They heard the bell on Christmas Day
The Angelus announced the Incarnation with a new and yet familiar voice on Christmas Day 2003 at The Canticle. For the first time, the old bell, given to the congregation in 1902, rang out The Angelus from the new bell tower erected in front of The Canticle just a week before on Thursday, December 18, 2003, a cold and windy day with snow swirling about.
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Sisters gathered in the dining room had difficulty hearing the bell because the building is so tightly sealed, but the following day the front door was held open and Yvonne Gehant OSF led the prayer as the bell rang out the good news of Incarnation. The Canticle bell tower has been a long time in coming. Joan Theiss OSF and Teresa Kunkel OSF traveled throughout the Midwest, visiting convents, monasteries and churches, looking for a design that would suit the small space in front of the building. "We looked at lots of towers," Joan recalled, "and gathered ideas from family and friends." |
She took rough sketches of a metal tower to Jim Sandry of The Schebler Company in Bettendorf to see if they could make such a structure. Sandry worked with the firm's architect to produce the final design.
"The tower matches as closely as possible the steel framework of the front porch of The Canticle," Joan explained. "Jim (Sandry) worked with us to achieve the look and feel we wanted. The design is simple and open. The round tower reflects the rounded entryway to the Canticle, and the structure includes benches for seating."
The tower is capped with a cut out of the Tau Cross that is the logo of the Clinton Franciscans.
Setting the tower in place on a foundation poured earlier this month took nearly all day.
The project began at The Franciscan University of the Prairies (now Ashford University) early in the morning. Shebler employees Kerry Krebbs and Jim Runge, both of Clinton, worked with a crane operator to remove the bell that has hung in the University bell tower above St. Francis Hall since 1960.
The bell was donated to the Sisters in 1902 by James Barry of Clinton, in memory of his mother, Mrs. Mary Barry. Originally it hung at the old Corbin house and the novices rang it to announce The Angelus. It is inscribed "Nov. 28, 1902." It was cast by the E. W. Vanduzen Company, Cincinnati, Ohio, for the Buckeye Bell Foundation.
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Click to Enlarge Getting the new bell tower to the Canticle was no easy task. The crane operator was the most critical component of the project. |
The bell was taken down when the original Corbin house was torn down to make way for the new Mount St. Clare Convent and Academy, and down it stayed until 1958. According to records found in the Treasurer's office, when Dane Morgan, architect for the expansion buildings at Mount St. Clare College, suggested hanging a bell in a mission style tower above the library-gymnasium, the sisters planned to use a bell recently donated to them by the Gannon family of Petersville, Ia. It is reported that when an employee, Casimir, one of the Polish immigrants who lived at MSC, was asked to bring the new bell, "he asked in surprise, 'Two bells, Sister?" Casimir produced the original convent bell, buried under accumulations of half a century in the old coal room of the powerhouse. |
The bell was shipped to the Verdin Bell Company, successor to the Vanduzen Company, in Cincinnati, for refinishing. According to the records, "Experts who worked on the aged bell claim it is a good one, of the type generally used in churches."
The history goes on to note: "The bell rang for the first time in its new location at Midnight on January 1, 1960. It was the Sisters' way of saying 'Happy New Year' to the people of Clinton, and the bell's way of saying, 'I'm glad to be back!'"
Now Mrs. Barry's bell is back home, ringing The Angelus for the sisters, again.
