WILMINGTON — After more than three decades in Greenville, the diocesan archives has a new home. The office moved to the diocesan building on Union Street in Wilmington in June 2023 and was ready for a blessing and grand opening this past Dec. 19, with Bishop Koenig and other diocesan officials and employees in attendance.
Diocesan archivist Susan Kirk Ryan coordinated the move from the former convent at St. Joseph on the Brandywine Parish, a task that involved some dedicated volunteers and lots of colored stickers that indicated to the movers where the thousands of items belonged in their new home. The old convent served as a good home, but it is showing signs of its age, issues that threatened the records, photographs and other items stored there.
“It was a good place, but there were issues always with a very old building,” Kirk Ryan said. “Eventually, the maintenance issues got too big. There would have to have been a replacement roof and a replacement boiler, replacement plumbing. That was all too costly.”
The basement at the Union Street building was vacant except for the diocese’s broadcast studio. After the move, the archives staff spent 18 months unpacking and coordinating everything. Kirk Ryan wanted everything in place and ready for visitors before it was dedicated and blessed.
“I really want this to be a welcoming place,” she said. “To be a welcoming face of the church is really important.”
The records available are wide-ranging. There are parish sacramental records until about 1999 on microfilm. Archives from closed parishes and schools are there. Kirk Ryan has letters from St. John Neumann from when he was the bishop of Philadelphia, and Wilmington was part of that archdiocese.
Correspondence of the bishops of Wilmington is available, at least much of it. There are crosiers and miters, along with the various bishops’ rings and chalices. Hanging on the walls are photographs of Wilmington’s prelates with the popes of their eras, including Bishop Koenig with Pope Francis.
“The function of the archives of the diocese is to preserve the records and items of enduring value, things that should be kept,” Kirk Ryan said.
Some former Catholic school students may remember their teachers telling them their records would be kept for 100 years. That is correct, Kirk Ryan said, as it is required by federal law.
Every copy of The Dialog dating back to its inception in 1965 is available. And one of her favorite items is an original photo of members of the Holy Name Society from St. Patrick Parish in Wilmington who had gone to Washington, D.C., part of the 3,000 people from the diocese who attended.
Kirk Ryan has been the archivist since 2016, when she succeeded the late Donn Devine. Her professional background had been in law, but she is also a genealogist and had been the president of the Delaware Genealogical Society.
“The archivist part, the librarian and preservation part, was not in my original wheelhouse,” she said.
Over the years, however, she has taken many courses on archives management, and she is a member of a group of diocesan archivists who stay in touch and meet every two years for a week of study.
“Some people come to this from library science who don’t know anything about the church,” she said. “Other people come to it from the church. What I love about the job is getting to help people who are looking for information about their grandmother’s baptism at St. Anthony of Padua, and I can help them find that.”
Connecting people with their religious heritage “is really the best reward of this job.”
She likes the challenge of tracking down records as well. “There’s an art to that that’s really fun.”
Kirk Ryan usually works in the office one day a week, but she will work to accommodate the schedules of anyone who may need to visit for any reason. Visits are done by appointment, and the best way to reach her is via email at archives@cdow.org.
