Stewards of Holy History

Post Gold Rush, San Francisco often paired great wealth with grinding poverty. Unaccompanied children from working families played in streets lined with housing so crowded that disease, and fires, spread quickly.

The desperation witnessed by a privileged young woman named Elizabeth Armer drove her to tend to the poor, the sick, and especially the neglected children in her adopted city.

Impressed by her devotion, the local Catholic clergy in 1872 guided Armer to found the Sisters of the Holy Family—the first U.S. women religious group established West of the Mississippi—to help ease the plight of the City’s youngest impoverished residents.

She was a determined leader.

“You must be out of the house in the morning by 8:30 and among the people. We must always go to the people; they should not have to come to us,” she told her congregation.

Those who joined Sister Dolores—the name Armer chose when she took her vows in 1880—would make history by opening day homes to educate and care for the children of the poor. Like Armer, they trained and prepared to take vows of their own with the help of Charles Messea, S.J., founder of then-Santa Clara College’s science department, and spiritual director for the Sisters.

More than a century of good works also witnessed the growth of government support programs and new opportunities for women to work outside the home. The Sisters’ numbers dwindled. By the 2010s, they were confronting the end of their order and seeking a permanent home for the archives detailing their remarkable past.

“It was a major heartache for us, where it would all go,” says the group’s historian, Sr. Michaela O’Connor.

It’s not an uncommon problem. Some women religious groups continue to thrive, and their motherhouses, or headquarters, include a dedicated space where their order’s records and ephemera will be maintained. Some have found safe harbor in a few Catholic universities or associated women religious archives in the U.S. Others are not so lucky.

Indeed, when the collaboration between the Sisters of the Holy Family and SCU was agreed upon, says Sr. O’Connor, “it was a marriage made in heaven.” It helped that it came with a dowry, a sum the Sisters had carefully put aside over the decades for just this reason.

“There is value in elevating their stories, making sure to document them, and to make them accessible—not just for their benefit, but to also bring light and visibility to the people they served.”

Under Nasr’s watch, approximately 290 linear feet of archival materials from the Sisters of the Holy Family—nearly two-thirds the length of a football field—were cataloged into the SCU Archives. Hundreds of boxes store the Sisters’ records and correspondence, photographs, media, and reference files. Eventually, Nasr says, much of the written materials will be digitized. The collection also houses personal items that belonged to the group, such as a lock of Sr. Dolores’ hair, an engraved thimble, the chalice she used, and her Bible.