The Archivist Annual Report 1986-87

THE ARCHIVIST ANNUAL REPORT 1986-87

This year has been a year to identify things - to answer the question, I wonder who gave us that? With the gracious help of Barbara Vreeland and Jody Carpenter, we discovered some answers and have given them permanence in brass. We have placed plaques on the following gifts to the Woman's Guild in the Guild Room:

The beautiful ebony Steinway piano -
In memory of Lily Murray Jones, by Wally Jones and his brothers, 1948.

The lovely grandfather's clock -
In memory of Emma Lippincott Blauvelt, by her daughter, Mrs. A.O. Miller, 1917.

The eleven-piece dining room set (long table, side board, small table, and eight red velvet chairs), gift of Lillian Pantall Conwell, 1952.

Additional items identified:

During the seventy-fifth anniversary celebration of our church, the Decker brothers gave a gift to the church in memory of their parents, Josiah and Mary Adelaide Decker, from which the tapestry was purchased for the Guild Room.

Two paintings from the series by Edwin Austin Abbey (1852-1911) for the Boston Public Library were purchased long since by our Church School: Galahad's Oath of Knighthood, and The Round Table of King Arthur.

In addition to our clergy collection is the portrait of Rich Pfeiffer, our associate minister, is a record: asked for and received in the same year!   Thank you, Rich!

A great deal of time this year was spent reading, labeling and mending the records of the oldest organization in the church - called since 1912, the Woman's Guild. In the process I learned a lot of First Church history. For example, did you know that the women of our church contributed $6,000.00 to build the Guild Room and the rest of what was called the Parish House? That, in addition, the Guild furnished the Parish House - kitchen, dining room, and Guild Room? That if it weren't for the Committee of Fifteen (women) established to sort of balance the Committee of Twenty-five (men), that was the Building Committee in 1915, there wouldn't have been any closets in the Guild Room?

Did you know that - in view of their ownership, perhaps - it was the Guild that decided to whom the Guild Room and Parish House might be rented, and for how much?

That there was a time when part of a member's gifts and offerings to the church could be designated for the Guild? That the Guild could ask the church treasurer for the money it needed for its operating budget? And that all the money the Guild raised itself was used for Home and Foreign Missions?

That the Trustees paid the Guild for keeping the kitchen clean?

In the matter of a place to put the Archives, we seem to have come full circle. I think it was four years ago that Park Diekerson asked me if I would OK a move to the old Trustees' Room in the tower. I was immediately reminded of the fact that that is where the Archives were kept when I first took this job - a dozen or so years ago. And it brought to mind the very terse statement of Helen Peck Young, former archivist, who - when she was relegated to the tower - said that this church didn't care about its history nor the preservation thereof. It also brought to mind pigeon droppings and a broken window through which the winds of winter and rains of spring felt free to trespass.

I had hoped to get everything settled for my successor before I move to New England in a year or so. Now that doesn't seem to be possible. There's a leak in the tower! So I fear my successor will be met with something of the same confused state I met long ago. Everything has been a colossal mess since the attic stairs were installed in the ceiling of the Archives workroom - was that two or three years ago - and the move was put on hold.

Perhaps there's a whole platoon of folio just champing at the bit for me to leave so that they can do the job right.   And if that's true, we can all rejoice!

Respectfully submitted,
Clara Merritt DeBoer