New Orleans, LA

The Houston Chronicle had a article last week, Church archivists fill gaps in New Orleans’ history. The article is a little slice of life in how Katrina is still impacting people’s lives.

Basically, the story is about how the archivists are the custodians of the church’s memory. They are trying to restore church documents that were soaked during the flood. Marriage certificates, baptisms, etc. All the stuff that make up the minutia of people’s lives.

These are the historical records of New Orleans. The church was the official source of records for many years. These records ARE the history of New Orleans. And there are millions of that need to be restored.

According to the article:

From 1763 to 1801, “under Spanish rule, membership in the church was mandatory,” said Leumas, making baptismal records good proxies for all births, including those of slaves.

So in many ways, what New Orleans knows about its early life is accessible only in the climate-controlled vaults of archdiocesan headquarters and at the Catholic archives office building.

This is such an awesome job. Can you imagine, not just storing and occasionally touching these historical documents, but of being in charge of restoring them for the future. I imagine it’s a burden and a joy.

It’s also kind of sad because even though they are trying to restore all of those documents, there will be some that just cannot be restored. Some documents spent up to 6 weeks under water. After they were salvaged, they needed to be dried.

More remarkably, many entries are still legible, especially those made with the indelible ink of an ordinary ballpoint pen, whose virtues Leumas preaches in workshops on parish record-keeping.

“Sometimes it looks like the day they wrote it, even after five months of being wet,” she said. “But that ink we used to see in elementary school — remember that gorgeous ‘peacock blue’? Gone, just a blur of watercolor.”

Take care,

LewisC

new orleans, church, katrina, documents, archives, records, restoration