Surprises from the Archives

January 16, 2025

A little over a year ago I sat in my office working when my coworker, archivist Barbara Quigley, appeared in my doorway. In her hand, she held several 5×7 photographs. She asked, “Do you know someone named Janice Steimel?”  For a moment, my answer was no. I didn’t know Janice Steimel.  And then it dawned on me that yes, in fact, I did. She was my Mamaw, though I’d never known her by that name.

Barbara laid the photographs on my desk, and I was shocked! In these black and white portraits my Mamaw, who looked to be in her mid-twenties, was sitting with her hands in her lap. Her blonde hair was perfectly teased in an updo. In some of the portraits, she smiled showing her teeth and in others, she smiled softly. She was wearing a white long-sleeved collared shirt layered underneath a plaid dress and a dark scarf. She looked beautiful.  Tears instantly sprang to my eyes. My Mamaw had passed away only months before. After we composed ourselves, Barbara informed me that she found these photographs in a collection she was processing. They were taken by photographer Stephen Pefley, though she wasn’t sure for what reason.

Portrait of Janice Steimel, circa 1970. Indiana Historical Society, P0864.

For as many questions as Barbara had for me, I had for her. Barbara was interested in where my Mamaw was working at the time, and why and when the photograph may have been taken. I, too, was curious to know how pictures of my Mamaw made their way into the collection.  I’d never seen these photographs before so I couldn’t provide any answers.  I wondered if my family could help.

These photographs represented a bit of a mystery period in my Mamaw’s life. She hadn’t yet met my Papaw, her husband, and her sons (my father and uncle) were too young to remember much of this period.

I returned to Barbara empty-handed. However, Barbara had more information to share with me. She discovered two articles from digitized newspapers that show my Mamaw and provide context for her work at the time. She worked as a travel hostess in the Division of Tourism of the State Department of Commerce. It seems Stephen Pefley was hired to take photographs of government employees.

It felt serendipitous that Barbara processed this collection while I was working just down the hall from her. Of all the collections waiting to be processed, how is it that Barbara selected this collection only a few months after my Mamaw’s passing? The timing of this all felt a bit kismet.  After all, Barbara had been working as an archivist at the IHS for decades, and I had been working here only a few years.

Author and her Mamaw, May 2022. Author’s collection.

Now my Mamaw is immortalized in IHS’s archives, only a floor above my office.

Regan Alveal is the Reference Librarian at the Indiana Historical Society and in her free time she enjoys reading and spending time with her family and friends.

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