This year marks one hundred years since the Sisters of St. Joseph formed a community in Pembroke, Ontario. This slideshow celebrates their century of service in the Ottawa Valley.
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Saving rolled, taped, and torn archival materials
Rolled materials are of concern to archivists because they become fragile and very difficult to open and view without damage. Tape presents another problem because it defaces an archival item, and cannot be easily removed without damage to the original material. It becomes yellow with age, and may dry out and fall off leaving a sticky residue behind.
We had seven boxes of rolled materials when we consolidated our archives, and so we sought help from our local conservator who is skilled in book and paper repair. She humidified the materials to flatten them. Then she removed the tape from a large map that had been badly torn from being rolled, and removed the sticky residue. After this, she repaired the torn areas using the reversible method we use in archival work, which is applying Japanese mulberry or kozo paper over the tear using wheat paste. This method is safe and should always be used when any material is torn.
Thank you to Jennifer Robertson of Book and Paper Conservation Services in London, Ontario for her expert work and for the photographs.
Rolled graphic materials before conservation treatment 
Graphic materials after conservation treatment
Rolled and torn map before humidification 
Rolled and torn map before conservation treatment 
Detail of rolled and torn map before conservation treatment 
Rolled map – tape removal 
Rolled map – adhesive residue removal 
Map after conservation treatment
A short history of hospitals
The Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph in Canada administered a number of hospitals in Canada, including in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Ontario, as well as in Brazil.
The Pembroke Sisters established the Radville Community Hospital in Radville, Saskatchewan, and administered St. Joseph’s Hospital in Barrhead, Alberta and St. Francis Memorial Hospital in Barry’s Bay, Ontario.
The Peterborough Sisters founded several hospitals in Ontario including St. Joseph’s Hospital in Peterborough as well as St. Joseph’s Hospital in Parry Sound, and St. Joseph’s Hospital in North Bay. They also journeyed to Estevan, Saskatchewan to establish St. Joseph’s Hospital. Travelling even further, they opened St. Joseph’s Hospital in Itacoataria, Brazil.
The London Sisters founded St. Joseph’s Hospital in Chatham, and St. Joseph’s Hospital in Sarnia, Ontario. In London, they established St. Joseph’s Hospital and St. Mary’s Hospital. They also set up several western hospitals including Stettler Hospital, Galahad Hospital, St. Paul’s Hospital in Rimbey, and Killam General Hospital, all in Alberta.
The Hamilton Sisters established St. Joseph’s Hospital in Guelph, St. Joseph’s Hospital in Hamilton, St. Mary’s Hospital in Kitchener, and St. Joseph’s Hospital in Brantford, Ontario.
Our archives has records relating to some of these hospitals. We are also engaged in cataloguing medical artifacts from the time the Sisters administered St. Joseph’s Hospital in London.
Our archives is award winning!
In 2017, our archives won the award for the Archives Association of Ontario Corporate Award. This award is given to organizations, corporations, or agencies of any kind that have been particularly supportive of archives and/or the archival community. Nominees may include:
- Organizations that have provided significant support to the promotion of education, publishing, and/or other professional activities (including mounting of programs on behalf of the archival community, provision of expertise, or direct financial contribution).
- Organizations that have provided significant support to the activities of a particular institution.
- Organizations that have demonstrated imagination or creativity in the use of archives.
In 2021, Mary Grace Kosta, our Congregational Archivist won two awards:
The James J. Talman Award from the Archives Association of Ontario: this award is given to individuals who have demonstrated an outstanding level of imagination and innovation in contributing to the profession, their institution, or the archival community, or who have challenged conventional thinking about archival work.
For more information: https://aao-archivists.ca/resources/Documents/Membership/Awards/AAO%202021%20Awards%20Annoucement.pdf
The Sr. Claude Lane, O.P., Memorial Award from the Society of American Archivists: this award recognizes an individual who has made a significant contribution to the field of religious archives. Selection criteria include:
- Involvement and work in the Archivists of Religious Collections Section of the Society of American Archivists;
- Contributions to archival literature that relates to religious archives;
- Participation and leadership in religious archives organizations; and/or
- Evidence of leadership in a specific religious archives.
For more information: https://www2.archivists.org/node/25429
We are proud to be an award winning archives!
American Catholic Historical Association
The American Catholic Historical Association features Hidden Catholic Collections on its website at https://achahistory.org/category/hidden-catholic-collections/. This is a wonderful way to become familiar with Catholic religious archives.
The ACHA, in its own words, is “a conference of scholars, archivists, and teachers of Catholic studies. It is the place where the field of Catholic studies begins.” Its goals are to promote the history of the Catholic Church and advance historical scholarship.It’s interests lie in the history of the Church, including doctrine, spirituality, and missionary activity, and the history of its relations with civil society and interaction with the intellectual, cultural, social, and political life of the wider society.
The Hidden Catholic Collections series highlights many different religious archives, including the Selma, Alabama Collection in the Sisters of St. Joseph Archive in Rochester, NY, the Archives of the Society of the Sacred Heart, United States-Canada Province in St. Louis, MO, and the Sisters of the Precious Blood Archives in Dayton, OH.
We are thrilled that our archives has been selected for inclusion in the Hidden Catholic Collections series. Please visit: https://achahistory.org/hidden-catholic-collections/