Let’s keep the Capac school bell where it is now. It was erected in 1957, the year of Capac’s Centennial, in front the old “Capac Middle School” as I knew it. For others, it was the only Capac School. Some still remember bringing in their stone for the construction of the structure to hold the bell. My husband, Jim Schwartzkopf, was one of those kids. He would say, “I remember when that was built there.”
The school bell has history where it stands today. I’m sure people remember being a “walker” and passing it. My bus was parked in front of it. Every day I would see it out the bus window. Some probably remember saying, “Meet me in front of the bell!”
The crew who will be hired to attempt to move it intact, do they have a memory of going to that school and seeing the bell and its stone structure? Have they heard a family member or member of the Capac community talk of bringing in “their stone” for the purpose of holding the school bell?
That bell and the building go together.
Some of the building’s new owners have long-standing names in Capac. I wonder if their ancestors brought in a stone that day? I would think and hope they would say, “Leave the bell where it is.”
Everybody hopes it can be moved intact. Do you think after 64 years that can be done? And if it had to be reconstructed, it wouldn’t look the same.
Why attempt to move it to current school property just because it’s the “school bell?” Everyone who attended that school building knows the bell is part of the history of the building. Maybe a senior who makes that building their home will be someone who has a memory of the school bell where it stands today. Leave it alone. It’s kind of like leaving the Kennedy assassination alone until nobody is around to have a memory of it. Today’s society is all about re-naming history.
—Bonnie S. Schwartzkopf, Capac Class of 1976
—Mary Schwartzkopf, Capac Class of 1957
