CHANTICLEER at Elizabeth Rich Bell's Memorial Service ~ 27 March 1999

My Mother, Elizabeth Rich Bell, died only three days before her 87th birthday in early March, 1999. I was able to be with her at the end, which truly was a blessing. An even more visible act of grace was Chanticleer’s singing the choral prelude before my Mother’s memorial service in my hometown, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The odds of that occurring were so remote that I hadn’t even contemplated it. After all, Chanticleer sings all over the world. And in the two weeks before my Mother’s service, the group sang in Mexico, Texas, Florida and Connecticut.

Completely by chance, I discovered that Chanticleer was to sing a concert only fifteen miles from Harrisburg the night before my Mother’s service. That was after calling the organist at Grace United Methodist Church to arrange a rehearsal for the afternoon before the service. When I was twelve years old my Mother made me promise to sing at her funeral. That’s a heavy burden to place upon a twelve-year old; but I intended to honor her request as best I could. Ron Sider mentioned in passing that he couldn’t rehearse too late on Friday afternoon because he was hosting a party for Chanticleer that night after their concert at Messiah College, where he was a professor.

Immediately I began to consider the possibilities. First I called Andrew Morgan, who sang with me in the Schola Cantorum at the Shrine of Saint Francis here in San Francisco. Since Andrew worked at the Chanticleer office, I figured he might know the tour schedule. From home late on a Friday night he didn’t recall the exact flight information; but gave me Frank Albinder’s e-mail address. Oh, the miracle of modern technology. Saturday morning the week before the service I e-mailed Frank, who responded within minutes. He wrote me that he had passed my message on to artistic administrator, Philip Wilder, and Lori Harnes, tour manager. But he cautioned that time constraints would be extremely difficult.

On Monday morning Julie in the Chanticleer office was kind enough to give me the phone number of the motel where the group was staying in Hartford, Connecticut. I must have called the motel at least thirty times trying to reach Philip or Lori. As a good tour manager, Lori was making arrangements by phone. I even became friends with the woman at the front desk, after being assured I wasn’t becoming a pest. Eventually I got through and explained to Lori that I realized it would be logistically tight with an 11:00 service and a 12:25 flight about a half hour away from the church. But it wouldn’t be necessary for the group to stay for the entire service. Chanticleer could sing before the service as part of the prelude. Lori said she would talk to the guys and that a decision would be made by vote at their business meeting. And she would give me a call later that night after their concert.

Meanwhile I was completing the final draft for the order of service to be printed here with the expert assistance of my friend, Deborah Sweeney. I was beginning to think it wouldn’t work out. But at 10:30 Monday evening (which was 1:30 AM in Hartford) Lori called me at home to say the group had agreed to sing.

I reserved five parking meters especially for Chanticleer in front of the church. Full dress wouldn’t be appropriate for late morning anyway, so the guys wore dressy casual clothes as they would to a school. Despite their dress, I suggested they sing in front. But several of them asked to sing upstairs in the rear gallery. That was a wonderful idea.

Following a Brahms chorale prelude “Herzliebster Jesu” -- at exactly seven minutes to the hour-- from the rear balcony of Grace Church below a marvelous Tiffany window of the Ascension, Chanticleer sang Franz Biebl’s “Ave Maria.”

Then quietly--unobtrusively--they descended the back steps and drove to Harrisburg/ Middletown Airport in view of Three Mile Island and made their return flight to San Francisco.

I had meditated during the Biebl by trying to control my breathing. Under even ordinary circumstances, tears well up in me at the beginning of the "Sancta Maria." I did my best to compartmentalize; for I had to sing in just a few minutes. Cynthia played “Meditation” by Massenet on her violin as Mother had requested. Then after two psalms read by my niece Morgan and nephew Matthew, I sang Gounod’s “Repentance” as Mother had made me promise when I was twelve. I got through the recitative. But when I started the main theme “Oh, Divine Redeemer,” I began to sound like Alfalfa in “The Little Rascals.” I didn’t stop singing. But there was a quiver in my voice I had never experienced before.

Chanticleer had sung the Biebl at Louis Botto’s funeral service at St. Dominic’s. That was a powerfully emotional occasion--only days before Louis’ birthday. Joseph Jennings demonstrated then what I experienced internally at my Mother’s service.

When Chanticleer undertook its second national tour, we sang at the Forum in Harrisburg. Afterwards my parents had a reception for us and Mother baked a surprise hazelnut cake for Louis’ 31st birthday on March 3, 1982.

My family and I will always be grateful to Chanticleer for playing such a significant part at my Mother’s memorial service.

ELIZABETH RICH & SHERIDAN WATSON BELL, JR. ~ September 1, 1937 ~ 77th Anniversary!

My Mother and Dad met by accident. It was Leap Year 1936. Mother was in her final year at Yale School of Nursing. She had wanted to be a medical doctor; but her Father had insisted she earn a nursing degree first. That, of course, was a mistake. It’s a fork in the road. Once you’re a nurse, you don’t become a doctor: it’s like the chasm between workers and management. And Mother had gone away to boarding school at the age of twelve. By then she was tired of school. I don’t think Mother ever intended to get married. She was a real MHT – Mount Holyoke Type. They were among the first women libbers.

Mother had originally wanted to go to Wellesley, and was accepted. But one of her friends at National Cathedral School, where she took a year’s post-grad after Dickinson Seminary, had had her heart set on Wellesley and was on the waiting list. So Mother turned Wellesley down. Her friend was accepted. Mother hoped that her sacrifice had played a part. Her friend never knew. This story played a part in my psyche and own saga with Stan and the Whiffs. In my case, it was a futile gesture, since Stan had already been selected to be tapped. But I hadn’t known. (See my post on 9/29/08.)

Anyway back to 1936. Mother’s roommate asked her to join her on a double date with two Divinity students. Mother really wasn’t interested. Her roommate persisted and persuaded her to go since the younger Divinity student was engaged. Mother had first choice. By selecting the already engaged, younger man, presumably she’d never see him again. Dad had worked a few years as a social worker in Boston before finally deciding to become a minister. And even at the end of his life, at 73, Sherry had something of a baby face. Dad’s classmate had a moustache, which made him look older. So Mother mistakenly chose the younger looking man, who was not engaged.

Elizabeth and Sheridan really didn’t know each other. When they were married on September 1, 1937, they had spent less than an entire week together. And they hadn’t written very often. Mother graduated from Yale School of Nursing in 1936. She taught Chemistry at National Cathedral School in Washington the following year, while Dad finished up his studies at Yale Divinity School.

According to Dad, Mother called the shots. She wrote him to determine his intentions. Perhaps her Father was exerting some pressure for her to get married. They agreed to meet half way in New York City. Dad said he got on the train in New Haven without knowing exactly what he was going to do. They met at the Hotel Pennsylvania. He proposed and she accepted. But they still didn’t know each other.

In many ways Elizabeth was a catch. Her Father was a successful businessman in the middle of the Great Depression and a Congressman to boot. It would clearly be an abuse of power today—perhaps, it wasn’t considered such then— but Grandfather Rich had three of his prospective sons-in-law investigated by the FBI; so if Sheridan W. Bell, Jr. had had any significant skeletons in his closet, they should have been uncovered then. Anyway, it was very useful for a Methodist minister to have a wife. (I later learned from Aunt Julie that Uncle Charlie had been exempted from the background check because his father had gone to Dickinson College, which Baba attended, but from which he did not graduate. Evidently Baba felt that the Dickinson connection was a good enough reference.)

Sherry visited Betty once in Washington. It was near the end of her year teaching Chemistry. Daddy said it was the messiest lab he had ever seen. That should have been a sign. After they had been married a few months, Grandma Da took Dad aside and quietly suggested that Elizabeth might need some help with housekeeping.

I understand that Grandfather Bell died within the year of my parents' wedding. So I suppose none of us at the Bell Reunion in 1994, besides Aunt Claora, had had the opportunity to get to know him well. Just before that reunion I heard a story from Mother, I think, about Grandfather Bell at my parents wedding in 1937. He was, of course, the Minister. On the day of the wedding he got up early and thought he would play a trick (or perhaps conduct a test) on one of my Mother’s relatives, who was helping to prepare the pre-wedding buffet. Grandfather Bell went to the back door and said he was a stranger in need of some food. Remember this was still the Great Depression. Mother’s Aunt said something like: " I can’t possibly help you. I’m having over a hundred people to breakfast this morning."

Can you imagine her chagrin when she went to the wedding and realized she had turned away the Minister and father of the groom! With today’s increasing tragedy of homelessness, it’s important to remember the saying of one tradition that you never know which stranger is an Angel. In words attributed to Christ: "If you do it to the least of these my brethren, you do it unto me." Enough pontificating! But it sounds as though Grandfather Bell had a terrific sense of humor. I know his son, my Dad, certainly did.

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Two years later on my parents' second wedding anniversary, Adolf Hitler began the invasion of Poland and ignited the Second World War.

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On this day in 1715, Louis XIV of France departed this life at the age of 77 after a reign of seventy-two years, three months and eighteen days, the longest documented reign of any European monarch to date.

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The wedding photo above was taken in front of Mother's home in Woolrich.