Guide to the Hazel Lenora Acheson Papers

Hazel Lenora Welker Acheson, born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on March 2, 1897, attended grade school in New Kensington and Saxonburgh, Pennsylvania, and moved to Pittsburgh in 1911. She graduated from South High School in 1915 and from the Pittsburgh Training School for Teachers in 1917. She taught at the Letsche School in Pittsburgh, from September 1917 through May 1923, and was a special student at the University of Pittsburgh, working toward the A.B. degree, from 1918 to 1922.

In 1912, she united with the United Presbyterian Church of North America (UPCNA) and became a member of Homewood Church, Pittsburgh in 1917. She served as missionary secretary of the Young People's Christian Union (Y.P.C.U.) of the Monongahela Presbytery.

With her husband, the Rev. Samuel Irvine Acheson (1894-1952), Mrs. Acheson was appointed to the mission field in Egypt by the Board of Foreign Missions (UPCNA). They sailed for Port Said, Egypt, from New York in the fall of 1924.

The Achesons served several stations within the Egypt mission between 1924 and 1930. Rev. Acheson studied at the seminary in Cairo, and preached, taught, and managed the ministries at several sites, including Abbassia, Assuit, Beni Suef, Sidi Bishri summer camp, Tanta, and "on the Nile" from the Ibis, the Egypt mission's houseboat. He also served as treasurer in Egypt with the World Sunday School Association (WSSA).

Mrs. Acheson's ministry took place within the family and through the hospitality she offered and received with visitors from the missionary community, the local Egyptian community, and the United States. Her daily schedule included Arabic study in the morning and sewing and letters in the afternoon; she also led a Sunday School class.

While in Egypt, the Achesons began their family with the births of a son and a daughter. During the time of the Acheson's appointment to the Egypt mission, his brother and sister-in-law, the Rev. J. Willard and Alice B. Phillips Acheson, and his sister, Ada (Mrs. W.J.) Dunlap, were also appointed to the Egypt mission.

Due to her husband's ill health, Mrs. Acheson returned with her husband and children to the United States in early 1929 and retired from the mission field in 1930.

Mrs. Acheson died in 1987.