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Bell tower strikes note of togetherness

(published in The Bend Bulletin - July 7, 1995)

By Judy Polumbaum - Bulletin Staff Writer

An Oregon-built bell tower soon will be on its way to the tiny town of Kiron in western Iowa. The trip is about 1,600 miles, but that's nothing compared to the journey the tower commemorates: a voyage made by Swedish emigrants who settled Kiron more than a century ago.

Designed in Bend by a descendant of those emigrants and built by Earthwood Homes in Sisters using traditional mortise-and-tenon joinery techniques, with a cupola and other finishing touches to be added in Iowa, the structure is a smaller version of bell towers still found all over Sweden and elsewhere in Scandinavia.

The project represents one family's efforts to strengthen ties between members who left Iowa for such far-flung places as Nebraska, Oregon and California and those who remained in Kiron. It also represents a gift for a church that lost its original bell tower to a lightning fire, and a contribution to a community that retains a strong sense of ethnic
identity.

Nearly a ton and a half of timber, recycled from a warehouse in Pendleton, have gone into the main structure. The beams will be disassembled and trucked to Iowa later this summer for reassembly at a spot beside Kiron's Bethany Lutheran Church. The original church building, housing a bell, burned to the ground in a 1960 lightning fire that incinerated the steeple and turned the bell to molten metal. The church was rebuilt as a
simple brick building with no bell tower, although an electronic carillon was later mounted
on the roof. After the Swedish-style tower arrives and its top is finished and enclosed, the carillon will be moved there.

For designer Bruce Rosenquist of Bend, who worked closely with Earthwood proprietor Kris Calvin on plans for the tower, the project builds on professional and personal interests.

Rosenquist came to Oregon from Iowa as a sixth-grader, along with his sister Betsy, who now lives in Omaha, Neb., and their parents, Charles and Eleanor Rosenquist of Pendleton. Charles, Bruce and Betsy all were baptized at the church where the bell tower will be placed. Bruce Rosenquist's grandmother, Selma Emelia Danielson Rosenquist, who is now in a nursing home but still has a house in Kiron, turned 96 on the Fourth of July.

The Rosenquist and Danielson families are footing the project cost, which will amount to about $11,000, Bruce Rosenquist said. Earthwood's part accounts for about two-thirds of the expense. "We gave them a heck of a deal, because we were very interested in the project," said Kris Calvin.

Free-standing bell towers in Scandinavia originated to accompany churches and public buildings whose structures could not support roof towers. The earliest were built in the 11th century, but most existing ones date from the 16th and 17th centuries.

The issue of historical accuracy was a major challenge for the builders here. "Basically, the decision was to try to reasonably historically honest in terms of overall scale and visual appeal," Calvin said. However, many details are not precisely the same as Swedish originals. The plans also incorporate tornado-resistant features appropriate to the Midwestern locale, including a poured concrete foundation. Construction of the replica owes much to an inportant5 Swedish connection — Ulf Sterler, a friend of Calvin's family who provided background information and detailed photographs. Calvin estimates that the tower's 30 or so main components will take two days to reassemble at the Iowa site, and he has prepared a six-page instructional brochure to guide the process. Bruce, Betsy, Charles and Eleanor Rosenquist all plan to be in Kiron next month for the occasion.

"It's like a puzzle, putting that thing together," noted Charles Rosenquist, a retired school psychologist. "It's very precise."