For members of Albert Lea’s First Lutheran Church and for people living in the central part of the city, the sounds created by a church bell on Sunday mornings and for some funerals is just a part of life.

Yet, with First Lutheran’s bell there is quite an interesting aspect of local history. The large bronze bell has endured an intense wind storm and a move from another church congregation to its present location in a tall tower or spire.

This particular bell is at least a century old. This is confirmed with the information inscribed on one side of the bell. It says, “Presented to Norsk Ev. Luth. Congregation of Albert Lea, Minn. In Memory of Magdalena Naess Died March 3, 1905.” (A further explanation for the “Norsk Ev. Luth.” phrase is Norwegian Evangelical Lutheran.)

Magdalena Naess was the sister of the pastor of one of two local churches a century ago which were known as Trinity Lutheran. One of the Trinity churches had a Danish-speaking congregation and was then located on West College Street near the present Our Savior’s Lutheran Church. To add some confusion to this duplication of names, the other Trinity church where Norwegian was the predominate language was also located on West College Street between the city’s Carnegie Library and the Broadway Theater. And it’s at this latter church where Rev. J.A.E. Naess was the pastor.

The pastor and his sister grew up in Boscobel, a community on the Wisconsin River in the southwest part of that state. She went to a Chicago college and obtained a degree in music education. Then Naess became a piano instructor at St. Olaf College in Northfield for two years. When her health started to fail she came to Albert Lea to live with her brother, the pastor of the Norwegian Trinity Lutheran Church. Magdalena Naess died three years later and her body was returned to Boscobel, Wis. to be buried next to her parents.

After her death, the bell needed by the church was purchased as a memorial and placed in the wooden steeple.

On July 22, 1916, a intense windstorm blew into the Albert Lea area about 2 p.m.

One of the buildings damaged was the Norwegian Trinity Lutheran Church. A news article in the Tribune said the steeple and its bell were blown off the building’s roof and landed in the street. Many other buildings were badly battered within the city and there were extensive crop losses, but no one was reportedly injured during the hour-long windstorm.

Details are vague as to what happened to the bell during the next few years. It can be assumed the roof of the church was repaired and the bell may have been put in temporary storage. It can also be assumed the windstorm’s damages may have prompted a move to merge this Trinity congregation with the Norwegian Synod Church on West Clark Street to form what’s now First Lutheran Church in September 1919.

Despite the fall from the top of the steeple onto West College Street, the bell wasn’t damaged and thus became the present bell at First Lutheran Church on West College Street.

The steeple or bell tower of First Lutheran is to the east of both the church and its altar area. Above the altar is a part of the church known as the contemporary balcony. Here, a group of musicians have their sound equipment and instruments to provide accompaniment for the church services. Access to this somewhat small area is by way of a spiral stairway.

In the contemporary balcony are two ropes hanging from the ceiling. One is larger than the other and each serves a specific purpose for ringing the bell.

On the side of this balcony are metal rungs mounted into the wall. At the top of this ladder and on the ceiling is a trap door.

This level of the steeple or tower again features the two ropes hanging from the ceiling. At this point it becomes obvious that the ropes go between the levels of the structure though large pipe openings in the ceiling or floor. At this point there’s a wooden ladder leading up to the ceiling and another trap door. It’s at this third level near the top of the church’s tower or steeple where the large bell, mounted on large wooden beams, is now located.

One of the ropes, when pulled, swings the bell back and forth and a clapper hanging from the inside of the bell and produces the familiar ringing sound.

The second rope is attached to a clapper which is mounted just below the bell. When pulled, this clapper goes up to strike the stationary bell on the lower side. And this method of striking the bell produces the tolling sound which is used for some of the funerals held at this church.

On one side of the bell is the inscription showing that the bell is a memorial for Magdalena Naess. On the other side of the bell is an inscription with a Biblical verse which is now barely legible. However, what’s still legible is the information that this bell was cast about a century ago by the McShane Bell Foundry Co. of Baltimore, Md. (The McShane firm also cast the large bronze bell which once hung in the clock tower of the Freeborn County Courthouse and is now at Grace Lutheran Church.)