How did the Russian bells get to Lowell House? (part 2)

Figure 5

In November 1929, eight months before Whittemore concluded an agreement to purchase the bells, Charles Coolidge, the architect overseeing the building Lowell House, was instructed to stop construction of the clock tower and convert it into a bell tower instead. On January 30, 1930 Whittemore received a preliminary architectural drawing of the proposed bell tower, which he planned to take to Russia, and, as he wrote to Crane, “to determine whether the bells can be hung either together in the second story or separately in two stories.” Originally, Whittemore had expected to buy 23 bells; at some point the number became 18. In the same letter he noted: “The president [Lowell] feels that the crown of the building which bears his name and of the new University venture, will be the bells.”

Whittemore left the United States on February 7, 1930. On his way to Russia, he planned stops in London, Paris, Marseilles and Alexandria and left a mailing address in Cairo. From Santa Barbara, Crane, aware of the impending trip to Russia sent a wire to Whittemore at the Cairo address, “I hope you can bring the bells back with you in your bag.” Coolidge also hoped to reach Whittemore in Cairo to let him know: “I am going ahead and building the tower, leaving the space for the bells as large as is possible.” Although there must have been some sort of commitment in Russia to sell the bells, the architect had very little knowledge of the dimensions of the zvon. By June, Wittemore returned to Paris before taking off to Moscow.

On February 3,1930, before he sailed for Europe, Whittemore wrote to Coolidge, “I have made three successive visits to Russia in the last three years.” During one of the three trips Whittemore must have secured a commitment to allow him to purchase the bells. From the evidence available, it seems most likely that the concession was obtained in the summer of 1928. In June of that year he had sent two cables to Crane, the first saying “Go Russia July first to get bells,” and in the second he asked for “one thousand [dollars] for bells.” No documents as yet available shed further light on the events in Moscow during the summer of 1928, two years before Whittemore actually purchased the bells. If Crane sent the $1,000 Whittemore had requested, perhaps that was the “sweetener” he used to contract for the bells. It is strange that the bill of sale says: “Cost of the bells as per agreement of 6/14/30.” Perhaps the “agreement” refers only to the cost of the bells and indeed, the commitment to sell was made as early as the summer of 1928.

On April 17,1930, Crane was in Cambridge and President Lowell showed him the steel skeleton of the Lowell House tower where he planned to hang the bells. How could Crane or Lowell for that matter, have been so confident that despite the unsettled conditions in the Soviet Union, Whittemore would successfully acquire and then dispatch the bells to Cambridge in the summer of 1930?

One sympathizes with President Lowell for what must have been his anxiety during the12 months from November 1929 through November 1930, the critical period in the “Bells” scenario. He was committed to a bell tower a year before the bells were bought. He appears to have been the only person at Harvard overseeing the acquisition, shipment and installation of the bells. At the same time, he must have been intensely occupied with construction of the first two houses, Lowell and Dunster, acquiring land for the third, Eliot, and making plans for the remaining four Houses. Forced to use Gano as his intermediary, he had to “chase” Whittemore around the world: Paris, London, Moscow, New York, Cairo, Alexandria, Djibouti and Addis Ababa, as well as on the high seas and on the Red Sea. To make matters even more complex, it is obvious from the cable traffic and letters that Whittemore had at least four or five balls in the air at once. In addition to masterminding the acquisition of the bells, he was “negotiating with Halil Bey for a concession to clean the mosaics In Sancta [Hagia] Sophia,” and, at the same time, he was seeking a lectureship on Russian art from the Lowell Institute, and assembling an exhibit of Russian antiquities for the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, all while raising money for his several overseas projects, managing his Byzantine Institute in Paris and Boston, and directing the Committee for the Education of Russian Youth in Exile in Paris, Berlin and Belgrade.

Lowell had to contact Crane through his New York office manager, Donald Brodie. Sometimes Crane was at his home in Santa Barbara, sometimes at Woods Hole, and sometimes in New York. At one point Crane was in China, at another time in Cairo and then again visiting Abdul Aziz Saud (soon to become the first monarch of Arabia). At the same time Lowell had to secure German and American visas to enable Saradjev to come to the United States in October, find lodging for him in a Russian home in Cambridge, and in December obtain a transit visa through Poland in order to send him back to Moscow. Before proceeding with this decision, he had to locate both Crane and Whittemore and get their approval, and get Gano to send a cable in French to Saradjev pere, advising him of the return of his son. Then he had to find a new bell ringer, deal with importation of the bells as well as run a large university. He seems to have handled all of this with remarkable sang-froid.

A final thought. Crane sent a cable to Lowell from Cairo requesting that the first official ringing of the bells take place on Easter Sunday, April 5, 1931. (Easter carries special significance in the Russian Orthodox Church.) Neither Crane, nor his son John was able to attend the event. The bells were tolled on schedule but proved to be if not a disaster, at least a major disappointment. Gano who was in attendance wrote to Whittemore: “As a protection against too much ‘noise’ President Lowell had ordered the tongues of the large bells muffled in leather so they sounded like an alarm clock which had been wrapped in a handkerchief.” Brodie was present to represent the family. He wrote to Gano: “The matter of the leather mufflers is rather embarrassing and will have to be worked out by the Harvard authorities and President Lowell in some way.” Things must have changed significantly by July 18th when Crane drove to Lowell House from his home in Woods Hole. Accompanied by his own bell ringer, Crane came to inspect and listen to the bells. He commented on the occasion in a letter to his son John: “The bells are magnificent, installation is beautifully and perfectly done…it is possible that this little installation may be the last and almost sole morsel left in the world of the beautiful Russian culture.”

Sources

Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University
Crane Archives
Whittemore Archives
Committee for the Education of Russian Youth in Exile, Archives
Harvard University Archives
Lowell Archives
Margaret Picher, Historian
Bibliotheque National de France
Bibliotheque Byzantine