Work on WW I bell tower at St. James is underway, but help is needed
They were born in the late 1800s and their deaths came nearly a century ago, but Melissa Hall, the pastor of the Episcopal Church of St. James in Upper Montclair, wants them never to be forgotten.
Not only for who they were. But what they stood for. And what they represent.
The seven young men from the church neighborhood died during World War I and their framed pictures and biographies sit on a shelf next to Hall's desk. Equally prominent in her office are the seven pairs of military boots used to symbolize their deaths during the church's weekend-long Memorial Day remembrance.
"We have an obligation to remember these men, and other men and women, who died in war," Hall said. "If we don't put a face to it, war becomes an abstraction. And when war becomes an abstraction, when we forget the human beings who are dying and suffering, it becomes way too easy to go to war."
Hall then took it a step further, as compassionate, thinking people often do.
"And when war becomes an abstraction, peace becomes an abstraction, too."
That's a Bartlett's-worthy quote, and the essence of it has driven her passion to get the memorial bell tower on church grounds restored and ready for the next 100 years.
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The most visible homage to the men - and 91 others who fought in World War I and returned home -- is that 75-foot bell tower, which is connected to the church entrance. It was built in 1919, after the Armistice, not only as a memorial to the men who died but, as the plaque inscription says, as a "thanks offering for the return of those who served."
But despite the chimes of 13 bells that rang and resonated hourly for nearly a century over Upper Montclair's downtown the reason for the bell tower's existence became lost on many in the community. Decades of forgetting took hold.
When Hall was chosen to lead the St. James congregation three years ago, she found a tattered banner, with 91 blue stars and seven in gold, in a frame.
"I was new, just figuring out the building and cleaning up around the place, and I found it behind a couch," she said. "I knew it was obviously part of the church history and was important enough to save it. Then it hit me. The gold stars. It was connected to the bell tower."
She instituted the Memorial Day remembrance, draping a red banner from the tower to the church walkway, where the boots were placed, hauntingly empty.
A pair for Army Capt. George Stanley Butcher, killed in battle in France.
A pair for Marine Cpl. Richard W. P. Rose, a Princeton graduate, killed in battle in France.
One for Marine Aviation Lt. Chapin C. Barr, killed in an air battle in France and the posthumous recipient of the Navy Cross.
Another for Army Lt. Maurice P. Niven, killed in France two weeks before the Armistice.
Three others - Louis Frank Pfingstag, Howard Martin Cook Jr. and Edward Roehr - died of illnesses in faraway places.
Niven was 30. The rest were in their early 20s, except for Cook, who was 18.
"I wanted people to stop and think about these kids, and the holes it left in their families," Hall said.
Hall, 63, was ordained in 2003, after a career in nursing. But it was as a seminarian in 2001, when she saw firsthand the church's role in giving solace during a community catastrophe.
"After 9/11, people flooded this place," said Hall, who was training at St. James at the time. "The same thing happened after Sandy (while she was at St. Peter's in Morristown). We were the place where the lights were on.
"So church role isn't always about how many butts are in the seats on Sunday, but what it means to the community."
The "deeper theology" to community gathering, as Hall said, is reflected in Scripture.
" 'For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them,' " she quoted from Matthew 18:20. "So when they come here, they know they can find God in each other. They can look each other in the eye, and eye-to-eye; see that's where the incarnation of God is."
This philosophy is why she knew the tower was so important to the community when it was built. It was a symbol of collective grief and relief, in a small town impacted by war.
"Grief is love that has lost its home," she said.
The tower - with the names of the seven dead engraved on seven bells - gave it a home.
"This is not our tower," Hall said. "This was put up by the community."
But like any home, the tower needed maintenance. Over the years, water seeped into the masonry.
"The mortar began running out of it like sand," Hall said.
After a century of patchwork fixes, Hall knew a major renovation was needed to "keep it from falling down."
An anonymous donor kicked off the campaign with a $400,000 contribution to what is a $1 million job. It was enough to get started, and the tower is now covered by scaffolding and the bells have been quieted.
The inside of the tower smells musty, the wooden stairs are soft from moisture and there are significant fractures in the interior cement work.
Still, Hall and the congregation believe it's worth saving.
"And I don't like to think of it as a war memorial, but a peace memorial," she said. "If we continue to put faces to the names of the people we send off to war, maybe someday we'll stop sending them."
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Those interested in contributing to the restoration can send a check to "Bell Tower Fund," Attn.: Bettylou O'Dell, The Episcopal Church of St. James, 581 Valley Road, Montclair, N.J. 07043
Mark Di Ionno may be reached at mdiionno@starledger.com. Follow The Star-Ledger on Twitter @StarLedger and find us on Facebook.