Providence Archives Newsletter
Winter 2005, Vol. 13, No. 3

In this issue:

Yakima Valley Ministry in Retrospect

From the Archivist: Team Archives

Christmas Past: Our Lady of Lourdes Academy, Wallace, Idaho 

Picturing Providence: Bearers of Gifts

2006: A Year of Providence Anniversaries

 Back issues

First panel of the Yakima exhibit

Historical exhibits can link an institution’s origins and heritage to its present and beyond. Such is the case for a newly installed pictorial and textual history display at what was Providence Yakima Medical Center (formerly St. Elizabeth Hospital), now Yakima Regional Medical and Heart Center. Since August 2003 the facility has been operated by Health Management Associates, Inc. (HMA). The Mission Leadership department of Providence Health System, under Sister Karin Dufault, commissioned the work. Measuring eleven feet wide and five feet high, it graces the wall outside the facility’s chapel. The exhibit’s title, “Always Room for One More,” came from a quote in a 1923 magazine by the Catholic Hospital Association referring to the sisters’ refusal to turn away the sick in spite of cramped quarters.

Relying much on Providence Archives materials, the exhibit uses passages and vignettes from the hospital’s chronicles that give glimpses of the life of the hospital. From answering the call to care, to financial challenges, to advances in medicine and nursing, the excerpts tell colorful and moving stories of those who served and those who were recipients of that service. Select photographs memorialize the people and the structures they built.

The sepia-toned exhibit, framed in cherry-wood, consists of five panels divided loosely into the early founding years, the wartime years, the post-war boom and advances, and the changes in modern health care leading to a “new era” under HMA. Wendy Saiki, the project’s writer and manager, says that it “conveys from the sisters’ viewpoint the care they have for the people of Yakima.” That long history is an indelible part of Providence and of the people of Yakima Valley who, through this exhibit, can look back in time, as well as anticipate what lies ahead.—N.D.

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Team Archives

After years of correspondence and e-mail, North American Providence archivists met for the first time and quickly became "Team Archives": Peter Schmid, Norman Dizon and Loretta Greene from Mother Joseph Province; Marie-Claude Beland, General Administration; and Karen Simonson, Holy Angels Province.

What do archivists do when they get  together?  For one thing, they talk shop and research historical documents.  For one unusually warm week in September, the Mother Joseph Province (MJP) Archives staff visited Montreal to attend an international meeting of Providence archivists, conduct research in the General Administration archives, and experience firsthand the history of the religious community.

The International Meeting of Provincial Secretaries, Treasurers and Archivists was held September 12-16.  For the MJP staff, the meeting was full of positive experiences. On September 14, archivists from the General Administration (Montreal), Mother Joseph Province (western United States), Holy Angels Province (western Canada); Emilie Gamelin Province (eastern Canada), Bernard Morin Province (Chile), and the Philippine Sector gathered to renew acquaintances,  meet new associates, learn about the administration of their repositories, holdings and clientele, as well as receive new institutional numbering procedures developed by the General Secretary and Treasurer.

Professional networking continued the next day when MJP staff met with Marie-Claude Beland, General Administration archivist, and Karen Simonson, Holy Angels Province archivist. This tri-archives meeting had been dreamed about for several years. No one was disappointed in the outcome. The group’s long agenda included discussing common administrative issues, policies, project collaboration, sharing resources and information, and providing assistance to the smaller archives within the community.

On other days, Marie-Claude welcomed Peter and me to conduct research in the archival collections. Peter surveyed early photographs from institutions and sisters. He was elated to find some photographic jewels: a daguerreotype of the 1852 sisters first intended for the Pacific Northwest but who later established the mission in Chile; photographs of Native Americans from eastern Washington and Montana; and dates and names for unidentified images in the MJP collection. I explored the early history of our province through correspondence, ledgers and chronicles. I was overjoyed to find documents that will enhance our understanding of the sisters’ early ministry: previously unknown correspondence by Mother Joseph; 1863 to 1879 letters from Sister Paul Miki, a foundress of the mission to St. Ignatius, Mont., to her family in Montreal; and the 1858 mandate from Washington Territory’s Bishop A.M.A. Blanchet to the Ladies of Charity, the auxiliary group in Vancouver.

The restored chapel at the former motherhouse on Fullum St., Montreal.

The intense week ended all too fast. Perhaps the most valuable outcome was the unity that developed among the archivists. We may speak different languages and hold unique records but we are united in our efforts to preserve and make known the history and ministry of the Sisters of Providence.

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A Lourdes academy student skiing the mountain slopes above Silver Valley, Idaho, c. 1932.

In the academy’s chronicles for Christmas Eve 1907, a sister relates the following, plus a message still relevant to our times:

“Wishing to make the Feast of the Nativity of Our Lord as impressive as possible for His little congregation at Burke, a small town about seven miles from Wallace, Rev. Father Verbrugghe obtained from our good Mother Provincial [Hilarion] permission for some of the sisters to go to sing during midnight Mass. Accordingly we went, five from here and three from the hospital. During the two Masses which were offered up for the first time in the history of that place the sweet old Christmas hymns floated out over the quiet valley and re-echoed by the surrounding hills. The joy and the gratitude of the people was unbounded and Father Verbrugghe declared that he was satisfied to die then, since his fondest desire had been fulfilled.

“Those who are surfeited, as we may say, with the good things of their Father’s house…cannot understand the hunger of heart felt by those who must be satisfied by the crumbs…Yet perhaps these crumbs bring as much joy to us as the abundance brings to others.”—N.D.

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A column highlighting archival photographs and other resources that provide visual documentation of the Sisters of Providence and sponsored institutions. Peter selects notable images from the collection of over 50,000 photographs. He can be reached at 206-923-4012 or by e-mail.

Bearers of Gifts

Sister Rose Lulay (then Sister Mary Caroline, her religious name) at St. Joseph Hospital in Burbank, California, around 1965, leading preparations of Christmas baskets for the poor. Sister Rose was hospital treasurer from 1956 to 1973. Happily retired at St. Joseph Residence in Seattle, the only accounting she does these days is on her winnings from playing bingo and Skip-Bo.

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