A man, a parish, heavenly intervention, a community and a bell
Story Paul South
Photos by Sam Marston
and Graham Hadley
If Zuzu Bailey’s line in the 1946 holiday film classic, It’s A Wonderful Life is true – that “Every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings,” a small Catholic Church in Cropwell helps get a heavenly squadron cleared for takeoff every day.
Our Lady of the Lake Catholic Church’s 750-pound bell has become not only part of a parish, but of a community. It’s much more than heavy metal.
It’s a ringing result of one man’s idea, the support of his priest and parish and a heaping helping of Divine Providence.
Just ask Sam Marston.
It may have been 2017 when Marston, a 76-year-old retired airport food service manager, got the idea for the bell at Our Lady of the Lake Catholic Church.
“The church didn’t have a bell tower, and I like bell towers,” he says.
After meeting with the then-priest at Our Lady of the Lake, Marston pledged seed money from his 401k for the bell and its tower.
But until 2019, thoughts of the bell fell silent. The former priest retired. And what’s more, Marston’s wife, Glenda, was battling cancer.
In 2019, buoyed by an enthusiastic response from new OLL priest, the Rev. Bill Lucas, Marston began to reach out to churches in Philadelphia and Washington, looking for bells from closed parishes.
None were found. Then, he discovered Bell Castings, a firm in Loudon, Tenn., and its owner, Todd Lower.
The church found its bell – a 1934 model crafted by the Missouri-based McShane Company – in a roomful of ringers. Founded in 1856, McShane is America’s oldest church bell company.
The parish began a fundraising effort. While Marston’s pledge, funded by a government required minimum distribution was financial, both Marston and Lucas believe a higher power was at work.
“It had to be something Divine,” Marston says. “I couldn’t have come up with this. It was just something that came together. My whole thought process was to do something really, really special with this donation.
Marston, a cradle Catholic, had always loved bells. “It makes the whole church experience rich. Ringing before Mass and after Mass is like a celebration.”
Initially, donations for the belltower project came at a trickle. Rev. Lucas was not optimistic.
“We set a budget that was much higher than what we had before … So I said, we’ll leave it to the parish and if people give enough money, we’ll build the bell. But I didn’t think there was any way we would ever get to the level we needed to get to build the belltower.”
Marston confessed to doubt as well. “When the money stopped coming in, yes I did have doubts,” he says. “I tried to put it out of my mind, but I’d go out and see the bell sitting on the ground.”
Then, after one Sunday Mass, came a miracle. A donor wishing anonymity quietly handed Lucas a check for the majority of the needed funds.
“All of a sudden, there we were,” Lucas says. “We had the money for the project. Some people would say we got lucky,” he adds. “But I prefer to say Divine Providence.”
He adds, “If you believe in Divine Providence, the whole story of our parish is that way … You can see it at work. But it’s certainly true of the bell.”
Marston agrees. “I really do think it was Divine intervention, because there were so many things that could have stopped it.”
Through friend Carl Wallace, Marston connected with structural engineer Bob Barnett, and Barnett foundBirmingham architect TimLucy who had done work for other Catholic parishes in the past. It seemed a match made in heaven.
The link to Barnett came in true Logan Martin style, when Marston and Wallace discussed the bell project over glasses of wine during a sunset pontoon cruise.
“(Sam) was willing to make the financial commitment, but he just didn’t know how to take the next step,” Wallace, author of the popular Facebook blog, “Lake Ramblings”, says. “I’m an engineer, and I just happened to know Bob Barnett who lives on the lake … and has his own structural engineering company. My simple part was, ‘Sam, let me get you in contact with Bob Barnett and get y’all hooked up.’ And Bob jumped all over it. He hooked up Sam with the architect. He had worked with (architect Lucy) on Catholic projects before.”
Ground broke on the bell tower on Nov. 9, 2021. But it was not an easy rise to the heavens. Soft St. Clair County soil required digging deeper and reinforcing the foundation with concrete. The bell, gleaming gold against a bright blue winter sky, was raised on Jan 13, 2022.
“You talk about exciting,” Marston recalls.
The electronically programmed bell rings every hour on the hour between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m., as well as five minutes before and at the end of each Mass and at funerals. The bell, Lucas says, has impacted the parish in a positive way.
“It’s made people more reverent,” Lucas says, “because when the bell rings, then you focus on the Mass. You focus on prayer and worship. Just like during the Consecration when we ring the bells, it’s a reminder to people where we are and what we’re doing.”
Lucas adds, “I didn’t really understand that when we were going through the project. But since we’ve had it, it’s opened my mind to the benefit of having the bell and helping people’s faith.
In a small way, Wallace says, the bell project has enriched life on the Cropwell end of the lake, especially as the tower was under construction.
“It’s almost the anticipation of it was greater than the final project,” Wallace says. “It’s not real loud. You can only hear it if you’re in the area. People see it when they drive by. It has become an instant landmark, maybe more so than the church itself.”
There’s something more at work here.
“The tradition of it, I think, is noteworthy,” Wallace says. “A church bell ringing is a great thing.”
The bell is a reminder of faith for people, regardless of their spiritual persuasion, Lucas says.
“Sometimes they’re Catholic, sometimes they’re just believers. They hear the bell, and it reminds them of that,” Lucas says. “This is a very religion-friendly area, and I think the bell speaks not just to Catholics, but to everyone of faith. It gives them a reminder that God is there and to take Him more seriously.”
While Marston was the driving human force, the community, priest and parish all played a part.
“It was a relay, and there were a lot of runners,” Wallace says. “It’s a very interesting thing that just happened to happen to happen.”
While at this point, folks in Cropwell may be unsure about Hollywood’s Zuzu Bailey theory on angel wings and chiming bells, the feeling Sam Marston gets with every clang is crystal clear:
“Joy,” he says.
At the end of the day, the story of the Our Lady of the Lake belltower transcends one man’s dream, or money, a bell or bricks and mortar, Lucas says. “I think it does come back to that Divine Providence. If we’re open to that, and we’re willing to be molded by that, then God can use that for His glory and the building up of the Church and building up of faith, if we’re open to it.”
And in what some may see as another ring of Divine Providence, the bell chimed for the first time on Feb. 1, 2022.
It was Sam Marston’s 75th birthday.
