Flo, Jack, Mary and Sue

by Connie Kent

Mary and Jack Frost with Sue

Shortly after moving to the Manor, Sue Silfvast stood to introduce herself to her local P.E.O. chapter (Philanthropic Educational Organization). Asked to choose just one important element of her life, she chose to describe her visit to Japan in 2007. She had been invited by the alumni association of the Doshisha University in Kyoto to represent the family and give a talk at a celebration of the 150th birthday of her great aunt, Mary Florence Denton (1857-1947), who had been a missionary and educator in Japan for 60 years. Sue, her husband Bill and her cousin Sandra were overwhelmed when they were greeted with deep bows upon their arrival. The Japanese revered “Aunt Flo.” She was considered a “national treasure” by the Japanese.

Miss Denton had been decorated with the Sixth Class Order of the Sacred Treasure by the Japanese government, the first woman and the first American ever to receive the award.

In 1888, after having taught for 17 years in California (starting when she was 17 years old) Mary Florence Denton answered God’s call (through the American Board of Foreign Missions), packed up her life, boarded a ship, and moved to Japan. She became active in the Japanese Red Cross, the Volunteer Nurses’ Association and in aiding Russian prisoners during the Russo-Japanese War (1904-05). She was instrumental in founding the Kyoto Y.W.C.A, the Japanese W.C.T.U, and the Women’s Society for Moral Reform. At just over 30 years of age, she joined the faculty of the Doshisha School in Kyoto, now one of the most prestigious private universities in Japan. She taught Japanese girls geology, botany, astronomy, English, Bible, cooking and nursing. She made herself responsible for nursing any of the girls who were ill in the dormitory and for years she was head of the dormitory matrons.

At her P.E.O. meeting, Sue describedher aunt, how honored she felt to be associated with a relative that was so highly regarded by so many Japanese, and the amazing welcome she and Bill had received in Japan. Suddenly she heard a gasp from the audience.

“Wait. Could your aunt be the woman my husband has talked about so much? Are you talking about Mary Florence Denton, of Kyoto, in the forties, right after the War?”

The speaker was Mary Frost. “My husband Jack was in the Army in Japan and went to see Miss Denton several times. Meeting her had a big impact on him. He can’t say enough about the great lady who> was so respected by the Japanese. Why, the Japanese took care of her all during the war, when America was fighting Japan!”

And that’s how, almost eighty years later, Sue met Jack and Mary Frost, who were also living at the Manor. Jack had befriended “Aunt Flo” toward the end of her life, visiting her and bringing her medicine. Miss Denton had retired in 1928, but continued to live in her home on the grounds of the Doshisha, cared for by a devoted Japanese family. But the medicines she needed weren’t readily available in Japan, so the Red Cross provided them, and Jack, having fallen in love with her, was one of the delivery boys.

Mary and Jack Frost with Sue and pictures of “Aunt Flo”

When Sue got together with Jack and Mary, they shared with her the journals Jack had kept during his time in Japan. Turns out “Aunt Flo” had many distinguished visitors in addition to GI’s like Jack, among them the Theodore Roosevelts, Charles Lindbergh and his wife, Malcolm MacDonald, son of England’s then Premier, and countless others.

What are the odds? A fellow Manor resident knew and admired Sue’s Aunt, a legend in Sue’s family who lived half way around the world, and whom Sue herself had never met.