By Charly SHELTON

In 1926, a La Crescenta couple donated a set of Deagan Company chimes to St. Luke’s of the Mountains church in honor of their son, Emory Watchorn. Emory was a WWI pilot who flew large, three-engine Caproni bombers from Italy to Austria on bombing raids. His path took him over the Alps and the open, unpressurized cockpits of the day meant freezing temperatures resulting in constant health problems. He left the war with medals for bravery but with damaged lungs, dying here in La Crescenta nearly two years after returning home from the war. His parents poured a considerable amount of money into remembrances for their son, among them the Deagan automatic chime system. The system ran for most of the 20th century, sounding the quarter-hour across the Crescenta Valley with its echoing brass tubes and steel pistons, hung a precarious 100-feet up in the bell tower of the church. But after 91 years, the chimes have seen better days.

“We want to make an effort to preserve what we have, our legacy, because these were dedicated to [Emory Watchorn]. These are the actual chimes that were dedicated at that time and we want to be faithful to that,” said the Rev. Kirby Smith, vicar at St. Luke’s, who is spearheading a fundraising campaign to refurbish the bells.

“A lot of the parts are the original parts and after so many decades they start wearing out. A lot of the technology has gotten better but we want to try to preserve what we have, which takes an extra amount of money. It would be really easy to rip them out and put in a digital set of chimes but that’s not what we want to do.”

The tubular brass chimes and fully automated ringing system look like something out of the mad scientist’s laboratory in the classic Universal Monster film “Frankenstein” – but this technology actually predates that film by five years. As can be expected, there are not many people today who know how to work with this old and intimidating equipment. There is one repair technician out of Tennessee who travels around the country on a two-year circuit to repair the roughly 100 remaining chime systems, down from the 1920s when there were 400 in the U.S. alone, with numerous others worldwide. Most of the funds raised by St. Luke’s will go to the repairs and replacement of parts as needed.

“Some of the solenoids need to be rewound with wire and [the technician] does that sort of thing. Some of the pistons over time just don’t slide as well as they need to. What we want to do is restore these chimes to the full working order so that they can become a part of the community again,” the Rev. Smith said.

The remaining money from the fundraiser will be used to set up a maintenance fund so that small repairs can be completed when needed, rather than waiting for another big overhaul. Maintenance is a way of life for keeping 91-year-old chimes ringing, and it is better than the alternative of replacing the physical chimes with a digital system, which can run anywhere from one-and-a-half to three times the cost of repair and maintenance, and would also change the sound.

“The tone would be different – the sound from digital is going to be different from a real chime because here there’s actually something striking the chime – it’s a big long pipe that makes the sound.

“Much like people nowadays are taking a look again at vinyl LPs because there’s a different kind of sound quality that one gets. This is aside from the nostalgia [factor],” the Rev. Smith said. “I think that there are so many things that we have lost over the past few years, not only old buildings, but lots of things. It’s something that I don’t think we would have – the same kind of quality and also the same meaning for people if you just put in the sound.”

The target amount for fundraising is $10,000. One member of the church who was passionate about restoring the chimes, Larry Stammers, passed away in 2015 and asked that, in his memory, donations be made to the chime renovation fund. The effort continues through a GoFundMe page, hoping to reach a wider audience than just the church “because the chimes are really a part of the community,” the Rev. Smith said. He added that from the historical society to the parishioners to the average resident, there is a major public connection to these chimes.

To donate to their cause, visit https://www.gofundme.com/chime-tower-at-st-lukes.

  Charly Shelton