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.
From the guide to the Hazel Littlefield Smith Papers, ca. 1830s-1979, (Bentley Historical Library University of Michigan)
