While working as a matron for the Indian Agency, she discovered the talent of the young artists who would become known as the Kiowa Six and introduced them to Oscar Jacobson, director of the University of Oklahoma's art department.

[7][notes 1] On July 20, 1897, in Guthrie, Oklahoma Territory, Swain was issued a license to marry James W. "Jim" Peters, but no marriage record was returned.

[10][notes 2] Peters was accidentally shot by the Ardmore, Indian Territory police chief, Buck Garrett, on March 15, 1906, while the two men were at an informal gathering.

[1] When she was widowed a third time, Peters went to live as among the Kiowa in Caddo County and was hired as a field matron by the U.S. Indian Service[18][19][20] for the Anadarko Agency.

To encourage the students, which included Spencer Asah, James Auchiah, Jack Hokeah, Stephen Mopope, and Monroe Tsatoke,[22] Peters arranged for Mrs. Willie Baze Lane, an artist from Chickasha, Oklahoma, to give them art lessons[23] and attempted to market their work.

[18] By 1923, she negotiated with the University of Oklahoma to help further the artists' training and in 1926, Peters had convinced Oscar Jacobson to provide them with special courses under the direction of Edith Mahier.

[2] The archive which she and Pedrick created, known as the Susie Peters Collection, is housed at the Oklahoma Historical Society and played an important role as source material for the four-volume, two-book work, Kiowa Voices by Maurice Boyd (Texas Christian University Press, 1983).