John H. Sime

More than 100 years later, bell rings out meaning

JANUARY 1900 SAW the death of John Ruskin (Jan. 20), and the birth of Xavier Cugat (Jan. 1). The Boxer Rebellion began in China, and in Readstown, they discovered that a shipping clerk had screwed up:

“A bell arrived Monday for the new M.E. church, but by mistake of the shipping clerk, a smaller one than was ordered was sent. The company forwarded a notice of mistake, and ordered the bell returned, but the school board are thinking of purchasing it for the school house, the old bell being to (sic) small. It is a bell, and if we build a new school house in the spring it will be just what we need—it weighs 400 lbs.” (Readstown Herald, Jan. 11, 1900)

So the town had a new bell before it had a new school. A few months later a fine two-story brick edifice was constructed just north of today’s Peace Lutheran church (which sits on the former baseball field). When the brick school house was demolished in the 1970s, the bell was purchased by Ed Heal of Liberty. He installed it on his front lawn overlooking the Liberty Store, which he owned. After his death, the Heal family resolved to give the bell to the village of Readstown, and it was installed outside the new Village Hall in the 1990s.

Rodney Ewing and I were both part of the crew that helped move the bell to Readstown. When we finally got back to Readstown and had unloaded it, we could not resist pulling the clapper back and letting it go: “Late to school,” Ewing said. I was taken back in my mind to a warm, September morning in the late 1950s when I was riding my bike down the street to the school. Suddenly, still a block from the school, I heard the sound of the bell, and knew I was late, so I peddled rapidly enough down the street to make the school grounds just as the last vibration of the bell was still hanging in the air. After parking my bike I merged into the crowd of students still milling about the front door, learning to my surprise that although Authority says one thing the general population knows another.

But years later, the somewhat high-pitched tone of the school bell echoed back with the same words: “Late for school.” It was the sound of civilization—of Opal Carter, the first grade teacher, and Don Schmitz, the principal.

The initial plan for the bell in the 1990s was that it would be part of a structure in the Village Hall yard incorporating a roofed shelter for the bell and a lower compartment made of brick, which was meant to be an outside book drop for the village library. Beneath the bell and above the book drop was a layer of multicolored and stained slats which gave the project a definite flair. However, water percolated down between the slats and reached the books below, ruining some. This aspect of the project was forgotten, and now that the library has moved uptown near the bandstand and Bliss Memorial Park, the book slot is totally unused.

Now celebrating 110 years since it first arrived in Readstown, the bell sits, and occasionally rings, in front of the Readstown Village Hall.