Bringing a special gift back to Vermont with a little help from our friends.
Take a journey with us to 1989 to talk about the time Gregory Sanford, first Vermont State Archivist, couldn’t make it to his last New England Archivists meeting as President. This was the very same day that he welcomed a daughter into the world! Eva S. Moseley, NEA Vice President, President-elect, and Schlesinger Library Curator and Archivist (1970-1999), chaired the meeting in his absence. As a thank you, Gregory gifted Eva a blue mechanic’s shirt embroidered with, “Al’s Archives.” A card may have sufficed, but that was not Gregory’s style.
Fast forward to summer 2025 and Tanya Marshall, Vermont State Archivist, received an email from Eva offering to donate The Shirt to the Vermont State Archives and Records Administration (VSARA). The answer was an enthusiastic yes, but how to get it to VSARA? It seemed like a good opportunity to prolong the fun instead of merely sending it priority mail. Why not make a journey through New England and get some of our colleagues to help, fostering archival connections along the way?? Tanya asked Jane Cadwalader, Roving Archivist, to coordinate a relay of archivists to help transport The Shirt from Cambridge, Massachusetts to the D. Gregory Sanford Building in Middlesex, Vermont. All told, fourteen people helped relay The Shirt. Eva expressed her amusement in the journey.
After a bit of planning and some spreadsheets, we drew our route and began the trek to VSARA. On December 19, 2025, Ellen LeClere from Boston University met with Eva for the exchange. We had heard about The Shirt but were unprepared for the embroidery depicted in the first pictures! A skilled hand embellished “Al’s Archives” across the back in simple, curved script. The front left pocket flap has “Al*” across it, all in yellow floss. The blue button-down mechanics shirt has long sleeves and looked oversized when Eva modeled it.
At this point, you are probably asking what is “Al’s Archives? and what does it have to do with VSARA? Gregory Sanford began his work with the Vermont Secretary of State’s Office as the Editor of State Papers in 1982 and evolved the role to Vermont State Archivist in 1990. One of his many achievements was consolidating the Division of Public Records of the Department of Buildings and General Services under the Secretary of State’s Office in 2008 to create VSARA. During his 30-year career with the State of Vermont, Gregory often used the phrase “Al’s Archives” to inject fun into the work and to signify archivists are the mechanics of information. He occasionally answered his phone with this greeting too!
In total fourteen people–Eva, Ellen, Michael, Joe, Jeremy, Samuel, Kerry, Sarah-Jane, John, Rachel, Elizabeth, Gregory, Tanya, and Jane—volunteered to relay The Shirt over 373 miles west from the Boston area to Great Barrington, east to Easthampton, and north all the way to Hardwick and a bit of back tracking through the Northeast Kingdom and central Vermont! Some couriers attached mementos from their own repositories, adding them to The Shirt’s story. On October 27, 2026, The Shirt made its final journey from overlooking the Worcester Mountains near Plainfield to the statutory repository of state government records of Vermont. Tanya and Jane met with Gregory, collecting The Shirt and many stories of his time at VSARA. Now the story closes and we would like to thank the volunteers who carried The Shirt and a big thank you to Gregory for sending such a gift and Eva for keeping it for all these years, making this possible.
