The Eunice M. Brake collection consists of travel letters, diaries and photographs relating to her various world travels between 1934 and 1982. In addition to the letters, which make up the bulk of the material, a number of menus, paper games and entertainment programs typical of those used by ocean liners in the 1930s are included in the collection.
The two scrapbooks included with the papers contain numerous personal and commercially distributed photographs from her trips to the Soviet Union and Australia. Included with them are numerous photos of London, Leningrad, Moscow, Athens, and Paris (circa 1934) and Australia, Samoa and Fiji (circa 1937).
The Brake papers (1 linear foot) are arranged geographically by the country or countries of destination and year of trip. Within each folder, the letters are arranged chronologically. All photographs are included with the letters (trips) to which they relate.
The letters were written with the intention of sharing information with family members and friends. The letters were then returned to the author for retention. In some cases, to save time, she made copies of the letters and added different and unique passages onto the end for family members or friends.
These documents are travel letters in which the writer comments on physical conditions and provides cultural observations and geographic descriptions. The letters which were written during the years in Japan and Thailand provide the greatest amount of detail. Brake writes about educational conditions and teaching methods in the Japanese and Thai schools. She describes social and religious ceremonies and customs of both cultures. Many of the letters detail her relation to and interaction with the local people of each society.
Eunice M. Brake, the daughter of Wesley and Lidia Brake, was born on February 18, 1906 in Kentwood, Michigan. Her father, a farmer and blacksmith, later moved the family to Bradley, Michigan, and Eunice graduated from nearby Wayland High School. She attended Western Michigan Normal School but transferred to the University of Michigan in 1927 and received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Education, with a major in Rhetoric, in 1928. She was hired as an English teacher at River Rouge High School and remained on the staff for forty years. The last fifteen years at River Rouge, Eunice Brake held the position of vice principal.
Eunice Brake developed a fondness for world travel after joining a special educational tour of the Soviet Union in 1934. She began to keep a diary during that trip and this practice evolved into a series of letters written to friends and family during each subsequent journey.
In 1951, she was awarded a Fulbright fellowship to teach English at a high school in Thailand for one year. In 1955, she received a second Fulbright award to teach English on the island of Mitro (located off the southwestern coast of Japan) for a year. During both of these periods, she maintained a weekly schedule of correspondence.
From 1960 to 1973, she conducted tours for Travco World Tours, a professional tour coordinator. After 1973, she ceased to conduct tours but continued to travel. Now a resident of Ann Arbor, Michigan, Ms. Brake continues to work on a genealogical history of the Brake family.
