Gulf Pine Catholic
•
September 9, 2016
13
Catholic history in Mississippi goes digital
BY MARY WOODWARD
JACKSON – A little-known treasure hides in a vault
in the Chancery building in Jackson. This treasure
chronicles more than 200 years of Mississippi and
regional history and is housed in a 10’ x 20’ room on the
ground floor. In this small space, Bishop Richard
Oliver Gerow, who served the diocese from 1924 to
1966, created a diocesan archive filing system still in
use today. The good news, this little-known history is
about to get new life and new exposure, thanks to a
grant from the Mississippi Digital Library (MDL) and
the work of the diocesan chancellor’s staff.
It often is said Catholic Social Teaching is the
church’s best kept secret, but preserving and protecting
records and history is another one. Canon Law requires
the church to keep all sacramental records of its mem-
bers, but it also requires a historical archive to be kept
so that the events in the life of the local church can be
chronicled for future generations.
The diocesan archives gives a unique accounting of
history through the growth and spread of the Catholic
faith within the boundaries of the 20th state of the
Union. Papers and records in the archives date back to
Spanish Colonial times in 1796 Natchez and travel for-
ward through the establishment of the diocese in 1837,
the Civil War, Reconstruction, the turn of the 19th cen-
tury into the 20th, world wars, great floods, economic
depression, the Civil Rights movement up to the pres-
ent day. Items from these archives, gathered and main-
tained by Bishop Gerow and his successors are now
continually updated by the diocesan chancellor’s office.
Throughout his 42 years as bishop, he meticulously
indexed and journaled all the previous bishops’ papers
dating back to the beginnings of the diocese in 1837
and beyond, making sure the legacy and expansion of
the church in its developmental times would be prop-
erly documented.
Bishop Gerow also chronicled the growth of the
church in the state by taking a camera along on his
journeys around the diocese for dedications, ordina-
tions and confirmations. In his tenure he amassed more
than 1,700 photos depicting church life in those five
decades of his episcopacy. Many of his photos are of
structures that no longer exist, especially in the coastal
counties. Although now the Diocese of Biloxi, these
areas were a part of the diocese during Bishop Gerow’s
time.
These photos capture not only church history but,
on a greater scale, the story of Mississippi and the sur-
rounding region. The diocesan archives contains papers
on the development of Mississippi’s journey to state-
hood from the earliest times.
For this reason the Mississippi Digital Library
(MDL) awarded the diocese its 2016 Cultural Heritage
Digitization Award (CHDA).The MDL is hosted by the
University of Southern Mississippi.
According to its website, the MDL provides an
online space to search and explore the wealth of materi-
als available in Mississippi. Its board includes digital
preservationists, archivists, librarians and experts in the
field of history from around the state, including the
Mississippi Department of Archives and History, The
University of Mississippi, Mississippi State University
and Delta State University.
The award, given annually, offers 80 hours of scan-
ning of historic documents and photos by MDL staff
and partners. Lisa Jones, MDL director, described how
excited they were to see the Bishop R.O. Gerow collec-
tion of photos and documents when she came for the
onsite visit during the application process. Staff and
board members were impressed with the breadth of
material reflecting a unique angle of the history of
Mississippi through the lens of a Catholic bishop.
During the week of Aug. 8-12, Nicole Lawrence,
coordinator of MDL, and Susan Ivey, digital initiatives
librarian, from Ole Miss, spent eight hours each day
scanning 614 items from Bishop Gerow’s collection.
Notable items included several papal Bulls, including
the decree establishing the original diocese of Natchez
by Pope Gregory XVI. Sue Anne Booth and Donna
King, staff of the chancellor’s office, worked tirelessly
to get all the photos and documents in order and wrote
metadata for each object.
Each day, members of MDL’s board offered training
sessions for chancery staff on topics including:
archiving digitally born records such as emails, texts
and recent photos; best practices for digitization, digital
storage space on servers and using cloud-based servic-
es and prioritizing documents and collections in
archives for digitization.
As Chancellor for the diocese, it is my responsibil-
ity to maintain on behalf of the bishop all diocesan
records as well as the historical part of the archives.
The opportunity to partner with the MDL gives our col-
lection better exposure to researchers, teachers and
students who are studying the growth and changes in
state history. It is an opportunity to educate more peo-
ple on the Catholic faith and its contributions to the
overall community, state and region over the past 200-
plus years.
In the coming months, the scanned items will be
housed on the MDL website in a collection named for
Bishop Gerow. More items will be added as time goes
on. So stay tuned to
and
Mississippi
Catholic
for updates.
Mary Woodward is archivist for the Diocese of
Jackson, Mississippi.
Pictured are just two photos from the
archives of Bishop Richard Oliver
Gerow, who served the Diocese
of Jackson-Natchez from 1924 to
1966. At left, is St. Joseph Church in
Pearlington and below, St. Therese
School in Gulfport. Both photos were
taken in 1939. These treasures are
currently housed in the Archdiocese
of Jackson. The good news, this little-
known history is about to get new life
and new exposure, thanks to a grant
from the Mississippi Digital Library
(MDL) and the work of the diocesan
chancellor’s staff.
Photos/Diocese of
Jackson Archives
