This collection was accumulated by Hazel Littlefield Smith and consists of materials concerning her career and interests and those of her family, specifically her husband, Dr. Dennis Smith, and her father, Josiah Littlefield (1845-1935), a pioneer lumberman and businessman in Farwell, Michigan.
The collection is particularly valuable for three topics: early days (late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries) in Farwell, Michigan; missionary life in China in the period ca. 1915-1928; and the travels and writings of Hazel Littlefield Smith. The materials include correspondence, compositions and business-related materials of Josiah Littlefield; correspondence and other materials of Dr. Dennis Smith, Hazel Littlefield Smith (and Josiah Littlefield) concerning conditions in early republican China; and correspondence and other materials of Hazel Littlefield Smith concerning her travels in Europe (1920s-1950s), her management of the family farm near Farwell, Michigan (1940s), and her essays, poetry and other publications, including Lord Dunsany: King of Dreams.
The three principal figures in the collection--Hazel Littlefield Smith, Dennis Smith and Josiah Littlefield--were highly perceptive observers of persons and events. Their letters are rich in detail, whether describing travel experiences or everyday life in rural northern Michigan.
The collection is arranged into six series: Littlefield Family, China-related materials, Hazel Littlefield Smith, Miscellanea, Dr. Dennis V. Smith, and Visual Materials.
Hazel Littlefield was born in Farwell, Michigan and graduated from the University of Michigan (AB, 1913). In 1913, she married Dennis Vincent Smith who had graduated the previous year with a doctor of medicine degree from the university's medical school. The couple then moved to China where they worked for fourteen years under the Methodist Board of Foreign Missions in Peking, China. Smith was head of the Hopkins Memorial Hospital Eye Department, where he trained Chinese doctors as well as doing eye surgery. The Smiths returned from China in 1928 with Dr. Smith serving as an ophthalmologist at the Battle Creek Sanitarium. They next moved to Long Beach, California where he practiced his specialty for 29 years. They returned to Ann Arbor in 1960, and from 1961 to 1971, he served as an ophthalmologist at the U-M Health Service.
Hazel Littlefield Smith, in addition to her work with the Methodist Church, was also a poet, historian and biographer.
