We did all the things kids do now, but we had limits,” Ed Diliberto said.

During high school, Diliberto joined the U.S. Naval Reserves and upon graduation worked in a Naval weather center.

Ed and Ev were married after high school and started their family that would soon include five children — Dawn, Tony, Diana, Marguerite and Angelina — and later grow to seven. Daughter Marguerite Bulkin is the superintendent of the Sonora and Curtis Creek elementary school districts.

After completing his term in the Navy, Diliberto worked as a bartender at his dad’s Italian restaurant in Whittier, in Southern California. While at a friend’s wedding in Arizona, Diliberto met people who’d been to college or were in college.

“I thought: These people aren’t any smarter than I am,” Diliberto said. So he enrolled at Long Beach State University on probationary status because of poor grades from high school.

He completed four years of college in three and earned his elementary education degree.

“I liked the vacations,” Diliberto said of his decision. “Plus I wanted to be the kind of teacher I seldom had.”

It was around this time Ed and Ev were on a spiritual journey, searching for truths.
 

“In our time, young people and late adolescents always went through a period of truth. People don’t do that now,” Diliberto said.

Ev was raised Methodist and Ed Catholic, so they went through various churches, Ev Diliberto said.

In 1968, they encountered the Baha’i faith, whose goal is the unification of all mankind, Ed said.

The Baha’i faith is the youngest of the world’s independent religions, according to the International Baha’i Community. Its founder Baha’u’llah, who lived from 1817 to 1892 in Persia, is regarded by followers as the most recent in the line of messengers of God that include Abraham, Moses, Buddha, Krishna, Christ and Muhammad.

There are about 6 million Baha’is around the world in more than 200 countries. Baha’i teachings emphasize the underlying unity of the major world religions.

The faith has three core principles: The unity of God, the unity of religion, and the unity of humankind.

Baha’is believe the existence of God and the universe to be eternal, without a beginning or end.

There is no clergy in Baha’ism and it’s democratically organized.

“It’s up to you to be as active or inactive as you want,” Ed said. “It’s entirely your prerogative because no one can come between you and your concept of God.”

Baha’is are strictly prohibited from proselytizing or in any way influencing people’s beliefs.

"So we just tell people if they’re interested, great,” Diliberto said. “We have meetings at our home for those who are interested. We absolutely respect what every person believes religiously.”

In 1970, the Dilibertos took their five children to Argentina to be pioneers for the faith. Ed taught English at a high school and private junior high school for two years.

“We gradually picked up Spanish,” Ev said.

It was financially difficult to be there, with Ed’s pay in pesos and Ev got a bad ear infection, so they returned to the States.

Ed took a job teaching in Palm Springs and they had their sixth child, Juliet, named for a heroine of the Baha’i faith.

In 1976, the Dilibertos packed up again and went to El Salvador, where Ed had a “real job” teaching.

“Our children have benefited beyond estimation because of our international travels. It’s made them citizens of the world.”

The move to El Salvador was difficult, Ev said, but there was a really big Baha’i community. 

She became pregnant with their seventh child, Eddie, while in El Salvador.

At the time, the country was in turmoil and there was a civil war. Politicians were getting killed and people were being kidnapped and armed guards stood post at the American School, where the children attended.

“It didn’t really affect the Americans much,” Ev said, adding that they didn’t feel afraid in the least.

They lived in El Salvador for two years then Ed took a job for Castle & Cooke Corporation, which acquired the Standard Fruit Company, now the Dole Food Company. He was a principal at a school in Costa Rica for employees’ children.

After a year, they returned to Long Beach where Ed taught Spanish in public schools.

For the next 11 years, Ed was appointed to a position as a consultant for the Baha’i faith. It was a non-paid job that involved him traveling during summer vacations to foreign countries training local Baha’is on the principles and teachings of the faith. He traveled to 27 countries and was in Albania and Romania when the Soviet Union began disintegrating. There, he assisted in the reorganization of oppressed Baha’i communities.  

Diliberto said he embarked on these journeys to contribute to the progress of man.

“I liked the hardship, adventure, adapting to new places,” he said.

Eventually Ed quit teaching and got into property management which freed up his time for pioneering. He and Ev traveled all over.

Ten years ago, around the time the Dilibertos moved to Twain Harte, Ed was appointed by the Universal House of Justice in Haifa, Israel (Baha’i headquarters), to work with the Center for Baha’i Studies. Diliberto collaborated with Chinese scholars on various subjects and papers about Baha’ism. He did that until a year and a half ago.

In the last year, Ed has taken up skiing seriously and skied at many NASTAR competitions with the national recreational ski racing group. He once got a gold medal in his age division and placed sixth overall at Steamboat Ski & Resort in Steamboat, Colo.

Diliberto is also an amateur artist painter, does woodworking and enjoys hiking. His latest project was constructing a model train, which he placed inside a large wooden box painted with scenery.

“I’m a person who does a lot of things, but I’m not an expert in anything,” he joked.

“Everything’s on accident in our life. Remember, when the door opens, walk through it,” Ed said.    

While the Dilibertos host Baha’i events at their home, Baha’is have been in the Mother Lode for 30 years, Ev said.

Ed and Ev now spend their time trying to raise awareness of the persecution of Baha’is, specifically their persecution in Iran.

“We’re peace-loving, law-abiding people,” Ed said of the Baha’is.

Baha’is are not involved in politics and register to vote as non-partisans. They feel the organized religions and churches should give up exclusivity and finality, which Baha’is claim is causing problems between religions.

"Religion is only for peace of mind,” Ed said.