Musings of a Summer Intern

By Grant Stroud

The Heritage Center was excited to welcome Grant Stroud as our 2024 Summer Intern. Grant came to us from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, where his is working towards a Master’s Degree in Library Science.

When I first sent my summer internship application for the Loretto Heritage Center, I had a few ideas about how this internship might go. I foolishly assumed that this experience would be just like the various other internships I had in the past, one that would be quiet and, on some occasions, a little boring. It’s safe to say from the glimpse that I got of the Sisters of Loretto and interacting with their history that they are far from quiet and boring.

Throughout my time here this summer, I’ve been able to meet and interact with incredible people that I wouldn’t have been able to do so at any other internship. One such example is Sr. Mary Swain, who, at the drop of a dime, took Reba Weatherford and me on the roof of the Academy (novitiate) building without hesitation while telling us stories of her time living on the convent grounds. I also enjoyed meeting people who were passing through the Motherhouse. My favorite part was when I was able to meet the people who were doing the Eucharist Pilgrimage, something I had not expected to occur during my stay here.

The internship collection I was charged with working on was Sister Jeanne Dueber’s personal mission materials. The collection primarily covers her time as an artist from 1955 to 2018. Much of her art career was spent as the resident artist of the Sisters of Loretto here at the Motherhouse, which she began in 1978. She has shown her work in over one hundred exhibits across the United States of America. Her artworks are primarily abstract and often use organic materials, usually found around the Motherhouse. During this internship, I was to plan, appraise, process, and make available through a finding aid, the Sr. Jeanne Dueber collection.

To begin with, I sorted and appraised the collection. Once the sorting was complete, I wrote a processing plan for the collection that detailed Jeanne’s biographical information, outlined why her documents are essential, and detailed how they should be preserved. The processing plan also outlined the different sub-series that would make up the collection. I then began processing the collection by getting materials into the right sub-series and grouping them into the correct folders. I also started digitizing physical materials such as newspaper clippings and scrapbooks by scanning them and checking for quality after each scan. Once that was done, they were put into Canto (the Heritage Center’s digital asset management system), which helped remove some duplicates. Reba and I further weeded the digital photos by hand. Metadata, detailed information about the photos, contained in the file properties and the photos themselves, was extracted from the digital photos once the weeding process had been done. This was completed in Excel, and we removed entries that were not needed and kept the ones, such as file names, size, and tags, that might be useful to someone researching the collection.

Next, I began processing Jeanne’s physical materials. The first series was biographical information, which held correspondences between family and fellow Sisters of Loretto and pictures of Jeanne. The next series, comprised of seven boxes, was studio materials. These included photos and film negatives of works, rough drafts, sketches, exhibit information, and pamphlets. These boxes took the most time to process due to the volume of records and materials. The next sub-series was scrapbooks. Jeanne donated to the archives three scrapbooks in which she had added materials from 1955 to 2013. As previously mentioned, these were digitized will soon be available to view the Heritage Center’s public online collection. The last physical sub-series was 35mm slides. These boxes contained slides of various artworks that Sr. Jeanne had created and photographed throughout her career. Most of the photos were from exhibit and gallery showings.

Another aspect of this internship was to help Angela complete some of the reframing of the art pieces in the artifact room. This project used grant-awarded funds from the Local History Trust Fund to reframe artworks using more archivally-sound materials and practices. I assumed this process would be quick and easy, but that was untrue. Due to some of the pieces being more fragile, we had to take our time with them to avoid damaging them further. After taking them out, we would measure the glass to get the dimensions for the backboard; once that was done, we measured the preexisting mat to cut a new one. Then, we put FrameSpace around the glass to keep it from touching the artwork. We used mounting corners so the artwork would stay secure to the backboard. Once this was done, we put everything together and then stapled it. Then, we would put a new hanging wire on the piece and finally be done. This portion of the internship was super rewarding as I got to preserve and prolong the life of these beautiful artworks. Some pieces were from the 16^th and 17^th centuries, but the majority spanned from 1860 to 1980.

I’m very grateful to have had this opportunity with the Loretto Heritage Center, and I thank the Motherhouse Staff and the Sisters for being gracious hosts for me this summer. During this internship, I learned much about archival work, art conservation, and the Loretto Sisters’ history. I had a unique experience that I can always bring up, whether in casual conversation or job interviews. This internship has been a blast, and I wouldn’t have wanted anything different for my first field experience through UNC.