Boxes of documents, photos, and items for cataloguing and preservation often appear in a small office of the first floor of the Immaculate Conception Friary in Rensselaer, New York. Most of the time, the contents of the boxes are bureaucratic or liturgical in nature, related to the ongoing work and ministry of the Franciscan Friars Conventual on the East Coast of the United States.
And, according to Mary Doehla, the Our Lady of the Angels Province archivist, even if a paper napkin showed up with notes from an important meeting relevant to the work of the friars, she’d be tasked with preserving it.
“When in doubt, send it to me,” Mary said she tells friars of the Province. “I’d rather get too many things sent to me than records be lost or disposed of.”
Mary joined the Our Lady of the Angels Province in January 2019 and is responsible for preserving the history of the Franciscan Friars Conventual and making that history accessible. A tall order considering the Our Lady of the Angels Province was formed from two merging groups of Franciscan Friars Conventual – the Immaculate Conception and St. Anthony of Padua Provinces in 2014.
But archives do not exist just to merely store information. Mary is so committed to her work because she wants the archive she stewards to be a living resource for friars and lay staff ministering in the Province today.
“As an archivist, my job is to welcome people to come and view records so they can be used and we can learn from them,” she said. “These documents are not just in a holding room because we need to keep them. They are primary resources that capture snapshots of time.”
The St. Anthony Companion recently spoke with Mary about her role as an archivist for a religious Order and how her work benefits friars today. The conversation has been edited for clarity.
The Companion: To ask in the most plain of terms: What does an archivist do?
Mary: My job is to collect, to organize, to preserve, and to provide access to the collection of records the Province has. I help keep records of the history of the governance and activities of the friars and their ministries and make those records available, when needed.
Records run the gamut and it’s everything you would expect would be generated to carry out the friars’ work, from bureaucratic to liturgical. Really, the archives give us a sense of what the Province is, who has been here and what’s been done over the years. I’m proud to be the steward of this collection.
The Companion: Can you describe a ‘day in the life’ of an archivist?
Mary: I have a laundry list of ongoing projects that need to be done and most of my days are spent rehousing and cataloging records obtained from the two provinces that merged in 2014, and really organizing out the extensive joint archive we have now.
If research requests come in, I shift to handling those in a timely manner. Sometimes the requested information may take months to find, so long-term projects are put on hold until those are done. Since this is a private archive, most requests are internal and could be from a friar looking for information about something they did or were a part of in their lifetime. I get most of my requests from Provincial administration seeking information about prior work of friars, Provincial agreements, contracts, or personnel.
The Companion: How do new records come to your custody?
Mary: Before things come to an archive, people working in an office that’s generating papers need to know what they need to keep. So, I’m working to create a formal records retention schedule for every. Information about scheduling appointments or buying supplies is not important for us to save and can be disposed of. But some things need to be maintained and transferred to my office when they are no longer in use. Some things are obvious, but it’s my job to make sure everything that’s needed is coming.
The Companion: What is the most memorable project you’ve worked on?
Mary: When I first started and I was creating an inventory of records I came across something that made me stop in my tracks. It was an American flag, folded in the way it’s supposed to if it’s not being used, in a box labeled, among other things, with the word space. It turns out, the flag was gifted to a friar who served as a military chaplain on a naval ship that was tasked with recovering spacecraft as it landed in the ocean. The American flag really sticks out because I was so perplexed.
I’ve also come across some photos that just make you pause. Like photos of friars in Germany before World War II or a photo of a friar with Mother Teresa. Our friars have been everywhere, witnessing history. And I get to see these unique pieces of history and be reminded that our friars are serving all over the world. This archive really is a documentation of people.
The Companion: What excites you about coming to work every day?
Mary: What really motivates me is making headway and creating order out of chaos. Really, that’s how I can best describe my job. I’m dealing with hundreds of boxes of materials that haven’t been processed, and I really like that when I open a new box, when I’m finished with it, I will have made those records accessible to anyone who needs them in the future. And there’s information in there that may not have been previously known or remembered.
My work probably seems boring and mind-numbing for some people. But I like it because it means at the end of a project, I will have brought order. I like getting control over chaos.
The Companion: How does working with these archival records put into perspective the work of the friars throughout the history of the Order?
Mary: While many of the records I deal with are maybe only a few years or decades old, when I think about the work of the friars we’re really dealing with such a huge expanse of time. St. Francis almost feels mythological because of how long ago he lived, but then I’ll have an experience with a friar that reminds me of that direct connection and suddenly 800 years doesn’t seem that long ago.