Asia Alderson Bennett

Asia Alderson Bennett was born in 1933 in Washington, DC. She died in Seattle on December 11, 2023.

When she was six years old her family, mother Elsie Wright Alderson and father Wroe Alderson, sister Maya and brother, Evan, moved to Haverford, Pennsylvania. She attended Haverford Friends School, and the family became active members of Haverford Friends Meeting. Asia attended high school at Westtown School, a coed Friends boarding school west of Philadelphia. Asia has written that while at Westtown she “began to ponder what it means to be a member of the Religious Society of Friends.”

She went from Westtown to Bryn Mawr College near home. She met Lee Bennett, a freshman at nearby Haverford College, at a first-year mixer and they quickly became a couple. They married in their sophomore year. Asia put college on hold to take care of their children and the family while Lee worked and completed two graduate degrees. She worked as an assistant to a “gifted preschool teacher” in the Haverford Friends School-an apprenticeship that served her well.

The family moved to Seattle in 1966 for a job Lee had at the University of Washington. They began attending University Meeting, transferring their memberships from Haverford and Swarthmore Meetings in 1970. Asia got a job teaching 3-year-olds at The Little School and finished a degree in psychology at the University of Washington. During this time, she became involved with the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), which was housed in the University Meeting House building, first as a committee member and then as program staff.

When the Regional Executive Secretary left, she was chosen to take his place, becoming the first woman to be appointed long term to head a regional office. Asia said her time with AFSC “was challenging, at times exciting, and at best, deeply satisfying.”

In 1978 Asia was appointed Personnel Secretary in the National AFSC office in Philadelphia and the family moved back to Lee’s family home in Swarthmore. Two years later, Asia became the first woman to serve as national and international Executive Secretary (now called General Secretary) of the AFSC. She and often, Lee, traveled all over the world, including Western Kenya, Zimbabwe, Japan, China and North Korea, Mexico, and Honduras. She represented AFSC at the Jubilee celebration of the Nobel Peace Prize in Norway since the AFSC and the British Quaker Peace and Service had shared the prize in 1947 for work on behalf of refugees in the two world wars.

When Asia retired from AFSC in 1992 she became the Executive Secretary for the Section of the Americas, part of the international Quaker organization, Friends World committee for Consultation (FWCC). FWCC’s mission is to help Quakers worldwide come to know, respect, and hopefully learn from different types of Friends

Asia retired from paid work in 1999 and in 2000 moved back to the Northwest, to be closer to their children and grandchildren, settling in Snohomish. She and Lee transferred their memberships back to University Meeting in 2001. During her years at UFM Asia served the Meeting in a variety of ways, including membership on the Library, Social Concerns, Personnel, Education and Care and Counsel committees. She was Statistical Clerk, Representative to the North Pacific Yearly Meeting Ministry and Oversight committee and served as Clerk of UFM.

In 2015 Asia and Lee moved from Snohomish to Horizon House Retirement Community in Seattle. They were thrilled to be there with Asia’s sister and brother-in-law, Maya and Fred Schulze. University Meeting was delighted to have them living closer to the Meeting House as we got to see them more often.

Asia received an honorary PhD from Haverford College in 2000 and served on the Board of Managers at Haverford and on the Guilford College Board. She was respected and honored by people and institutions throughout her life. Asia’s daughter, Miriam, says it well, “She had gifts for connecting with people with sincere interest in their perspectives and life experiences, and for seeing creative solutions in difficult situations.”

Asia reflected on her life in Quakerism in a presentation she and Lee made at Horizon House, “The extraordinary opportunities I’d have to serve my faith community, in several Friends Meetings, with AFSC and FWCC were and are of deep significance for me, offering great privilege and responsibility.”

We couldn’t say it better, we miss her wise counsel, her experience, the gentle sense of humor and real interest in others. We are grateful to have had Asia be a part of our community. We miss her.