45 Years of Community Activism

Another set of materials in the Ade Bethune Collection has been organized and is available for research.  The Newport Community Organizations Materials document Bethune's involvement with the Point Association, East-West Point Committee, Citizens Advisory Committee, Foundation for Newport, and other groups in her adopted home of Newport, RI.

This part of the Collection covers almost a half-century of Ade Bethune's activities, from the late 1950s to her death in 2002.  During this time, Bethune was active on the Board or in other leadership positions for many of these community groups.  Her involvement with them centered on supporting Newport's citizens; she wanted to ensure they had good homes and neighborhoods.  In this effort, Ade Bethune addressed multiple road and redevelopment issues--working for or opposing proposals based on the impact they would have on the community.

At a February, 1970 public hearing regarding a proposed highway that would bisect Ade Bethune's Point neighborhood, she prefaced her questions and comments with the following statement:

"I will speak in the name of families, and children, and mothers, of the elderly, of the poor people, of the pedestrians on both sides of the Point. People who have no advocate to plead their cause and defend their rights. . . People who are not here tonight because they are too young to be here, or too old, like my mother, people who are working tonight and can't come."

Through her work, Ade Bethune made sure that everyone in the community would have a voice.

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Organization of the Newport Community Organizations Materials and production of a finding aid for them was made possible by a CLIR "Cataloging Hidden Special Collections and Archives" grant with funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Materials from Ade Bethune's Social Justice Activities Available

The Ade Bethune Collection web site now contains finding aids for the first series processed as part of a CLIR grant-funded project, the Catholic Social Action Access Project (CSAAP).  [For more on the grant and the CSAAP see here and here.] The two series relate to Ade Bethune's social justice activities in her adopted home of Newport, Rhode Island.

Church Community Housing Corporation (CCHC)
Ade Bethune was a co-founder of this organization, and held several positions on its Board of Directors, including president.  The CCHC is a non-profit organization providing affordable housing to residents of Newport County, RI.  In addition to CCHC administrative and organizational documents collected by Bethune, it also contains architectural drawings and other materials related to designs she did for many new homes and rehabilitation projects.  These include a large number of items (one of which is a model) surrounding the design and construction of the first solar-heated house in Newport.

The size of this series is 31 boxes (or 15 linear feet) of materials, plus an additional 8 cubic feet of oversized drawings, plans, and one architectural model.  Materials span the years 1954 to 2000, with the bulk covering the period 1969-2000.
Guide to the Church Community Housing Corporation Materials

Star of the Sea / Harbor House
For more than the last decade of her life Ade Bethune was devoted to a project that became Harbor House, what she called an "intentional community" for active seniors.  Along with members of the CCHC, in 1991 she incorporated Star of the Sea as a non-profit to develop this community.  They focused on an abandoned property that had first been an Auchincloss family estate and later a Cenacle convent and retreat center.  After years of planning and fundraising, which also included obtaining zoning approval and community support for the project, Harbor House opened as a senior housing community in February 2002--with Ade Bethune as one of its first residents.

This series is contained in 17 boxes (8.3 linear feet), along with 2 flat file drawers of oversized materials and 19 sets of rolled architectural drawings.  It spans the years 1985 to 2002, with the bulk covering 1991-2002.
Guide to the Star of the Sea/Harbor House Materials


These 2 series form the bulk of Ade Bethune's community involvement.  But she was active in a number of other organizations in Newport, RI as well, including the Point Association, the Citizens Advisory Committee, and the Foundation for Newport.  Materials in the Ade Bethune Collection related to these activities are also being organized as part of the CSAAP and finding aids for them will be available once they are completed.

Summer Chautauqua Class

A class on Ade Bethune and her work will be part of St. Kate's first Summer Chautauqua next month.  Running for 10 days (August 3-12), the Chautauqua will include 25 classes and events on a variety of topics.

Ade Bethune: Beyond the Catholic Worker will explore how Bethune's experiences with the Catholic Worker carried over into her work later on with many social justice concerns in her home of Newport, RI, including the Church Community Housing Corporation (CCHC), dedicated to safe and affordable housing for all, and Harbor House, a living community for elderly of mixed incomes. It will also look at how Bethune's emphasis on community played a role in her designs for Lumen Christi Church (including an optional "field trip" to the church, within walking distance of campus).

This class will be held Thursday, August 3rd, from 1-3pm.  For more information, or to register, see the Summer Chautauqua web site.

Ade Bethune & CCHC president Edna Mae Nelson
 at the July, 1977 Open House for the first
solar-powered house in Newport, RI.
The house was designed by Bethune and built by CCHC.