Last Friday, Collection curator Deborah Kloiber gave a presentation for the Stillwater Catholic Worker Community. The community has regular Friday Evening Gatherings for dinner, evening prayer, and a featured speaker. The presentation on the Ade Bethune Collection described how Ade Bethune met Dorothy Day and became involved in the Catholic Worker movement, and showed some of her art that appeared in the
Catholic Worker newspaper. Also included were photographs and sketches of local churches where Bethune's work can be seen, including a mosaic in the baptistry of the Cathedral of St. Paul, and stained glass windows in St. Leo's Church (now Lumen Christi), for which Bethune was the liturgical consultant.
The evening concluded with information about two parts of the Collection currently being processed:
- Records of the Church Community Housing Corporation, which Bethune helped found in 1969. The CCHC provides low income housing in Newport, Rhode Island, and has also been involved in financial counseling for new homeowners
- Records of the Star of the Sea/Harbor House project, a new model elderly living community in Newport that opened in 2002
Both of these initiatives of Bethune's demonstrated how she adapted the work and values of the Catholic Worker movement to her own community of Newport.
