Trustees climb the wooden steps to the bell tower of Union Chapel in the Grove to ring the antique bell, welcoming everyone to pray on Sunday mornings. Even though the tower is as hot as an attic, the sound of the bell still resonates into the leafy grove beyond.
Ed Hydeman is a Union Chapel trustee who has performed this duty for the last two years. He pulls the blue and white rope several times before the bell begins to chime.
“The challenge,” he says, “is to produce a consistent tolling. It requires a considerable amount of strength to get the bell started and then a measured force to continue its ringing.”
The bell is housed far above, not visible, requiring a climb on a second ladder into a space that is not for the faint of heart. Only Jay Sterling dared.
There’s a tradition in the way the bell is rung on these mornings. Eugene Luntey, a longtime trustee, lays out the protocol: “10 loud clangs at 10:20. Then at 10:30, 10 loud clangs after the organ prelude as the signal for the presider to start the service.”
Despite its antiquity, he urges a full-out effort. “Bells are made to be rung. You will not break the bell. It is designed to ring loudly.”
Cast by McShane Bell Foundry in Baltimore, Maryland — “America’s Bell Specialist since 1856” — the 1,000-pound bell was forged in 1890 and is rung by swinging it on its axle causing the hanging clapper to strike against the moving bell. The chapel’s bell is unusual, however, because it has dual-ringing clappers, including a “tolling” clapper, activated by a separate white rope, that swings against the stationary bell to give a single mournful tone.
You can hear the bell’s solemn peals in the grove, adding a sacredness to the gathering.
Memorial Sundays and other summer traditions
Services at Union Chapel, always 10:30 AM on Sundays, moved outside this summer to protect the health of the congregation, and will remain outdoors for the rest of the summer, weather permitting. Social distancing and face coverings are required.
The service on July 26 will be the last informal one and features guest musician Sara Mundy.
During August, Union Chapel returns to its more traditional format of guest preachers and speakers from different faiths. There will be three Memorial Sundays devoted to remembering Island residents who passed away during the year. The bell will toll on August 2 for members of the Shelter Island Heights Property Owners Corporation who have died; on August 9 for Garden Club members, and on August 16 for Yacht Club members.
Back in 2011, when the funeral procession for former Governor Hugh Carey made its way from the North Ferry to Our Lady of the Isle Church, the Union Chapel bell tolled.
Memorial Day observances were cancelled this year due to COVID-19, so Jay Sterling rang the bell exactly at 10 AM, joining the other church bells and sirens to remember our fallen soldiers.
Union Chapel’s bell rings for the dead and the living, for those we remember and for everyone who is fortunate to hear it.
For whom the bell tolls
Long before Ernest Hemingway borrowed the phrase, poet John Donne, in 1624, crafted it as the final line and title of a poem, “For Whom the Bell Tolls.” It’s especially fitting for an interfaith chapel on an island:
No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thine own
Or of thine friend’s were.
Each man’s death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.
Hanging high above Union Chapel, a massive bell forged in a foundry in 1890 chimes every Sunday summer morning, a piece of history that continues today, calling the faithful to rise and pray together in a leafy grove.
Visit the chapel website at unionchapelinthegrove.org. Follow Union Chapel on Facebook and Instagram.
JoAnn Kirkland is an assistant to the trustees of Union Chapel in the Grove.
