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Azalia Peet in Orange, California, 1945
Azalia Emma Peet was born in Rochester, New York, September 3, 1887, daughter of Marion K. Green and James C. Peet. She graduated from Smith College in 1910 and returned home to New York. After much spiritual and personal self-examination and following her mother's death in 1913 and her father's remarriage in 1916, Peet decided to become a Christian missionary.
She left in September 1916 for Tokyo, Japan, under the auspices of the United Methodist Church. Between September 1917 and May 1921 she did evangelistic work with high school students, supervised kindergarten work, and organized clubs for nurses and working women. In June 1921 she returned to the United States on her first furlough, speaking in churches and doing graduate work at Boston University. She received a master's degree in 1923 and returned to Japan the same year. Peet worked with women and girls in Fukuoka, living in a hostel for working women and teaching women at the government high school and college. In 1927 she moved to Hakodate, supervising two kindergartens. She became ill in January 1928 and was sent back to the United States on her second furlough which was spent in Portland, Oregon and Rochester, New York. Returning to Japan in September 1929, she supervised kindergartens and did missionary work with students until June 1935. During her third furlough (June 1935 to August 1936), Peet did graduate work at Cornell University and at Merrill Palmer Training School in Detroit. She returned to Japan in September 1936 and was evacuated in March 1941. During that period Peet did social welfare, childcare, and kindergarten work in Kushikino and taught high school in Nagasaki.
During the war she lived with Japanese-Americans in interment camps in Gresham and Nyssa, Oregon and Wapato, Washington. Peet was among the first women to be asked to return to Japan after the war. Between December 1946 and December 1953 she did rural reconstruction work. Peet was awarded the "Fifth Order of the Sacred Treasure" by the Japanese government in 1953.
Returning to the United States in January 1954, she cared for her sister-in-law in Webster, New York, and occupied herself doing fulltime parish visiting and religious education for the Monroe Ave. United Methodist Church in Rochester, New York. Peet entered Brooks-Howell Home in Asheville, North Carolina, in September 1961. She died September 21, 1973.
The Azalia Peet Papers consist of two linear feet of photographs, correspondence, printed material, memorabilia, diaries, articles, and speeches. They provide a detailed and personal view of missionary life in Japan before and after World War II and Japanese-Americans in internment camps in the United States during the war.
This collection is organized into three series:
This material is open according to the rules of the Sophia Smith Collection.
The Sophia Smith Collection owns copyright to material authored by Azalia Peet and permission is required beyond "fair use". All literary rights to material authored by others are retained by the individuals and their heirs.
Please use the following format when citing materials from this collection:
Azalia Emma Peet Papers, Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, Northampton, Mass.
Early diaries (1902-1928) available on the History of Women microfilm series (New Haven: Research Publications) available in Neilson Library, Smith College and through interlibrary loan.
Azalia Emma Peet donated her papers in May 1970.
Reprocessed by Susan Boone, 2001.
This series includes biographical clippings, twenty diaries, memorabilia, and photographs. With the exception of Peet's early diaries, 1902-17, most are short entry. The volumes overlap in years. Her early diaries (1902-1917) are introspective and reflect her home life and her personal and spiritual struggle to come to terms with her vocation. The later ones, 1917-60 not only describe her life in Japan but also her experiences working with the Japanese in internment camps in the United States and her retirement years. Memorabilia consists of miscellaneous items, including her Fifth Order of the Sacred Treasure which she received from the Japanese government in 1953; articles and clippings about Japan and the Japanese (1920-47); newsletters from Japan missionaries Evelyn and Robert Spenser (1939-35); and
Correspondence is divided into outgoing and incoming letters. They are arranged by date. The outgoing letters contain letters home to family and friends, primarily from Smith College (1908-10), Japan (1917-53), Japanese-American internment camps in Oregon and Washington (1941-45), Rochester, New York (1954-61), and her retirement home in North Carolina (1961-72). Incoming correspondence includes letters to Peet from family and friends (1906-69.) There is also a folder of letters between miscellaneous Peet family members. The letters, mostly round robin, provide a detailed description of her life.
This series consists of typed undated essays, studies and reports, handwritten notes and speeches (1959, n.d.), and a copy of Peet's masters' thesis (1923).