October is Archives month! We wanted to take this opportunity to profile a Daughter of Charity from the Community’s history who worked to preserve that history.
Sister Joan Marie Hoyt served as a teacher and a librarian before becoming an Archivist.
Like many Daughters of Charity, Sister Joan Marie began her ministry as a teacher after she completed her Seminary, teaching at St. John’s School in Baltimore beginning in 1945. Fifteen years, four teaching assignments, and a Master of Library Science degree from St. John’s University later, she began a new ministry as librarian at Seton High School in Baltimore. She served in this role at three other schools across New York State before becoming the founding Archivist for St. Vincent’s Medical Center in Bridgeport, CT.
Sister Joan Marie reached out to St. Vincent’s in 1989 at the urging of her Visitatrix, Sister Louise Gallahue, to serve in the on-site medical library. She served staff admirably and did what librarians do – connect their users with the information they needed (using cutting edge desktop computer technology)!
Over 90 years, St. Vincent’s had accumulated quite a bit of organizational and medical history. Unfortunately – and like many Archives in their early stages – it was being stored in a musty basement in an unusable and somewhat unstable state.
Sister Joan Mari began by bringing some order out of the chaos and replacing unstable materials with stable ones. Instead of having materials stacked on the floor, she brought in shelving that kept historic records off of basement floors, which posed a flood hazard. Instead of highly acidic cardboard boxes and rusting metal filing cabinets, she brought in acid-free boxes and folders. And, rather than boxes marked “Miscellaneous,” she brought in a filing system, labels, record groups, and dates.
It is not enough to merely keep the materials, however. The materials in an Archive exist to be used. So, Sister Joan Marie began to organize “Archive Days” and build Heritage Wall to better connect staff to the living mission of the Hospital. The first Archive Day featured photos, letters, memorabilia, and publications that filled almost an entire room.
Sister’s ministry in Bridgeport proved to be her longest. Alongside her work at the Hospital, she served on the Board of the Bridgeport Historical Society and played violin with the St. Augustine’s Cathedral Folk Group before she passed away from cancer in 1998.
