Day 8, Archivisting

The good news: Letha and I mailed 4 big beautiful boxes to the Archives for Women in Theological Scholarship at Burke Library, Union Seminary/Columbia University in New York City.

Contents:

1) Files on EEWC conferences, 1975-2012,

2) Issues of Christian Feminism Today (previously called EEWC Update) 1976-2012, with correspondence and info on writers, books reviewed, etc., 

3) Reports from annual (national) Council meetings, 

4) Financial records and miscellaneous files on the logo, EEWC brochures 1978-2012, etc.

5) Media reports on EWC/EEWC-CFT.  

We also mailed a box to me of extra Updates/CFTs--anyone who wants a year or two of them or specific issues, let me know.

The bad news: we went to bed at 3 am and got up by 8 am.  

We both plan to sleep this afternoon—Letha in her cocoon, me on the plane to New York to visit my mother-in-law, who has been hospitalized with pneumonia and then with sepsis.  She’s 90 yrs. old with another birthday coming up in September.

I’m hoping Letha and I will both be able to recover from our exhaustion within a day or two.  Thanks for your support, prayers and good wishes!

Letha packed me a nice lunch for the plane: a cinnamon-raisin bagel with strawberry cream cheese, peach, banana, and a huge piece of cold chicken.

But the plane is delayed by weather--it's 3:30 pm (when the flight was going to arrive in New York), and we haven't even left Norfolk.

Day 1, Archivisting

A slow day.  

We moved several boxes out of Letha's storage closet and started looking through them, but what exactly to do with the various items was not clear.

* Newspaper clippings about two of our speakers at the 1980 conference: the niece of Susan B. Anthony and the granddaughter of Catherine Booth.  

* A list of political resolutions from the 1984 conference at Wellesley College.

* A 3-foot by 2-foot poster of Letha posing for the centerfold of The Wittenburg Door in the early eighties.

* Letters and emails from EWC founders and members who are now deceased.

* Minutes of Council meetings in which we debated things like the name, the logo, the statement of faith.

After a day of trying to get a method going, we went out to eat at the No Frills Grill, a favorite of many of Letha's guests. The meat loaf she ordered turned out to be indeed a loaf, and the baby back ribs I chose were twice the size I've seen in other restaurants.  

I began with the cornbread and systematically chowed down through the messy but delicious baby back ribs.

We were both surprised when the waitress came afterward--not to ask if we wanted dessert but to congratulate me on my eating prowess: "You finished the ribs--most men can't do that!"

Chalking up victories for women...

Visiting Letha To Work on Archives

I arrived in Norfolk, Virginia, on Sunday for a wonderful week of laughing with Letha as we go through boxes of old EEWC files to sort materials for the Archives of Women in Theological Scholarship at the Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary, now part of Columbia University).  

Here's a link to the women and groups in these archives: 

http://library.columbia.edu/locations/burke/archives/awts.html    

Nancy Hardesty, Phyllis Trible, Letty Russell, Rosemary Radford Reuther, and Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz are among the women whose archives will eventually be available there.  

Problem: Letha is so busy doing the "Link of the Day" for EEWC's website and answering emails with blogposts and articles for her to edit that it's hard to focus on the archives.  

For example, Marg sent an email asking whether a comment on Letha's newly posted article "There Is More Than One Christian View on Homosexuality" should be allowed to appear or should be moderated down somewhat.  http://www.eewc.com/Articles/christian-view-homosexuality/  

A man had posted to Letha that because of her views, she's not going to heaven.  

Her answer to Marg and me: "That's not the first time I've heard that."  

Another problem: I arrived so tired after a red-eye flight.  I'm too old to keep doing that.

After I took a three-hour nap, Letha treated me to a dinner of fresh salmon, couscous, chopped broccoli, and salad.