From left to right: Archive Specialist Peter Gunther, honoree Rev. Robert M. Myers, SVD,
and Archivist Marcia Stein celebrate the naming of the archives.  
                                                                                               Photo courtesy of Brother Dan Holman, SVD

The Chicago Province of the Society of the Divine Word has named its archives to honor the Divine Word Missionary who saved valuable documents regarding African American Catholic history.

On Oct. 28, Father Robert M. Myers attended a ceremony at which the Chicago Province Archives officially became the Robert M. Myers Archives. The archives thus received the name of its founder, who established the home for historical collections just north of Chicago in 1987.

The historical holdings include thousands of documents, publications, photographs, films, and artifacts that chronicle the 113-year history of the Society of the Divine Word in North America and the extraordinary careers of Divine Word Missionaries who came from the continent and served in North America and around the world.

While the archives contain information about hundreds of missionaries and the institutions, parishes and missions that they founded and served, it is thanks to Fr. Myers’s foresight that vital, irreplaceable records regarding the founding of the first Roman Catholic seminary in the United States for the training of African American men.

“These letters and other critical materials document for future generations the role of the Society of the Divine Word in promoting African American vocations to the priesthood and religious life,” said Fr. Stan Uroda, who served as Chicago provincial from 1996 to 2002. “Because of his diligent work, these materials, of great historical importance, were safely in storage here and escaped the destruction brought by Hurricane Katrina.”

The Society of the Divine Word established St. Augustine’s Seminary, the first school of its kind, in Bay St. Louis, Miss., in 1923. Letters, reports and other materials about this progressive—and at the time, controversial—change were located in the working files of the religious order’s Southern Province. Over the years, Fr. Myers recognized the historical significance of these materials.

From 1990 to 1998, he gathered, organized and moved the data to the archives at Techny. Seven years later, Hurricane Katrina severely damaged the Divine Word Missionary buildings in Bay St. Louis and destroyed their offices.

The saved collection includes original letters from St. Katharine Drexel and St. Arnold Janssen, correspondence about the carefully planned placements of the country’s first four African American priests who were educated at St. Augustine’s; and the personal papers of those priests: Frs. Maurice Rousseve, Vincent Smith, Anthony Bourges and Francis Wade.

“I think everyone is interested in what comes before them,” Fr. Myers said of the importance of preserving historical information. “The Babylonians had their records. The Egyptians had their records. The Hebrews had their records.” Thanks in great part to Fr. Myers, the Society of the Divine Word and a very critical dimension of the history of the Catholic Church in the United States, has its records too.

For more information about the Society of the Divine Word Chicago Province collections or to visit the archives, write to archives@uscsvd.org.