In 2017 I purchased a collection of photo postcards which had originally belonged to Hazel Estella Alberts Peterson (1898-1989). Some of them may have come from the estate of her older sister, Florence Bernice Alberts (1894-1987). Hazel and Florence both married, but neither had children. They also had a younger sister, Tressa Ferne Alberts (1901-1993), who had two children.
All three sisters attended Seattle Seminary, a Free Methodist college preparatory school. College-level classes were introduced in 1910, and in 1915 the school’s name was changed to Seattle Pacific College. In 1977 it became Seattle Pacific University.
Hazel’s father, Rev. Birney Hoyt Alberts (1870-1927), was closely involved with the school during the 1910s, serving on the Board of Trustees and in other administrative roles. Hazel’s mother, Eva Estella Cusick (1869-1933), had been a Free Methodist evangelist since the early 1890s. With all three girls attending the school, the Alberts family was at the center of the Seattle Pacific community. In 1922 Hazel married Charles Wallace Peterson (1893-1972), the youngest child of Nils B. and Karen Peterson, who had donated land for construction of the first school building.
In the photo above, Hazel is seated in the middle of the front row, while Florence is standing directly behind her, in the middle of the back row.
I plan to upload photos from Hazel’s estate, a few at a time, to galleries on this page. To see additional photos which have been uploaded as separate blog posts, click on the Seattle Pacific College tag in the bottom right of any page.
The gallery below contains Seattle Pacific administrators, faculty and graduates. Hazel’s father is in the first image. If you recognize anyone who isn’t identified, please leave a comment at the bottom of this page or send me a message using the Contact link at the top of the page.
Click on any thumbnail to enlarge it. If you wish to enlarge the image further after that, click the information symbol in the lower right of your screen (the letter i inside a circle), then click View full size, which will open the image in a separate tab.
Tokens of Companionship 
I enjoyed this very much. I attended SPC in 1960 and 1961.
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Thanks so much for your comment! I planned to add more images to this page, but decided to wait to see if there was any interest in it. I added a few images as separate blog posts, tagged “Seattle Pacific College.” Maybe I’ll return to the project this winter. Your comment is encouraging!
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I attended Pacific Lutheran Seminary in the late 1970s, and I remember that some classmates had attended or graduated from Seattle Pacific. I just skimmed their web page, and was impressed to see exactly 0 classes are taught by graduate assistants, and the student faculty ratio was (I believe) 13:1. That’s impressive, too.
And the photos are great. It’s always interesting to track the history of institutions like this. One of my great-great aunts attended Iowa Normal School, which became Iowa Teachers’ College, which became State College of Iowa, which became the University of Northern Iowa — and which is one of my alma maters.
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Seattle Pacific has a great website with lots of resources for people interested in the history of the school. They have some early photos on the site, and probably many more in their archives that haven’t been digitized.
I’m interested in Normal Schools and their place in our history, especially their importance for young women. They were usually co-ed, but were attended primarily by women.
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