January 22nd, 2023: The Bell
St. Matthias’ was officially founded as a mission of St. George’s, Place du Canada, in 1873, which means our community is 150 this year! For the next 12 months, we’ll be diving into the archives to shine the spotlight on particularly interesting parts of our history.
For the 1973 centennial year, St. Matthias’ hosted events and visiting dignitaries, installed a new organ (and rearranged the church’s insides), and made some gorgeous textile art. One of the parishioners took photos of all of these events and put them into an album, and, on the last page, she included this sketch by Bill Morrow, the father of several choir boys and our very own Heather.
The sketch shows a rather well-travelled piece of St. Matthias’ history: the bell of the original building, forged in 1858 by Jones & Coy in Troy, New York. The plaque on the bell reads: “This bell called to worship the parishioners of the first wooden church of St. Matthias’ from 1875 to 1912.” The 1962 parish inventory notes that “After ringing for 37 years at the old church, the bell cracked on the very day the new church was opened and it never rang again.” But between 1912 and 1962, where had the bell been?
By 1960, the bell had somehow found its way to the Lake Manitou cottage of one Eric. S. Bushell, the regional sales manager for the General Lines Division of General Steel Wares and son of former rector Edward Bushell (rector from 1890-1928). Eric was the logical choice to take the bell when it was decommissioned in 1912; he had been the ringer of the tubular bells and would go on to serve as choirmaster at St. Matthias’ from 1923-1927. In June of 1960, Eric and Colonel Harold Inns agreed to co-finance the removal of the bell by a company called Clark Transport, warning them in a letter that the bell needed to be handled with care as it was cracked. Bushell and Inns each contributed $24 to the church as well, for a memorial plaque to be installed on the bell. This donation only appears in the letters they exchanged, not in any of the parish records compiled by the Donations and Memorials Committee over the years, but the bell was installed on its current concrete base, plaque included, in October of 1960. Major William Morgan, who lived a few blocks away on Metcalfe, received the bell on behalf of the church.
In the folder with the correspondence related to the move, a rather curious note appears. Mrs. David MacFarlane (Lilian Evans) had written to the church sometime around 1960 to say that the original chimes – the tubular bells Eric Bushell had played - had been given by her father, Frederick W. Evans (People’s Warden 1885-1887; synod delegate 1899-1907) in memory of his mother, Mrs. William Evans. Parish records indicate that these bells, acquired in 1889 from the “Ice Palace,” were installed in memory of Mrs. William Evans in the new building in 1912, and were maintenanced and re-hung in 1960. However, parish records also indicate an alternate story – that the tubular bells were “given by Mrs. Fraser along with a sum of money sufficient to install them.” Who Mrs. Fraser was, and what her relationship might have been to the Evans family, is not recorded.
Lilian Evans also noted, in her correspondence with the church, that her grandmother had given the original bell (although she hastened to add, “am not sure so would not like to have this taken as a fact”). The 1962 inventory notes that “it is probable the bell was given by Frederick William Evans in memory of his mother, Mrs. William Evans,” rather than being given by the lady herself. Lilian Evan, like your humble historian, was “very much surprised that these things are not in the church records” in any clear and confident way.
