Subseries 01 - Chronicles

7.75 cm of textual records

This subseries contains the chronicles of St. Joseph’s Convent of Haney (a neighbourhood within Maple Ridge) by the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph of London, Ontario during their western mission in British Columbia. The Sisters operated St. Patrick’s School in St. Patrick’s Parish, Haney, Maple Ridge from 1956 to 1985. This subseries contains historical summaries and drafts written by Sister Mary Esther from 1956 to 1985. Some topics include writing student report cards; Grade 7 Graduation; Teacher-Parent Days; facilitating Sport Days and athletic competitions such as Volleyball tournaments, Cross-country, and Track and Field; preparing students for theatre and musical concert performances, including a float and parade march in the Mountain Festival; the purchase of record players, tape recorders, and a Gestetner (office duplicating machine); and the conversion of an oil to a gas heating system. As well as she wrote about the voting of delegates for the General Chapter; Regional Council meetings; participating in Social Justice and Community Workshops, attending the Catholic Teacher’s Convention, retreats, celebrations, Christmas and Thanksgiving preparations, a weekly quilting bee, and organizing fundraisers such as the Annual Fall Fun Fair and Bazaar, a Wake-a-Thon event for Vietnamese refugees, and a Walk-a-Thon to raise funds to purchase a van to transport children competing in intramural sport events. She also wrote about picnic trips to Stanley Park, Vancouver; visits to other cities in British Columbia such as to Mission, New Westminster, Kelowna, the Okanagan Valley, Kamloops, Salmon Arm, and Harrison Hot Springs; and further trips afar to Banff, Alberta and to Oregon, Washington, and Alaska, United States of America. Sister Mary Esther also recorded personal incidents on eating wild meat, moose, deer, mountain goat, and Fraser River salmon, for the first time; mountain sketching; and daily activities and events at the convent such as the damp and frosty weather, the rare snowfall, spring cleaning, decoration, house painting, landscaping, gardening, fence building, chapel renovations, convent roof repair, a basement flood of 51-inches of water, and the havoc of Typhoon Freda on October 12, 1962.

This subseries also contains lists of Sisters who served in missions at Haney (Maple Ridge), Kelowna, Rutland, and Oliver, British Columbia from 1956-1985. There are correspondences from the Catholic School Board of the Archdiocese of Vancouver, hierarchical diagrams of the business organization and school subjects of the British Columbia Public School System, and newsletters from the Department of Education of Victoria, British Columbia that contain announcements, directives, rulings, examinations, and changes regarding the administration and curriculum. There are also two reports, one on the Minutes of Parish Council Meeting, from May 9, 1978, and St. Patrick’s Christian Community Annual Report, from February 1972. In addition, there is a commemorative magazine from September 1981 on the 25th Anniversary of St. Patrick’s School produced by St. Patrick’s School students in an enrichment class that contains student written poetry, short articles on their classes, interviews with teachers, reports on clubs and sport days, and printed pictures of sport activities, and school classroom photographs.