Guide to the Susan McDowell Currell Papers
Open for research.
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Susan McDowell Currell was born July 21, 1889. Her father, Dr. William Spenser Currell (1858-1943) married Susan’s mother Sarah Scott in 1888. At the time of Susan’s birth, Dr. Currell was a professor of English at Davidson College in North Carolina. In 1895, the family moved to Lexington, Va., where Dr. Currell joined the faculty of Washington and Lee University. In 1914, Dr. Currell was appointed president and later dean of the graduate school at the University of South Carolina in Columbia.
The Presbyterian Church in the U.S. (PCUS) appointed Susan Currell as a missionary to Japan in 1920. She first worked in Marugame doing evangelical and educational work. From the fall of 1928 to the spring of 1929, she stayed at a nursing home in Karuizawa where she received treatment for tuberculosis. She returned to the United States in 1941.
After World War II, the PCUS posted Currell to Kochi. She arrived in March 1949 and continued her evangelical and educational work, including teaching at Seiwa Girls’ High School. She retired in 1958 and returned to the United States, living in Black Mountain, N.C. until shortly before her death when she moved to the Sunnyside Presbyterian Home in Harrisonburg, Va. She died in July 1970.
Collection consists predominantly of incoming correspondence and photographs, spanning 1920 to 1970. Currell’s correspondents are primarily friends, former Bible students, and graduates of Seiwa Girls’ High School. Chief among them is Currell’s friend, Inoue Sadako (née Yoshida Sadako), who writes consistently from 1926 to 1966. One folder of Currell’s letters to her mother and father, spanning 1928 to 1932, contains descriptions of life in a tuberculosis sanitarium, and of Japanese soldiers leaving for Shanghai during the run-up to the Second World War. Among Currell’s writings is an autobiographical essay, “Experiences in Japan,” which briefly treats the earthquake of 1923. The photographs and photograph albums chiefly contain group portraits of kindergarten students, classes from Seiwa, acquaintances and weddings.
The collection is arranged as follows:
SERIES I: CORRESPONDENCE, REPORTS AND WRITINGS, 1920-1970
SERIES II: PHOTOGRAPHS, 1920-1970
SERIES III: CLIPPINGS AND EPHEMERA, 1908-1965
To browse this collection's digitized content visit Pearl.
Materials marked "Digital" in the Collection Inventory may not have been digitized in their entirety.
Repository holds Currell’s jewelry, museum accessions 1984.16.1 and 1984.16.2.
Received from Currell’s sister Elise between 1970 and 1975.
Collection processed in 2008 by PHS volunteer Sue Althouse; finding aid revised in 2011 by Records Archivist David Staniunas.
Susan McDowell Currell Papers, RG 452, Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
| Box | Folder | Description | Alternative Formats |
| 1 | 1 | Guide to Record Group 452 | |
| SERIES I: CORRESPONDENCE, REPORTS AND WRITINGS, 1920-1970 | |||
| 1 | 2 | Correspondence, incoming, 1920-1923 | |
| 1 | 3 | Correspondence, incoming, 1924-1932 | |
| 1 | 4 | Correspondence, outgoing, 1928-1932 | |
| 1 | 5 | Correspondence, incoming, 1953-1956 | |
| 1 | 6 | Correspondence, incoming, 1957-1959 | |
| 1 | 7 | Correspondence, incoming, 1960-1970 | |
| 1 | 8 | “Experiences in Japan,” autobiographical essay, undated | |
| 1 | 9 | Yodogawa Christian Hospital report, Margaret Taylor, [1952] | |
| 1 | 10 | Kochi journal, 1953-1958 | |
| 1 | 11 | Address book, language notes, undated | |
| 1 | 12 | Flower arrangement journal, 1938-1939 | |
| 1 | 13 | Women’s group meeting notes, 1964-1965 | |
| SERIES II: PHOTOGRAPHS, 1920-1970 | |||
| 1 | 14 | Photographs, 1920-1940 | |
| 1 | 15 | Photographs, 1940-1950 | |
| 1 | 16 | Photographs, 1950-1955 | |
| 1 | 17 | Photographs, 1955-1960 | |
| 1 | 18 | Photographs, 1960-1970 | |
| 1 | 19 | Photograph album, Seiwa, 1957 | |
| 1 | 20 | Photograph album, kindergarten, 1957 | |
| 1 | 21 | Photograph album, Kochi, 1958-1959 | |
| 1 | 22 | Negative, Currell, undated | |
| SERIES III: CLIPPINGS AND EPHEMERA, 1908-1965 | |||
| 1 | 23 | Clippings, 1929-1958 | |
| 1 | 24 | Certificates and memorabilia, 1908-1959 | |
| 1 | 25 | Medical pamphlets, 1955 and undated | |
| 1 | 26 | Religious pamphlets, 1941-1965 and undated | |
| 1 | 27 | Flower arrangement ephemera, undated |