Great bell story. Dad was Hannibal Division Supt. the year of the Great
Flood (can't remember the exact year - maybe 1959?) and I remember the name
Harvey Niemeyer. A fellow Group member who is presently silent (like I was)
has contacted me off-line to reconnect. He and I were school friends in Hannibal
and his father was chief clerk to the master mechanic at the time. My friend
said he would be posting some of his Q memories at an early date and I look
forward to seeing them. At the time we lived in Hannibal, the roundhouse,
portions of the backshop and turntable were still intact. I recently saw an
image taken from Lovers Leap and there's nothing left but a big green field with
the BNSF mainline to St. Louis running alongside the river. Dad's office
was in an ancient coal smoke blackened two story brick building that, as I
recall, even he complained of as being "dirty." I'm glad you brought-up the
subject of the Ladies Auxiliary as this organization is all but forgotten today,
but did so much for the railroad communities they served so long ago. Dad was
always interested in Q history and I remember he would take my mom,
brother and me on Sunday drives to show us where the original H&SJ roadbed
was in the weeds - Louis
In a message dated 1/29/2013 7:40:20 P.M. Central Standard Time,
klinerarch@charter.net writes:
Louis
and Pete and group, Here is my bell story which was told to me
by an old engineer who is no longer with us, but his bell is and I
have that information stored in my treasure chest for a future
transaction. Let me start from the beginning, every fall the
Ladies
Auxiliary of the Locomotive Engineers and Firemen lodge here
in
Hannibal would set up a food stand for the Fall Festival
celebration
and each year they would go down to the round house and
talk the
master mechanic out of a brass engine bell to ring at their
food
stand. After the festival they would tear down their
stand and store
the lumber plus haul the bell back to the round
house. This went on
for several years until the master
mechanic finally told the ladies to
keep the d___ bell because of
all the trouble it caused him. So they
put the bell and the
lumber in the barn of one of the engineers and
after a few more
years the Fall Festivals died off and the bell and
lumber languished
a few years gathering dust in the barn. That is
until my
friend had his wife make an offer for the used lumber at a
lodge
meeting and bought it for $50. When he drove out to the barn to
gather his buy, on a day the other engineer was working out of town,
he picked up more than wood. You guessed it, he loaded up the
bell
too. Boy did the sparks fly when the barn owner got wind
of this.
But my friend had a bill of sale and I don't think
those two ever
spoke again. He mounted it on a post in his
back yard and after he
passed away his daughter moved the bell to
her home in Springfield,
Ill. As I recall, the master
mechanic's name was Harvey
Niemeyer.
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