It’s not every day a mysterious piece of diocesan history is parked at your door, but that’s exactly what happened June 18 when Patrick Sweeney, facilities manager for St. John Center in Little Rock arrived at work.
“They called and told me it was coming by truck,” he said, as he flipped a switch in a large storage room.
As the overhead lights blinked to life, “it” revealed itself in the center of the room — a brass bell weighing an estimated 600 pounds on its original stand.
The casting on the front of the 1885-vintage bell bears the name of the manufacturer, Henry McShane & Company, a Baltimore foundry established in 1856 by its Irish immigrant namesake.
Retired Msgr. John O’Donnell has vivid memories of the bell, from his days at St. John Seminary beginning in 1946. (After the seminary closed in 1967, the campus was renamed St. John Center and became the offices for the bishop and diocesan programs).
“It sat on the ground behind Byrne Hall, or what we called the refectory,” Msgr. O’Donnell said, adding the bell was rung only infrequently. For a time, attempts were made to incorporate ringing the bell with praying the Angelus, an idea which didn’t work well.
“The bell was just so loud,” Msgr. O’Donnell said. “That was back in the day when we had 40 acres out here and you could hear it from just about anywhere.”
The one occasion when the bell was allowed to really roar was the night before seminarians left for home on Christmas break. During an evening program, the resident Benedictine nuns would yodel and sing the Swiss carols of their order’s homeland. Students would sing carols in English and then, “we’d really ring the hell out of that bell,” Msgr. O’Donnell said.
Closer inspection of the artifact reveals some interesting characteristics, such as a tolling hammer, activated by use of a separate rope. Unlike the internal clapper that rings the bell in a pealing sound as it swings back and forth in a church belfry, the tolling hammer struck the bell at rest. In this way, the bell could be individually tolled, such as during a funeral Mass or memorial service.
The company’s 1900 catalog, part of the early Americana collection in the Library of Congress, suggests the bell may have originally been outfitted with a large flywheel on one side of the stand, although that particular feature is missing.
Fate seems to have long ago decided that Msgr. O’Donnell and the bell would be linked for the long haul. Following his ordination in 1954, he remembers being tasked with finding a new home for it, having become little more than a conversation piece on the grounds.
By 1969, Msgr. O’Donnell was assigned pastor of three southeast Arkansas parishes and the bell went with him. Originally bound for St. Luke Church in Warren, it proved too big for the belfry.
Finally, St. Luke parishioner Kathy Steplock bought the bell. According to Msgr. O’Donnell, the bell remained on the Steplock property outside Warren until some time after 1972 when the family moved to Casper, Wyo., and took the bell with them.
Msgr. O’Donnell was curious enough about the bell to pick up the phone and speak to a member of the family about the possibility of the bell being returned to Arkansas.
“I called and asked them whatever happened to it and they said it was just sitting there and no one was using it,” he said.
The final chapter in the bell’s homecoming is yet to be written. Msgr. O’Donnell admits that not everyone may share his fascination with the antique, but said he thinks it would be nice if a suitable home could be found for this historical piece. He said he had yet to speak with Bishop Anthony B. Taylor about it and the ultimate decision is his.
“Maybe they’ll just melt it down into silver bullets,” Msgr. O’Donnell joked.
