Researching Seoul Sue

Suh was born in Arkansas, the youngest of six children. After her mother and father died in 1910 and 1914, she relocated to Oklahoma to join a sister's family while she completed high school. She spent her early adult years as an office clerk and Sunday school teacher. Subsequently, she studied at the Southeastern State Teachers College, in Durant, and the Scarritt College for Christian Workers in Nashville, Tennessee, graduating in 1930 with a B.A. in ministry. She spent the next eight years working as a member of the American Southern Methodist Episcopal Mission in Korea. As Japanese colonial authorities continued to restrict the activities of foreign missions, Suh joined the staff of Shanghai American School (SAS) in 1938. There she met and married fellow staff member Sŏ Kyu Ch’ŏl, thus losing her United States citizenship. Late in World War II she was interned by the Japanese for two years with other White Europeans at a camp in suburban Shanghai. After release, she resumed work at SAS for a year, before returning to Korea with her husband in 1946.

The Suhs settled in Seoul, where Suh taught at the U.S. Legation school until being fired in 1949 due to suspicion of her husband for left wing political activities. They remained or were trapped in Seoul during the Northern army's invasion of South Korea in June 1950. Suh began announcing a short English language program for North Korean "Radio Seoul" starting on or about July 18, continuing until shortly after the Inchon landing on September 15, when the Suhs were evacuated north as a part of the general withdrawal of North Korean forces. Subsequently, she continued broadcasts on Radio Pyongyang. The Suhs participated in the political indoctrination of US POWs at a camp near Pyongyang in February 1951.

Charles Robert Jenkins, an American who defected to and then left North Korea, reported that Suh was put in charge of English language publications for the Korean Central News Agency after the war. He also wrote that he saw her in a photo for a 1962 propaganda pamphlet, and met her briefly in 1965 at a department store in Pyongyang. Jenkins stated that he was told in 1972 that Suh had been shot as a South Korean double agent in 1969.