This fonds presents highlights from the working life of Delos Rogest Davis, one of Canada’s first Black lawyers. Series I contains a variety of certificates that recognize his professional qualifications (1871-1912), as well as a program from his funeral in 1915 and accounts of his life and accomplishments in newspaper clippings and the Delos Rogest Davis, K.C. Memorial Fund pamphlet. Series II contains correspondence with legal colleagues regarding his recent appointment as King’s Counsel, from November 1910.

This fonds contains personal, professional, and domestic records from the life of Joan Somers Sullivan in the later-20th and early-21st centuries. Series I (Personal Records) includes reminiscences about Joan, medical information, clippings related to community activitism (including traffic problems in Old Sandwich), and personal journals. Series II (Professional Records) features her resumé and qualifications, as well as administrative records, correspondence, public talks, research material, clippings, and publications connected with her pioneering effort to unionize legal secretaries in Windsor, Ontario during the 1970s. This includes talks for events held by the Faculties of Law at the University of Windsor and the University of Western Ontario, and articles published in the Windsor Woman women’s liberation newspaper and The Oyez Windsor law students’ newspaper. Series III (Domestic Records) contains recipes and household hints used in her later-life personal housekeeping, as well as lists of her annual Christmas baking.