J. Eric Elliott

March 13 UPDATE: The Moravian Archives Winston-Salem is closing to the public temporarily. We will be closed to the public for new appointments and guests at least through the end of the month. The opening of our next exhibit, “Nurturing the Gardeners of Wachovia,” we will likewise delay a week or two. As with all the news this week, things are changing day to day. We are acting to protect the safety of our staff and volunteers, and our guests. Hoping we can all ride out closings and limited group contacts for a bit and put this season of different and scary behind us soon.  Also, from the “Becoming American” conference co-conveners: “Due to the fact that Wake Forest University has cancelled all in-person classes and gatherings of 50 people or more for an indefinite period of time, we have decided to reschedule the entire conference for this coming fall semester. We are aiming for September 2020….Our hope is that moving this event to September will enable us to hold the conference in its entirety and with the integration of academic and public events as we originally envisioned.” 

March’s Lunchtime Lecture will be Thursday, March 12 from 12:15 to 1:00pm in Spaugh Lecture/Recital Hall upstairs in our Archie K. Davis Center building.  The talk, “Nurturing the Gardeners of Wachovia” by Archivist J. Eric Elliott, will mirror the themes of the new traveling exhibit opening in the Archives lobby that week.  The three-exhibit series has been sponsored by the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Garden Club Council and the Old Salem Garden Club.

Archivist J. Eric Elliott will be speaking at the evening meeting of the Forsyth County Genealogical Society on March 3, and hosts a tour group from that Society at the Archives on the morning of March 10.  Members of the Flower Lore Garden Club visit the Archives to tour the new exhibit on the morning of March 18.  Wake undergraduate scholars studying slavery in the Moravian community will be at the Archives the week of March 16, and guides from Bethabara Park visit us for an orientation on March 23.  Our Archives Commission meets the evening of March 24.

The Provincial Elders Conference has approved designating April 26 “Moravian Archives Sunday,” to offer prayers for the Southern Province Archives and to request support for its ongoing mission as its record keeper.  Information to aid in the celebration of this day at Moravian congregations will be sent to pastors in early February.  Our Archives Commission is grateful for local church support as we celebrate our Church’s commitment to preserving the witness of Brothers and Sisters who have gone before and to gathering the stories of today’s church work.  Prayers are also requested for the Archives Commission as it meets in an annual planning retreat on February 8.

On February 13 Moravian Music Foundation Research Librarian Dave Blum will speak from 12:15-1:00pm in the Spaugh Lecture/Recital Hall at our offices in the Archie K. Davis Center on “From Russia, with Love (of Sacred Choral Music)”: composer and organist Johann Wilhelm Haessler.”  Archivist Eric Elliott speaks at two outside events this month: Friedberg Church’s Brother’s Fellowship Prayer Breakfast on February 9; at the D.A.R. meeting at Centenary UMC on February 21.  If you’d like an Archives presentation at your church or meeting, please contact us.   No charge for any church event, and a modest honorarium for other outside events.