April 27, 2020 · 9:19 am

An Update from the Archives during the COVID-19 Pandemic

For the safety of our staff and visitors, the Archives is currently closed to the public. And although a reopening date remains unknown, we look forward to welcoming visitors and researchers to our campus soon.

Meanwhile, Archives has been keeping busy! Requests have continued to come in from researchers, and while lay staff has been working remotely, the Sisters who live on campus have served as wonderful facilitators with the ability to scan a file or a folder in response to a request. Materials already digitized are easily accessible, and we can quickly forward on this material. For the more complicated request, we have compiled a running list that we will address and answer once back on campus. You may send requests to archives@doc.org

Under normal circumstances, archivists need access to the physical materials to do their work, which are safely kept in our lower level repository. Without access to these documents, we are somewhat hampered in addressing all needs. But Sisters still working in Archives on campus are adding materials to the digital collections, which in turn have become usable to researchers. Lay staff have also made the rare decision to allow a few materials, in good condition, to travel home with them, with the promise that they be kept safe from archival scourges such as wandering cats or open mugs of coffee that are prone to spill.

Enemies of the Archives

Other special projects currently underway include, 1) a staff member is creating an index for the newsletters and literary journals taken from Marillac College in St. Louis, the former college run by the Daughters of Charity exclusively for members of women’s religious communities. These newsletters serve as both campus newspaper and a place for commentary on the events of the world in the 1960s and 1970s as related by the women religious at the time.

2) Staff members have been transcribing valuable historical materials, such as Sister Mary Raphael Smith’s scrapbook; a book that contains the writings of sisters and students of St. Joseph’s Academy and information on 50 years of community and school life during the 1800s.

3) We have also been busy creating indexes and transcriptions of some of our legacy oral history collections; the fascinating stories of the lives of Sisters and the times in which they lived and served.  Many of these histories were recorded on cassette tapes, and we have been working diligently in digitizing them to ensure their preservation. These stories provide a fuller picture of both the ministries of the Sisters and the society in which they lived.

We remain available and committed to assisting you and fulfilling requests as best as we can for now, and we are looking forward to serving you and seeing you in the near future on Emmitsburg campus!

Be safe and well.

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April 7, 2020 · 9:22 am

New Materials Back from Conservator: U-Matic Tapes

Shortly before the COVID-19 crisis brought so much of the world to a halt, some good news came to the Daughters of Charity Archive.  We can now make available – at least when everyone gets back to the office and we are completely available to researchers again – three pieces of audio-visual material in digital format which we have never been able to before.  Thanks to our work with ColorLab in Rockville, Maryland, we can provide access to some of our U-matic tapes, one of the earliest versions of videotape which did not require the complicated equipment of open-reel film.  Effectively, U-matics were a giant VHS with a tightly wound reel of film inside.

In addition to no longer having equipment to play these tapes, these tapes had fallen victim to sticky-shed syndrome, or “shredding.”  The glues meant to hold the magnetic tape to the plastic base attract moisture, which makes the tape sticky and causes it to deteriorate as it crosses the mechanical portions of the cassette.

The solution to this condition is “baking,” which is exactly what it sounds like.  By baking the tape to a high temperature, it can be made dry enough for long enough that it can be converted into a digital format.

The tapes cover three different subjects:

  • The first is an episode of United States Catholic from November 1928, featuring a ten minute segment on the United State Public Health Service Hospital in Carville, Louisiana, staffed by the Daughters of Charity, better known as the National Hansen’s Disease Center – the treatment center for the disease colloquially known as leprosy.
  • The second is a program on Mother Seton, which ran in the half-hour on Buffalo local television before her canonization aired live.
  • The third is a celebratory Mass at St. Joseph’s Hospital, Chicago celebrating the recent canonization of Mother Seton, featuring Father Edward Riley, CM; Father Thomas Burn; and Father Phillip Dion, CM.
Blurry still from the stationary camera at the celebratory mass at St. Joseph’s Hospital, Chicago

For more information on preservation and conservation of U-matic tapes, see http://www.audio-restoration.com/baking.php

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March 10, 2020 · 9:15 am

The Death of Vincent and Louise

The year 2020 marks 260 years since the deaths of both founders of the Daughters of Charity, Saints Vincent de Paul and Louise de Marillac.  Louise had had bouts of serious ill health for much of her life, but the year 1660 saw her receive unction – or last rites – twice in the same year.  In her final days, she met with the earliest members of the Daughters and with the lay members of the Vincentian family at the time, the Ladies of Charity.  The priest who was by her bedside reported her last words; when he issued his apostolic pardon, she responded simply with “Yes.”  She died mid-day on March 15, 1660.

Vincent was ill himself at this time, so ill that he could not be at Louise’s side as she lay dying.  For the last months of his life, he was confined to the Paris Motherhouse of the Vincentians on Rue de Sèvres.  In July, he managed to give two conferences to the Daughters of Charity on the virtues of their foundress.  Unable to talk at length, Vincent instead let the assembled Daughters talk of Louise’s ability to raise her mind to God, to never complain of her ailments, of supporting sick Sisters, her willingness to perform the tasks that others would consider work for servants, her love and concern for the members of her community, and, of course, her humility in her service to the poor. 

Before Vincent began to move to the matter of electing Louise’s successor, he added a final admonishment to the Daughters:  “Courage!  Dear Mademoiselle Le Gras will help you.  She has been present for all that we’ve said.”

In Louise’s las months, when she had heard of Vincent’s illness, she sent him notecards with some of her home remedies.  By August, he could no longer make it to the chapel for Mass, either as a celebrant or congregant, even on crutches.  At last, after members of his community pressed and pressed him, he finally allowed himself to be carried to Mass each day.

On September 26, 1660, Vincent received his last rites and blessed the priests of the Vincentians and the Daughters of Charity for the last time.  He passed away on the morning of the 27th seated in a chair by his fireplace.

Representation of Saints Vincent and Louise around the deathbed of Sister Marguerite Naseau, the first to enter the community of the Daughter of Charity. Image painted by an early Daughter

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