This fonds contains documents and images related to nineteenth- and early twentieth-century European settlement in Essex and Kent counties. These include an Irish immigrant’s personal journal of settling in Essex County with his two sisters (1850). The journal primarily details Jasper Golden’s travels (Atlantic crossing, St. Lawrence River, Quebec, Kingston, Niagara, Buffalo, Detroit, Windsor) but also includes later details about time spent in Malden, Anderdon, and the now-lost port of Albertville (near Kingsville). There are also official records of infrastructure and property in Howard Township (1909), and organizational and research material related to an effort to preserve the Walker family’s rare fieldstone-clad Kent County farmhouse as a historic site. (David and Ann Walker were Scottish immigrants who settled in Harwich Township, Kent County in 1845, with their original grant of farmland remaining in the family until 1972.) The fonds also includes approximately 448 slides depicting pre-1900 homes, buildings, furnishings, objects, weapons, and equipment in Kent and Essex counties, from a Canada Council-funded project to document these artifacts. There is also a short history of Buxton, Ontario, and slides of a memorial to Shawnee chief Tecumseh.

This fonds contains records connected with 22 Superiors or Presidents of Assumption College and University, ca. 1861-2009. For the most part it is organized chronologically by individual, although later accruals to the fonds have led to some quirks in file numbering or arrangement. Much of the fonds consists of administrative correspondence connected with institutional matters. There are also photographs, reports, publications, statistics, and notes on various subjects.

This fonds contains records of students and student activities at Assumption College and Assumption University, ca. 1870s-1980s. It also includes some records from Assumption High School in that period, and for the University of Western Ontario during the years of Assumption’s affiliation with Western. Included are roll books and testimonials; minutes of the Literary Society; newsletters, yearbooks, and student publications; handbooks for students, residents, and faculty; promotional and recruitment brochures for Assumption; ephemera relating to special events, convocation, dramatics, and athletics; program and course listings; and news clippings. There is a small amount of material relating to student grades or schoolwork, alumni, Second World War servicemen, and deceased Basilian Fathers. Of special note: correspondence relating to the Assumption victory song, a history of Holy Names College, and brochures for 1940s summer school offerings listing Wyndham Lewis and Marshall McLuhan as faculty.

This fonds contains records charting the institutional life and physical premises of St. Mary’s Anglican Church in the Town of Walkerville / Walkerville neighbourhood of Windsor. Series I – Paper Files is not formally arranged into sub-series, but significant record-creating groups or genres of material are grouped together in the file order. These include: church wardens, board of management/vestry, financial records, various church committees, women’s groups, men’s groups, youth groups, orders of service (bulletins), special events, church visitors and staff, as well as the building, its contents, its churchyard and cemetery (including sketches and architectural plans). Of note are a small number of records relating to the church’s relationship to the family of Walkerville founder Hiram Walker, and rich records of social and service groups for men, women, children, and youth. Series II – Photographs was originally arranged separately from the paper files. Its previous arrangement and description has been retained here; the images capture elements of the congregational activities and physical premises documented in the paper files.

The fonds does not contain parish records of births, deaths, marriages, or baptisms.

This fonds primarily contains curated scrapbooks that document the people and events of Assumption College and University through the late-19th and 20th c. Additional oversize posters, photographs, and guestbooks (not housed in scrapbooks) are also present. The scrapbooks contain a mixture of news clippings, photographs, and ephemera (especially posters and programs from special events, but also athletic ‘school letters’, typescript sermons, and more), generally arranged by year(s). Photographs range from candid shots of students and professors around campus, to formal portraits of classes and sports teams; clippings cover news of the college/university, current students and alumni, Basilian fathers, and developments in higher education and Catholic education. Of special note are items relating to the 1951 royal visit of Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip, tributes to campus veterans and/or the war dead from the two world wars, promotional material relating to the Christian Culture Series and Father J.S. Murphy, and campus ministry in the later 20th c.

This fonds primarily contains personal papers, publications, and oral histories (ca. 1870-1984) relating to the Basilian Fathers who served as teaching staff for Assumption College and Assumption University. Included are diaries, notebooks, correspondence, memoirs, recorded interviews, memorials, manuscripts and published works. Of special note are the extensive papers of Bishop Leo C. Nelligan, records of O’Connor House, and a few records from Rev. Pierre Tourvieille. Secondarily, this fonds contains extensive administrative records documenting the history of Essex College, found in the papers of professor W.H. Arison.

This fonds consists of photocopies of the papers of Paul Martin Sr., one original manuscript letter, and cartoons depicting him. Martin’s papers encompass daily diaries, draft memoirs, interviews, speeches and broadcasts, news coverage, and a small amount of correspondence, notes, and ephemera. These cover his political and diplomatic career as a Member of Parliament, Cabinet minister for health and welfare and external affairs, and High Commissioner to the United Kingdom. The records thus reflect his direct experiences of public life as well as (in his memoir drafts and interviews) his reflections on these experiences.

Series 1: THE HON. PAUL MARTIN PAPERS contains records of the public service career and retirement projects of Paul Martin Sr. (1949-1980s). Subseries include:
A. The Diaries, 1974-1979;
B. A Carbon-Copy Transcript of the Norah Story (and Josephine Phelan) Interview of the Hon. Paul Martin, ca. 1968-1973;
C. The Member for Essex-East: A Study of the Career of Paul Martin, by Norah Story, 1975;
D. Different Edited Versions of A Very Public Life, vol. I, Far From Home, 1982-1983;
E. Different Edited Versions of A Very Public Life, vol. II, So Many Worlds, 1984-1985;
F. On Becoming Canada’s Foreign Minister (unpublished mss.), date unknown;
G. Speeches, Addresses, Broadcasts, Magazine Articles, Interviews, 1949-1974;
H. Newspaper Articles, 1928, 1957-1958, 1962, 1964, 1968-1971, 1973-1974, and 1983;
I. Selections from the Memoirs of Brooke Claxton; The Making of the United Nations, 1945-1946: A Memoir, by Escott Reid, 1947, 1958, 1970-1982, and undated;
J. Miscellaneous, various dates.

Series 2: CARTOONS contains 197 editorial cartoons featuring Paul Martin Sr. or issues in which he was involved, collected by him during the course of his career.

This fonds contains photocopies and translations of primary and secondary sources, as well as a small body of original notes and research correspondence, accumulated or created by Michael Power in the later 20th century, in the course of preparing three books and an article on aspects of Assumption College history. Series I contains materials documenting the early history of Assumption College and the role of the Basilian Fathers therein, particularly correspondence but also financial records, legal documents and legislation, histories and biographies. Series II contains biographical information and a few photographs related to the winners of the annual Christian Culture Gold Medal awarded by Assumption College as part of its long-running Christian Culture speaker series. Series III contains research material gathered in preparation for a short article about Rev. E.C. LeBel, a former president of Assumption University and first president of the University of Windsor. Some material duplicates original documents found in other AC fonds; some material comes from other archives or published works. It has been retained for its research value as a curated collection.

This fonds primarily contains the personal and professional correspondence of Father Stan Murphy received or sent in the course of his several decades as director of the Christian Culture Series (CCS) at Assumption College, as well as associated photographs, ephemera, and recordings of the lectures and other events. Some files relate to the Christian Culture Gold Medal and/or its recipients.

Also included are records relating to other elements of Father Murphy’s work at Assumption, as well as recordings of significant events at Assumption in the later 20th/early 21st centuries, including convocation ceremonies, CCS, and non-CCS lectures.

The fonds has been arranged by carrier media into Series I (Textual Files), which contains correspondence, biographical material, photographs connected with textual files, scrapbooks, ephemera, and more; and Series II (Recordings), which includes many formats of audio recording, as well as many more photographic images and some textual materials saved in digital formats.

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.