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Temple tribute to ring in honor of President Theobald's parents

As Neil D. Theobald approaches his 60th birthday, he began looking for a way to honor his late parents. The Temple University president found the answer emanating from a church in Cincinnati.

The 1,000-pound vintage bell, meant as a tribute to Temple President Neil D. Theobald's parents, is installed atop Shusterman Hall.
The 1,000-pound vintage bell, meant as a tribute to Temple President Neil D. Theobald's parents, is installed atop Shusterman Hall.Read more

As Neil D. Theobald approaches his 60th birthday, he began looking for a way to honor his late parents. The Temple University president found the answer emanating from a church in Cincinnati.

It came in the form of a 1,000-pound vintage bell.

The university has installed the refurbished, 150-year-old bell in a cradle atop Shusterman Hall, a former church that Temple renovated in 1997 for conference space. The bell will be illuminated at night and chime on each quarter-hour for those across the North Philadelphia campus to hear.

"This is clearly a tribute to my family, my parents, working-class people who never had the chance to go to college," Theobald said. "Being memorialized at a university, they would be over the moon."

Theobald's father, Milo Wayne Theobald, loaded trucks at a Caterpillar heavy machinery plant in Illinois, rising daily at 5:30 a.m. to get to work. He died in 2005 at age 88.

His mother, Agnes McQueen Rae Theobald, was a bank teller who died at age 91 in 2012, the day Theobald was appointed Temple president. His sister, Joyce, visited their mother's hospital bed in the family's hometown of Peoria that day and whispered the news in her ear.

"She said a huge smile broke out on my mom's face," Theobald recalled. "She died less than an hour later."

Giving his parents a spot on Temple's campus makes him smile. "All this time later, they get a chance to be at the center of university life," he said.

Theobald will officially unveil the bell Tuesday morning, along with a plaque dedicated to a couple "whose 63-year marriage stood the test of time." The inscription, written by Theobald's youngest daughter, Mattie, 24, a graduate student in public finance at Indiana University, goes on: "May it serve as a reminder to live life to the fullest - all 1,440 beautiful moments in each day." Theobald's three older siblings, who all live in Peoria, will attend.

It's not the first time that bells will sound on the main campus of the 39,000-student university. Temple has been home since 1965 to the "Bell Tower," a 105-foot structure in the middle of the main campus, with carillon bells that used to chime regularly and play Temple's alma mater.

But the bells have not rung in years. Nobody at Temple could say exactly how long.

"The carillon has a very different sound from the Shusterman Bell, which has its own unique and beautiful sound as a vintage bell," said Margaret Carney, associate vice president and university architect.

The sound was important to Theobald. He wanted a thick "bumm, bumm," not a ting. The bell, which the university found for sale on a website, was built around 1866 by the Vanduzen foundry of Cincinnati.

Theobald would not say how much he paid. He can see the bell from his office window. When it tolls, he will think of his parents, who prided themselves on punctuality.

"My parents," he said, "would approve of having a bell that reminds students to get to class."

ssnyder@phillynews.com

215-854-4693@ssnyderinq

www.inquirer.com/campusinq