Newsline: Church remembers former teacher at Manzanar internment camp

[CoBNews <CoBNews@brethren.org>]

Newsline: Church of the Brethren News Service, News Director Cheryl 
Brumbaugh-Cayford, 800-323-8039 ext. 260, cobnews@brethren.org

Church of the Brethren remembers former teacher at Manzanar internment camp

(Oct. 19, 2012) Elgin, IL -- Mary Blocher Smeltzer died at home in La Verne, 
Calif., on Oct. 8. Her long life of service and peace witness included teaching 
in the Manzanar internment camp for Japanese Americans during World War II, 
with her late husband Ralph Smeltzer.

They were among several teachers who volunteered to join their students in the 
camps after 110,000 Americans of Japanese descent were incarcerated following 
the attack on Pearl Harbor.

The Smeltzers helped about 1,000 people leave the camps and resettle elsewhere. 
After a few months at Manzanar, with the help of M.R. Zigler who was then head 
of Brethren Service, and with participation from Bethany Seminary, they set up 
a hostel in Chicago for Japanese American evacuees.

A second hostel in New York, which housed evacuees 1944-46, was met with "noisy 
opposition from New York Mayor LaGuardia and New Jersey Governor Edge," 
according to a report in the Church of the Brethren's "Messenger" magazine.

Ralph went on to become director of peace and social education and later 
Washington Office representative for the Church of the Brethren. He died in 
1976.

In recent decades Mary was active in many peace and justice efforts including 
founding Womaen's Caucus, which she served for several years as co-chair and 
which has instituted an award in her name; serving in the Peace Corps in 
Botswana; serving as host at the World Friendship Center in Hiroshima, Japan, 
1981-82; and in 1985 addressing a Brethren gathering during the tying of a 
Peace Ribbon around the Pentagon. In 1983 she was the denomination's delegate 
to the World Council of Churches Sixth Assembly. In her 70s, she was arrested 
for civil disobedience at the Nevada nuclear test site.

In 2010 "Brethren Voices"--a public access cable television show produced by 
Portland (Ore.) Peace Church of the Brethren--featured her work at Manzanar 
(view it at www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppm_Ohm3Ewk ).

In 2005 at age 89 she was among 200 educators honored by the Japanese American 
National Museum. Interviewed by the "Los Angeles Times" on that occasion, she 
was asked why she reached out to internees. She said, "It's just part of me. 
It's just part of being a Christian, being a peace person, part of doing what I 
think is right."

She enjoyed the companionship of her partner, Chuck Butterfield, from 1998 
until his death in 2011. Also preceding her in death was daughter Janet, who 
died at age 9 in a car accident. Surviving are children Marty Smeltzer West of 
Davis, Calif., Patricia Himes of La Verne, Calif., and Ken (Bonnie) Kline 
Smeltzer of Boalsburg, Pa., grandchildren, and great grandchildren.

A memorial service was held this morning, Oct. 19, at La Verne (Calif.) Church 
of the Brethren. Memorial contributions are received to the La Verne Church of 
the Brethren, designated for a peace camp, and to the Janet Smeltzer 
Scholarship Fund at the University of La Verne.

The Church of the Brethren is a Christian denomination committed to continuing 
the work of Jesus peacefully and simply, and to living out its faith in 
community. The denomination is based in the Anabaptist and Pietist faith 
traditions and is one of the three Historic Peace Churches. It celebrated its 
300th anniversary in 2008. It counts some 123,000 members across the United 
States and Puerto Rico, and has missions and sister churches in Nigeria, 
Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and India.

># # #

>For more information contact:

>Cheryl Brumbaugh-Cayford
>Director of News Services
>Church of the Brethren
>1451 Dundee Ave., Elgin, IL 60120
>800-323-8039 ext. 260
>cobnews@brethren.org