Deep in the recesses of the State Archive Preservation Facility (SAPF) on the east side of Madison, Brittany Strobel, the Wisconsin Veterans Museum Processing Archivist, has the privilege of preserving the significant events and innermost thoughts of some of our veterans.

The processing archivist has the official responsibility of the archival accessioning, processing, catalog maintenance, collection locations, and digitization of archival collections. This means that anything that is paper (diaries, letters, newspaper clippings, orders, photos, and scrapbooks), video, or audio materials that the museum adds to its collection, Strobel reads and reviews. She feels it is an honor to perform this work.

“Due to the innately personal nature of our collections, I become familiar with family news, new experiences for servicemembers, real-time accounts of romances, travel, and the realities of being far from home, often for the very first time. Processing collections gives me unique insight into the personalities of veterans and their families and can often feel like getting to know someone. It is a very personal thing to read someone’s innermost thoughts and secrets that they share with friends and family, and it is a real privilege to interact with the collections,” Strobel says.

While describing the work she has been doing full-time since 2016 can be technical and dry, the care and conscience behind Strobel’s work is evident in how she approaches her tasks. Strobel says, “I always give myself a few moments with each collection to appreciate how unique the story is, and how lucky I am to get to interact with the collection, summarize the stories and put records up online so people all over the world can find it.”

Strobel is often the person that family members speak with to learn about the service of their ancestors. Because of her intimate knowledge of the veteran’s collection, she can recount experiences the veteran may never have shared with their family. Those revelations often bring the family to tears, and that’s when Strobel knows she has done her job well.

Even though she spends much of her time in the past with other people’s papers, during her time out of the SAPF, she enjoys searching unique cookbooks for new recipes to try. She loves to cook the items she finds at farmers markets and specialty grocery stores.

When planning for stories in this publication, social media posts, traveling exhibits, window displays, gallery exhibits, and for many other information requests, Strobel’s work animates our core belief that Every Veteran Is a Story.

"Gatekeeper of Collections: This Is Brittany Strobel" was written by Jennifer Stevenson, Marketing Manager at the Wisconsin Veterans Museum. The article was first published in the Summer 2023 issue of The Bugle.