Trinity Church in uptown Saint John. (Photo: Danielle McCreadie)
Every hour on the hour, and even more on holidays, uptown Saint John echoes with the sounds of the bells from Trinity Church.
Inside the steeple hangs 12 massive bells, all centuries old, and all controlled by one tiny piano, and one brave woman.
Every Sunday morning at 10:30, Janice Waldschutz climbs three flights of stairs, up to a dusty room with a small keyboard, and makes sure the bells ring out for the church service.
Waldschutz has been the ‘ringer of the bells’ since 1994, taking over the job of the previous ringer.
“I’m not a pianist by any means,” she admits. “I used to go up there with him and just saw really how easy it is. If you can read music, it’s a go.”
Three floors above Waldschutz’ little room are the bells themselves, in all their glory.
“If you go up there and they start to ring, you will go deaf,” she warns.
She says the bells as they are now were installed in 1882 and have been there ever since. The original bells burned in the great Saint John fire.
“That fire was so hot it actually melted them. I believe they’re in a big hunk in the basement,” she says.
Waldshutz ensures the bells have been very well taken care of over the years.
“We have some very, very amazing people who have looked after those bells for years and years and years, and it really is a one chance occupation. It’s just people who love the bells and how they work,” she says.
Technical Feat
Waldschutz explains that the bells that ring every hour in the city are rung automatically through a system she still doesn’t understand, but says involves ‘a lot of wires.’
She says the bells themselves don’t move, but the “clangers” inside do.
It’s those clangers that are connected to her keyboard, and allow her to play out any tune she so desires, so long as it’s not too difficult.
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- Janice Waldshutz has been “playing” the bells for 25 years and has no plans to stop yet. (Danielle McCreadie)
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- Where the magic happens. (Danielle McCreadie)
She says the bells have commemorated some monumental moments over the years.
“I’ve played those bells for the Queen’s Jubilee, I played them when William and Kate got married. On the millennium, 2000, I did come up at midnight with my husband, and I played Ode to Joy and Auld Lang Syne, just to prove to Saint John that the world had not come to an end,” she says.
“At Christmas-time when the Christmas hymns come on … it’s all hooked up automatically,” she explains, pointing to another dusty contraption full of sheet music for the carols.
‘Strange But Wonderful’
Over the past 25 years, Waldshutz has collected many fond memories of the bells.
“One time I went up there many years ago when it was really, really cold on a Sunday morning, and the most amazing thing was this great, big bell that weighs a ton was all covered in white frost,” she said. “It was just lovely.”
Wadlschutz says that morning, she did something you’re not supposed to do. She waited until the bells clanged, and watched the frost shimmer and shake off the bell.
Its a memory she holds dear; the majesty of the giant bells.
Waldschutz says hearing Trinity’s bells toll every hour is a staple in Saint John.
“It’s so nice just to hear those bells, hear them in the morning and hear them when it’s quiet and you’re walking down the street. It’s just such a good thing to know that ‘hey,’ look at that church, it’s still ringing.’ It’s just a lovely presence,” she says.
“If they stopped ringing, that would be such a terrible thing in the city. What a thing they would lose if that happened.”
Waldschutz says she hopes in her time they never do and promises that for as long as she can still climb those stairs, the bells will keep tolling away.
