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Re: UNSUB ARCHIVES
Dear fellow Listservers:
I apologize for sending out that last extensive e-mail to Mr. Webb
on the wrong subject heading "Unsub Archives." I inadvertantly clicked on
the adjacent (wrong) posting before sending. Fat fingers!
Kevin Bunker
Student Assistant
California State Archives
> ----------
> From: Bunker, Kevin[SMTP:kbunker@ss.ca.gov]
> Reply To: Archives & Archivists
> Sent: Wednesday, May 24, 2000 9:32 AM
> To: ARCHIVES@LISTSERV.MUOHIO.EDU
> Subject: Re: UNSUB ARCHIVES
>
> Dear Mr. Webb:
>
> Wow! Your story about "the one that got away," and the bits and pieces of
> the same which resurfaced (with anxiety attachments)
> is powerful grist for the mill.
>
> There is a lesson here, I think. Allow me, please, to say that some
> extensive experience in the field of hospice and terminal caregiving
> volunteer work some years ago provided me with valuable lessons. Had I
> been
> in your shoes in a case such as you present, I would have dropped right
> into
> the patient listener with my "grief-o-meter" turned up on high.
>
> Grieving donors (and co-workers, too) are among the hardest individuals we
> might ever have the opportunity to work with. I can truly understand how
> difficult it was for your gentleman donor to handle the onslaught of
> emotions. In work for a former archival employer, I had occasion to
> retrieve
> sizable collections from grieving widows/widowers and/or kin left with the
> cleanup of not only physical leftovers from a loved one's life and work,
> but
> also their own conflicting, often raw emotions.
>
> There's usually nothing we can say to these folks that doesn't sound
> trite.
> Rather, it is more important that we actively listen
> (like it or not) and do our utmost best to be human while being
> professional. We don't have to be grief therapists to do this, just human.
>
> You sound like you handled yourself (and your donor) admirably.
>
> Still, we should all be extremely attentive to how we come across at all
> times with donors, patrons, et al. Tact is everything,
> real courtesy is always of the utmost importance, and grace is something
> we
> can always learn to bestow more freely. In the end, not only will we
> usually
> be remembered by the bereaved as kind strangers, but our institutions will
> be seen as having a heart.
> This latter quality sometimes goes sadly lacking.
>
> I hope and trust my colleagues understand that I offer this
> as sage advice, and that I have not come off sounding
> preachy. If anyone has any concerns surrounding issues
> like this one, try reading the works of Elizabeth Kubler Ross.
> You'll never regret it.
>
> Kevin V. Bunker
> Student Assistant
> > ----------
> > From: Carmie Shorey[SMTP:carmie@MIDMAINE.COM]
> > Reply To: Archives & Archivists
> > Sent: Tuesday, May 23, 2000 5:28 PM
> > To: ARCHIVES@LISTSERV.MUOHIO.EDU
> > Subject: UNSUB ARCHIVES
> >
> > Roy Webb wrote:
> >
> > > Whew! Just back from one of those intense archival experiences I
> > > know we've all had; but this one affected me so that I want to write
> > > it out for people who can understand it.
> > >
> > > So there I was last week, minding my own business as always,
> > > when a guy who works on our web pages comes up. He's got a
> > > printout from one of our pages--a well-known 1980s Utah political
> > > figure--and says he's been contacted by someone about the page,
> > > who doesn't like the photograph we have on the page to represent
> > > the collection. I look, and there are only two photos in the whole
> > > collection; you can't post what you don't have, right? So he has an
> > > email address; I write to the gentleman and say just that, politely,
> > > and that if he has more photos--since the last name is the same--
> > > we would love to have them, and would he happen to have any
> > > papers? He writes back and says yes, he does have more photos,
> > > but his wife (for such is the relationship) of over a half century is
> > > now in the thrall of Alzheimers, and that furthermore just last fall
> he
> > > threw away almost 40 boxes of materials from her political career.
> > >
> > > Now for an aside: I well remember when this first came up, for it
> > > was when I had just been in the library a year or two; this woman
> > > had run for congress, twice, and had lost, twice. She was a liberal
> > > Democrat, back when such existed in Utah, and this was in the
> > > middle of the Reagan backlash against liberal Democrats. So I
> > > remember my then-boss seeking this woman's papers, but for
> > > some reason, nothing ever came of it. The gentleman gave me the
> > > impression that we had let this slide; my colleagues who were
> > > involved in the transaction said that the donors put them off every
> > > time. However it happened, this archive is lost forever. It sure
> > > made me get out my list of donors and start calling them up.
> > >
> > > Anyway, so today then I go over to his house; right off campus, a
> > > nice ten minute walk. He comes to the door trailing a little oxygen
> > > tube; very gracious and nice, and says we couldn't meet in the
> > > morning because of his cardiac therapy. That's fine, this is fine
> > > with me, I say. So we talk a bit and he says he's thought about it
> > > and wants me to just take everything; he doesn't want to decide on
> > > what to take, just take it all. Then he takes me to the dining room,
> > > where in a side board are some photographs and files. When he
> > > opens the drawer, there's a simple sheet of paper with a note
> > > written on it in ink in a big bold hand; the wife's handwriting. It
> > > says (and I can quote this because it doesn't reveal any identity):
> > > "Closer contact with national politics has made me / less sure I am
> > > right / more forgiving / and less ambitious." It was written like
> that
> > > too, almost like a haiku or something. When he saw that on the
> > > top of the pile in the drawer, he recoiled like flames had come out
> > > of the drawer, and clutched his chest. It only got worse; as we
> > > went through the photos in the drawer of his wife when she was
> > > vibrant, in charge, alive, at each one he would grimace and say in a
> > > strangled voice "Wait a minute, wait a minute," with his eyes
> > > closed tightly and his face turned away, again like the sight of her
> > > evoked what she must be now, alive but dead; and it was very
> > > intense! I finally just took them out of his hands and said "Look,
> > > sir, I don't want to cause you this kind of pain; I can either come
> > > back later or we can do this another time..." He thrust the folders
> > > and photos at me and said "Yes, take them, I don't want to see
> > > them..."
> > >
> > > All the while I'm thinking I'm sure glad I just got recertified in
> first
> > > aid and CPR last week, cause I'm going to be using it on him in a
> > > minute; seriously, I was rehearsing what I was going to say to the
> > > 911 dispatcher and how I was going to check his airway before I
> > > began rescue breathing and on and on!
> > >
> > > Well anyway, we left the fateful drawer and went around the house
> > > to look at a few other files he still had, and even though the
> > > intensity was less the pain was still there. I made an appointment
> > > to come back in a day or two and clean him out, which is what he
> > > wanted me to do (unfortunately I had walked, and there was too
> > > much to carry off in my arms); but I walked back to the library
> > > shaken and sweaty, like I'd just had a workout. I know we joke
> > > about being ambulance chasers in this business, but this was so
> > > personal and so intense! I love what I do but experiences like this
> > > one really set you back. Again I can only say: Whew!
> > >
> > > Archivally yours,
> > >
> > > Roy Webb, C.A.
> > > Multimedia Archivist
> > > Special Collections
> > > J. Willard Marriott Library
> > > 295 South 1500 East
> > > University of Utah
> > > Salt Lake City, Utah 84112
> > > (801) 585-3073 // fax (801) 585-3976
> > > rwebb@library.utah.edu
> > >
> > > A posting from the Archives & Archivists LISTSERV List!
> > >
> > > To subscribe or unsubscribe, send e-mail to
> listserv@listserv.muohio.edu
> > > In body of message: SUB ARCHIVES firstname lastname
> > > *or*: UNSUB ARCHIVES
> > > To post a message, send e-mail to archives@listserv.muohio.edu
> > >
> > > Or to do *anything* (and enjoy doing it!), use the web interface at
> > > http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/archives.html
> > >
> > > Problems? Send e-mail to Robert F Schmidt <rschmidt@lib.muohio.edu>
> >
> > A posting from the Archives & Archivists LISTSERV List!
> >
> > To subscribe or unsubscribe, send e-mail to listserv@listserv.muohio.edu
> > In body of message: SUB ARCHIVES firstname lastname
> > *or*: UNSUB ARCHIVES
> > To post a message, send e-mail to archives@listserv.muohio.edu
> >
> > Or to do *anything* (and enjoy doing it!), use the web interface at
> > http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/archives.html
> >
> > Problems? Send e-mail to Robert F Schmidt <rschmidt@lib.muohio.edu>
> >
>
> A posting from the Archives & Archivists LISTSERV List!
>
> To subscribe or unsubscribe, send e-mail to listserv@listserv.muohio.edu
> In body of message: SUB ARCHIVES firstname lastname
> *or*: UNSUB ARCHIVES
> To post a message, send e-mail to archives@listserv.muohio.edu
>
> Or to do *anything* (and enjoy doing it!), use the web interface at
> http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/archives.html
>
> Problems? Send e-mail to Robert F Schmidt <rschmidt@lib.muohio.edu>
>
A posting from the Archives & Archivists LISTSERV List!
To subscribe or unsubscribe, send e-mail to listserv@listserv.muohio.edu
In body of message: SUB ARCHIVES firstname lastname
*or*: UNSUB ARCHIVES
To post a message, send e-mail to archives@listserv.muohio.edu
Or to do *anything* (and enjoy doing it!), use the web interface at
http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/archives.html
Problems? Send e-mail to Robert F Schmidt <rschmidt@lib.muohio.edu>