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Mary Susan Rice was born in Shelburne, Mass and attended Mary Lyon's school in Buckland. She graduated from Mount Holyoke and in 1847 was sent to assist the noted Congregational missionary Fidelia Fiske, founder of a female seminary at Oroomiah in Persia (now Urmia, Iran). The seminary, established in 1843 and modeled on the Mount Holyoke system, was an important feature of the mission to the Nestorial Christians of the American Board Commissioners, the first American mission in Persia. The mission was staffed by a host of important figures in religious, historical and linguistic studies related to the region, including Joseph Cochran, David T. Stoddard, Justin Perkins, Austin H. Wright and William R. Stocking. The warm collegiality and earnest endeavors of the influential group are document in such works as J. G. Perkins' The Persian Flower (1853); Nestorian Biography (1857), by Perkins, Fisk et all (including a chapter by Rice) and Laurie, Woman and Her Savior in Persia (1863).
Rice's two substantial letters are written less than a year after her arrival in Oroomiah. The first dated July 24, 1848 is written to her Uncle Stephen Rice of Marlboro Mass. Following a description of her journey east - a land journey of more than 600 miles on horseback, sleeping in tents - she provides an account of her associates: Mr. Perkins, the oldest member of the mission, belongs to Springfield, is a graduate of Amherst. He is engaged in translating... Mr. S[tocking] has care of the village schools, of which there are about 40. I have enjoyed much in going with him to visit schools in various villages... Dr. W[right] beside preaching has the care of a school for Mussulman boys, & receives the Mussulman guests that call, as he speaks Turkish well... Mrs. Fisk of Shelburne has the charge of the Fem. Seminary and I am so honored to be associated with one of the most worth, the most excellent of companions," etc. She then writes a description of her environs, the topography, the field crops and fruits: "This is a land of plenty for physical wants & when blessings of civil & religious freedoms are theirs and the fear of God fills the hearts of these people, then may we hope that it shall be like a garden of the Lord."
The second letter, dated Sept. 29th, 1848, is written to her father Henry Rice of Lincoln, Mass. Following family exchanges, she writes "At present all 9 members of the Mission are in good health... Dear Sister F[iske] is able to prosecute her duties with vigor, and she accomplishes a great deal though she is of slender make. She writes at length on the Syriac language - "I was more pleased with its sounds than any foreign language on the way ... apart from [the gutteral sounds] I think it musical." - providing transliterations of hymns for her father to pronounce. "The Nestorians are very fond of singing, but much prefer animated & quick pieces. They are much pleased with some of the Revival Melodies... They all like to sing treble - think bass is not pleasant, because it is so low..."
Continuing with further descriptions of crops, irrigation and water supply, she assures her father "My duties are not beyond my strength and I find much happiness in them." She reports of the cholera and the death of Mr. Stoddard's wife & their children's nurse, and closes "We are in a quiet state here at present ... The Koords have ceased their plundering and we hope for less excitement from without." Signed, "With a daughter's love, Mary Susan."
In a separate purchase was the third letter, a letter to Mary Susan Rice from a friend named Charles, who was probably fellow Lincoln resident Charles Hartwell. He was an Amherst College student, and later a missionary to China. He speaks with affection to his "sister" (in a Christian fellowship sort of way, rather than a blood relative), and tells her what is happening with friends and family in Massachusetts.
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