Presentation of the
California Mission Studies Association’s
 Norman Neuerburg Award, 2005
The Norman Neuerburg Award is awarded this year to two distinguished scholars Msgr. Francis J. Weber and Dr. Doyce Nunis.

2005 Neuerburg Award winners




    MSGR. WEBER has had a very long and distinguished career as one of California’s most prolific historians. He has written on many topics on California from 1769 onward. One of his latest publications is The Encyclopedia of California's Catholic Heritage published by the Arthur H. Clark Company. Bob Clark is one of our CMSA members and the publisher of the Boletín  [journal of the California Mission Studies Association]. But we are honoring Msgr. Weber for only a part of his monumental productivity– his work on the period of California which is the focus of the California Mission Studies Association.

    From a very early date, Msgr. Weber dealt with “Las Californias”. He knew that it was imperative to view the mission history of California as an inclusive history, that of  Alta and also Baja California. In 1968, as part of the Baja California Travel Series, he prepared “The missions and missionaries of Baja California: an historical perspective.” In 1979, he edited “The peninsular California missions, 1808-1880: a trinity of reports.”

    His series on the documentary history of the Alta California missions brings together a series of very hard-to-locate primary sources on the missions from their earliest days through the 19th and 20th centuries. This series is important and unique in what it makes available: For example, the volume on San Fernando  entitled The Mission in the Valley contains 55 entries on the saga of this mission [site of CMSA’s 2005 Annual Conference]. The entries are wide-ranging. There is a letter of Fr. Lasuén dated September 8, 1797 which describes the founding of the mission, a mission inventory from 1827, and description from 1894 by Charles Howard Shinn, entitled “San Fernando by Moonlight”. And not to be forgotten is a piece describing the opening of the Library in 1969– a ceremony at which the major address was given by none other than Doyce Nunis!

    Msgr. Weber is a man who wears many hats. Another of his major accomplishments is his work as an archivist in preserving and making available to researchers the story of early California. We have an excellent example of this in Craig Russell’s two-part article that appeared in the last two issues of the Boletín. The article is based on some extremely important discoveries on mission music–- discoveries that were made by researchers at the Archival Center.

    In the introduction to The Mission in the Valley, Msgr. Weber wrote: “History rarely stays written. This volume is meant as a source-book for future researchers. Its information-laden pages are envisioned as a ‘launching pad’ for subsequent studies.” I believe that part of Msgr. Weber’s legacy is the success he has had in preserving so many aspects of mission history, be they texts or artifacts, and in making them available to future researchers here at the Archival Center.

    Msgr. Weber– We truly are indebted to you.

Dr. DOYCE NUNIS, our co-winner, is also one of California’s most revered historians and he has also contributed much to our knowledge of the California to whose study and preservation our organization is dedicated.

    “Las Californias” has long been a very important part of Dr. Nunis’s focus. He was intimately involved in the Baja California Travel Series from its very inception–-indeed from its very conception! In addition to conceiving the series, he also contributed five important volumes to it–- including volumes on the Transit of Venus, the Drawings of Fr. Ignacio Tirsch and the letters of Fr. Jacobo Baegert.

    Dr. Nunis has been actively involved in the attempt to keep the Santa Barbara Mission Archive-Library–- the repository of some of the most significant documents and artifacts form the mission period–- alive and functioning so that it can continue to be open to researchers, to genealogists, and to the public. Dr. Nunis started the Santa Barbara Mission Archive-Library Board and also the Friends of the SBMAL and he is now actively involved in guiding the Archive-Library into its next phase, after the death of one of our CMSA members in May 2004, Fr. Virgilio Biasiol. Through the Archive-Library, Dr. Nunis was instrumental in bringing together the very important articles of Fr. Francis Guest that deal with the mission period and getting them published in one volume, Hispanic California Revisited.

    For 43 years, Dr. Nunis has edited the Southern California Quarterly. It is no exaggeration to say that this journal has published some of the most important articles that have helped us all to understand more about the mission period. The articles are too numerous to mention but they include Manuel Servín’s article on secularization, John Johnson’s work on the Indians of San Fernando, Jim Sandos’s article on the Chumash revolt. Richard Whitehead’s work on the presidios, and the important studies by Gloria Miranda and Gloria Ricci Lothrop on women and family life. And, those articles that I have just mentioned represent only the tip of the iceberg. It is not too much to say that under Dr. Nunis’s editorship, the Southern California Quarterly has published, page for page, the most significant work on the California mission era for the past 40 years.

    As you can see, it is most appropriate that we honor these two extraordinary individuals together, for they have worked together in the past.

    First of all, they both knew and worked with Norman Neuerburg and they will be telling us more about that tomorrow. In 1968, Ward Ritchie Press published Msgr. Weber’s “A bibliography of California bibliographies” and Doyce Nunis wrote the introduction to the volume. And in 1971, they both collaborated on the 70th birthday tribute to Fr. Maynard Geiger, which was published by the Friends of the Mission Archive-Library. The 1997 issue of the Southern California Quarterly entitled “Mission San Fernando: A Bicentennial Tribute” was edited by Doyce Nunis and includes a contribution by Msgr. Weber, as well as one by Norman Neuerburg.
 
    I could go on and on but I think that by now it is quite obvious why this year we are awarding two Norman Neuerburg Awards. On behalf of the members of the CMSA, it is a tremendous honor to bestow the 2005 Norman Neuerburg Award to Msgr. Francis J. Weber and Dr. Doyce Nunis.          -- Rose Marie Beebe.