- In 1959, Edward Swiecicki and his brother knights of St. Josaphat Council # 4138 of the Knights of Columbus, first committed to assist Fr. Philip Ruh with the Lourdes Grotto project in Cook’s Creek, Manitoba. When Fr. Ruh was on his deathbed in 1962, members of the Council vowed to complete the Lourdes Grotto for him. Organized in work crews, the volunteers laboured for a decade, modeling the structure as much as possible upon the original shrine in Lourdes, France. The digitized material from the Edward Swiecicki fonds consists of correspondence between Edward Swiecicki and the Very Reverend Monsignor J. Marty regarding the completion of the Grotto in Cook's Creek, Manitoba following the death of the architect, Father Philip Ruh. A photograph of the Grotto in Lourdes, France is also included.
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Archives & Special Collections
Archives & Special Collections is a department of the Libraries and is located in Room 330 on the third floor of the Elizabeth Dafoe Library. Since its establishment in 1978, the Archives' mission has been to acquire, catalogue and preserve university records and special research collections which further the educational aims of the University of Manitoba, and to promote and provide wide access to them. The Archives' wide-ranging collection mandate includes the acquisition of the records of the University of Manitoba, Canadian Prairie Literary Manuscripts, the Archives of the Agricultural Experience and rare books in the areas of western Canadiana, early Arctic exploration, early Native language syllabics, spiritualism, church history and philosophy, and agriculture among others.