{"id":2642,"date":"2025-07-04T13:54:53","date_gmt":"2025-07-04T13:54:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/goodstuffconnections.com\/?p=2642"},"modified":"2025-07-04T13:54:53","modified_gmt":"2025-07-04T13:54:53","slug":"the-carillon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/goodstuffconnections.com\/index.php\/2025\/07\/04\/the-carillon\/","title":{"rendered":"The Carillon"},"content":{"rendered":"

By The Reverend Mrs. Silence DoGood<\/em><\/p>\n

Dear Editor,<\/p>\n

My daughter, Sarah with an H, gave the eulogy. She and Flossie were best friends since they were little girls. Sarah had to stop several times during the history of their friendship to control her emotions. Her evidence of grief and loss moved everyone to cry even more. And we did. The loss of a 24-year-old young woman in a tragic car accident with a deer gives no one answers. We are left only with an unfathomable question \u2026 why.<\/p>\n

Even as young women their closeness continued. Sarah is studying at a University in Madison, New Jersey where her grandfather studied for two years before he came to Halo, Pennsylvania and founded the First Church of God\u2019s Love. Flossie was the Production Manager at her father\u2019s business \u201cWeedelmeyer\u2019s Corn Premiums\u201d which are sold nationally. Streckfus Weedelmeyer is a very successful businessman and benefactor in our rural community. <\/p>\n

While our church is being rebuilt due to a devastating fire, we normally hold our services at the Unity Grange Hall. Since Streckfus knew that the turnout for his daughter\u2019s memorial service would be greater than the Grange Hall could hold, he rented a very large tent which he had erected near the construction of our new church. After Sarah\u2019s eulogy I led a small service and meditation in honor of Flossie\u2019s life. Streckfus had the River Creek Inn prepare a buffet lunch which was served in the tent.<\/p>\n

Before the memorial service, Flossie was privately buried at the church cemetery for family only. <\/p>\n

Several weeks later Streckfus made an appointment to see me. I met him in my parlor where I offered him green tea and my homemade oatmeal cookies. He enjoyed both.<\/p>\n

He began by telling me of visits he made as a young man to his grandmother Emilia who lived in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan. While there he would often hear beautiful music playing by bells. She told him that it was coming from the old water tower. Years later he learned that the Altman Foundation had created a carillon in Benjamin Altman\u2019s memory and placed it in the landmark Highbridge Water Tower; he was a very wealthy merchant, philanthropist and patron of the arts. The five-octave electronic device was played several times a day from four speakers facing north, south, east and west.<\/p>\n

Streckfus said that those memories were sweet and lasting. The music of the ringing bells turned an otherwise ordinary visit into something very special. He said that he wanted to create a carillon in the memory of his daughter Flossie. He wanted the sweetness of her life to be carried by the beautiful music that bells can produce. He did a great deal of research and contacted the firm that could produce the digital carillon that he wanted. He also said that he wanted it to be placed on the grounds of the church. \u201cFlossie was in your husband\u2019s choir and signing in the church gave her a great deal of pleasure and friendship. Her favorite hymn was Crossing the River. Maybe the bells could play part of that hymn.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the high ground at the very edge of the church\u2019s property now sits a structure which holds the Flossie Weedelmeyer Carillon. Streckfus met with the architect who designed our new glass chapel and round house to create a structure to hold the digital carillon. The architect wanted it to be tall so that its four speakers would sound the bells over the valley and neighboring hills. The architect recommended a stylized and slender silo with openings at the top for the music to reach the community.<\/p>\n

Working with my husband Willie, who has a Ph.D. in music and is organist and choir master at our church, the digital company was able to produce a portion of Flossie\u2019s favorite hymn so that the carillon\u2019s bells can play it. For three minutes every day at noon, there is a remembrance of a lovely young woman made possible by the generosity of her loving father. <\/p>\n

Amen.<\/p>\n

The Reverend Mrs. Silence DoGood
\nSenior Pastor
\nExecutive Director
\nPresident
\nChairman
\nChoir Master (part-time)
\nThe First Church of God\u2019s Love<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 Bill Donnelly, 2025. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By The Reverend Mrs. Silence DoGood Dear Editor, My daughter, Sarah with an H, gave the eulogy. She and Flossie were best friends since they… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2629,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,3,5,33,7,89,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book-reviews","category-entertainment","category-life","category-mrs-dogood","category-popular","category-seniors","category-slider"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/goodstuffconnections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/goodstuffconnections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/goodstuffconnections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goodstuffconnections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goodstuffconnections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2642"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/goodstuffconnections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2642\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2643,"href":"https:\/\/goodstuffconnections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2642\/revisions\/2643"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goodstuffconnections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/goodstuffconnections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goodstuffconnections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goodstuffconnections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}