DRT Library Welcomes Two New Volunteers

The DRT Library is pleased to welcome Kay Garsnett and Shannon Keith as its newest volunteers. Both Kay and Shannon  work with archivist Caitlin Donnelly on a variety of projects pertaining to the library’s archival collections, including developing and staffing special programs and updating information about the archives on the DRT Library’s website. Future projects will include researching the families, individuals, and organizations that have donated materials to the library as well as arranging and describing new and/or unprocessed collections.

Volunteer Kay Garsnett.

San Antonio native Kay Garsnett, above, has a Bachelor of Science degree in geography from the University of Maryland at College Park and a Master of Library and Information Studies degree from the University of Hawaii at Manoa. She has almost twenty years of experience as an academic librarian, primarily in the area of reference services, at various institutions including Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio, the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, and St. Louis Community College at Florissant Valley in Missouri. She is currently an adjunct reference librarian at Northeast Lakeview College in San Antonio. Seeking to take her career in a new direction, Kay is currently working on a Certificate of Advanced Study in Archives and Records Administration, an online program through the School of Information Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. During the last couple of years, she has also completed several archival continuing education courses, primarily through the Society of American Archivists; in June 2009 she attended the Modern Archives Institute at the National Archives in Washington D.C. Kay is an experienced genealogist and has been an active member of the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution.

Volunteer Shannon Keith.

Shannon Keith, above, is a recent graduate of the Graduate School of Information at the University of Texas at Austin, where her coursework focused on various components of archival work and where she served as the secretary of the student chapter of the Society of American Archivists. A native of Little Rock, Arkansas, Shannon also graduated from Wellesley College in 2003 with a double major in art history and Italian studies. Shannon’s most recent archives experience was an internship she completed this past summer with the Arkansas History Commission (AHC), a division of the Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism. Collaborating with the Lawrence County Historical Society, the AHC is in the process of planning the Northeast Arkansas Regional Archives (NEARA), a branch archives to be built at Powhatan Historic State Park. The three thousand square foot facility will house historic northeast Arkansas county records and provide regional access to historical and genealogical research materials. Shannon’s task was to help the Commission develop a furniture and equipment layout plan that took into account the comfort and work processes of researchers and staff, space limitations, lighting, power, American Disabilities Act Standards for Accessible Design, and archival workflows. Shannon is currently the Special Collections Librarian at the University of Texas at San Antonio.

We are thrilled to have Kay and Shannon join the DRT Library team!

Volunteer Improves Access to German-Language Materials

Volunteer Lore A. Senseney.

For the past year, Lore A. Senseney has been volunteering at the DRT Library with Assistant Director Martha Utterback and Archivist Caitlin Donnelly, working to translate German-language materials held in the library’s archival collections into English. Thus far, Ms. Senseney has translated almost 200 documents, primarily letters, in the Beckmann family papers and the general correspondence series of the Conrad A. Goeth papers. The translations are being filed with the original document so they will be accessible to researchers. Lore will next be translating documents in the Frances Drennon Shaughnessy family papers.

Translating the documents requires a special and rather unique skill: the ability to read the old Sütterlin German script that is no longer used. Today, Germans cannot read this script. However, Ms. Senseney, a native of Germany, learned it during her first two years of school, as Sütterlin was commonly taught in German schools during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

The first page of a letter to John C. and Regina Muller Beckmann, presumably written by Felix Muller, Regina's father.

Lore's translation of the above letter, which Felix Muller began by writing "I have waited for seven years for (a response from you) in vain, and had given up all hope to receive a letter from you ever again."

The rest of Lore's translation of the above letter.

Lore’s journey to San Antonio was an interesting one. She started learning English in 1945 when school resumed following the end of World War II. Three years later, she escaped from East Germany with her mother and joined her father in Frankfurt, West Germany. There, Lore continued her English studies as an apprentice; a student at a school of business for industrial merchants and banking; and a student in the last class of industrial interpreters at the Berlitz school. Ms. Senseney arrived in the United States on August 5, 1959, landing in New York on the USS Buttner with her husband – a career non-commissioned officer (NCO) in the U.S. Army who had been stationed in West Germany and was newly stationed at Fort Sam Houston – and their two-year-old daughter. Lore and her husband later had two more children and at various times lived in San Antonio and Germany.

Ms. Senseney has been a member of the San Antonio Needlework Guild (SANG) and the Embroiderers’ Guild of America (EGA) since 1976. She has been particularly interested in whitework embroidery, a technique in which the stitching is the same color as the foundation fabric, traditionally white linen. Lore researched this type of embroidery during trips to Germany and began teaching about the technique in San Antonio. Since 1982, Lore has been volunteering at the Witte Museum, using her expertise to help in the conservation of its textile collection.

Throughout her time at the Witte, Ms. Senseney has periodically been asked to translate German texts. Her skills have been increasingly utilized since 2006, when she began undergoing treatments for breast cancer that left her hands numb, making it difficult to hold a needle and continue her textile conservation work at the Witte. However, Lore has found the work of translating historic documents to be equally rewarding, stating “I love it. It is something I can do that I enjoy and is as much fun as restoring an old textile, so it can live another 100 years.”

Of the letters she has worked with from the DRT Library’s collections, Lore writes that they have had “the most diverse content and challenging handwriting styles.” In the course of the project, she has also “researched and learned about the Germans who arrived in Texas in the 1840s and founded a lot of the businesses in San Antonio.”

Thank you, Lore, for all of your hard work!

Click here for a full citation of the documents and images included in this entry.

DRT Library Welcomes New Reference Librarian

Chuck Tucker

The Daughters of the Republic of Texas Library is pleased to announce the appointment of Chuck Tucker as reference librarian. Mr. Tucker began in his new position on Monday, November 2. He replaces Mrs. Stephanie Boothby, who vacated the position following the birth of her daughter.

Mr. Tucker is a native of Columbia, Missouri, although as a self-described military brat he lived in various places while growing up. However, as a child he spent summers with his grandparents in San Antonio, and he has now lived here for the past twenty-five years. As a result of these two circumstances, Mr. Tucker considers himself a native of the Alamo City.

Mr. Tucker has a Bachelor of Arts degree in interdisciplinary studies with a minor in English from the University of Texas at San Antonio. He also has a master’s degree in library science and information technology and a graduate certificate in library management, both from the University of North Texas.

His most recent library experience was at a neighborhood branch of the San Antonio Public Library. While he was officially a departmental systems analyst, Mr. Tucker took on additional projects at the library, including outreach activities; the design and implementation of computer classes; and collections development and management. He also implemented library programs specifically for teens, including Guitar Hero and Wii tournaments.

Mr. Tucker and his wife of eighteen years have a thirteen-year-old daughter. He describes his main passions as family, faith, and golf.

Welcome, Mr. Tucker, to the DRT Library!