[Oe List ...] Trashing the Archives

[W. J.]

Thanks for your comments, Margaret. I'm so stunned by the news about the trashing of the archives and locking Betty Pesek out of the JWM archives that I'm asking colleagues on the O:E list for ideas on what we could do at this point.
   
  O:E colleagues--just read this thru and weep or grind your teeth!
   
  You may also respond by sending email to board members or to me or Margaret off-line if you care to.
   
  Marshall

Margaret Helen Aiseayew <aiseayew at netins.net> wrote:
      Marshall,
  I know the basement seems unlikely, but we did a fine job with the room.  All the file cabinets were on cement blocks in four rows back to back about 30-40 file cabinets per row.  We used other grand storage units from the print shop days to archive just about everything we ever printed.   It is in the room in the corner of the basement that we once used for the bunk beds when they arrived, so the "wall" is all the phone connections of the building; the largest of the floor drains is right outside the room and the sump pumps (both new) are on the lower yet level in the furnace rooms just beyond.  Because the floor rises to the outside corner of the building and because of the position of the floor drain, this room had almost no water even during the great flood of '83.  We also broke through to the outside for additional ventilation at street level and at first floor level and installed (inadequate) air conditioning and humidifying.  There was a point at which you could
 go to the wall charts that Lyn and Betty and many other great volunteers like Dee Horn and Marvyn Womack had done and walk right to the file cabinet with the HDP or Town Meeting document you were looking for.
   
  It has been trashed and there are boxes and boxes of files that have ben set out of file cabinets that have been taken elsewhere.  I would not even have taken my parishoner down there if they had let me into the JWM room, because Betty has done such a beautiful job with that.  She has framed decor on the walls and all the file drawers have wonderful magnetic lucite picture holders with the symbols of the summers and the other world, etc.  In there we could have just walked around and I could have told the necessary stories.  The room was generally kept locked, but all the staff had access to the room.  Betty kept all the file cabinets locked all the time unless she was there working in  them. (I believe the door is the same one that was on those hinges in 1971.)  It is a big square glass in the door just like the door that was at the end of the hallway past the Lumumba room.  "Security" is a nice touch to the story, but the glass was there and stayed there to keep us all
 from accidentally clocking each other with the door.
   
  I know that it is supposed to go to Wesley at some point.  The "board" supposedly told Betty she could have continued access to keep working on a very short list of things she feels still need to be done.  She has put a lot of the organization on computer.  The residual staff locked her out.  She looks like she has aged ten extra years in the last six months.
   
  I actually only left Chicago in '02 to come back to Iowa and be with my dad who is now 88.  Naomi (my youngest) and three of my grandchildren live in Evanston, so there has been reason to go back and forth and keep in touch.  I may sound to people like I am totally flying off the handle, but what I have said is based on my real and in this case, recent experience.
  (I was moved from the West side at midnight of the day we took posession of the Kemper, served two stints assigned to whatever we named the team that cared for it, and managed rennovations with the State of Illinois grants over the last four + years I was there.)
   
  Thanks for listening,
  Margaret
    ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: W. J. 
  To: Margaret Helen Aiseayew 
  Sent: Monday, June 25, 2007 2:02 AM
  Subject: Re: Thanks
  

  Margaret,
  It's still Marshall to my friends and colleagues, W.J. on email to limit personal exposure, and Wayne Marshall Jones on my bank statement!
   
  I understand that the JWM archives are on the first floor in a locked room visible through a glass pane in the door for additional security. I think it's not accessible even for staff except under special arrangements, and that's OK by me. You may not have heard that the JWM archive plus Bishop Jim's archive are going to be housed together in a new (not yet constructed) building at Wesley Theological Seminary in DC, according to George Walters. I think that's a great solution for scholarly access in the post-Betty Pesek era, a great combination of resources, and a meaningful positioning of the work of O:E/EI/ICA/JWM/JKM within the orbit of the historical church.
   
  I'm very saddened by any neglect or deterioration of the ICA/EI archives. I personally thought everybody knew water flows downward, and in any Kemper flood the basement would be a disaster area for the archives. 
   
  My posting was obviously a challenge to the Board to 'fess up and be accountable, instead of staying in pretense and denial. We'll see how they respond, if at all.
   
  Thanks for your passion, Margaret. 
   
  Marshall

Margaret Helen Aiseayew <aiseayew at netins.net> wrote:
          Marshall,
   
  Do you go by Wayne all the time now or by W.J.?  If you let me know, I'll address you by your preference rather than my memory next time.
   
  I really appreciate your posting.  I appreciate that you at least make good rational sense when you get "triggered."  I'm afraid that I don't do nearly so well when things push me over the edge.  When I read that one of the new interim executive director's claims to fame was a book on "Exposing the Elephants," it was just a last straw.  The board has not come clean about anything.  Some few heard what I was trying to say, but many more didn't.  There is no relationship in my mind between the event in Toronto and the one in Chicago.  I was especially glad that you remembered and rehearsed for people what the last event had been intended to be.
   
  When I was in Chicago they wouldn't even let me into the JWM archives room and the basement archives room (which I did see) has been turned into a dumping ground for stuff they have pulled out of other parts of the building.  I was not complaining, I am screaming for some answers.  I just don't know how to do it well.
   
  Thanks again, Margaret 


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