The bells of St. Martin’s Catholic Church in Piqua had just ceased ringing when I crossed the threshold and sat down in a pew to write.
The bells rang at sporadic intervals, not indicative of the actual time, their weight subtly shaking the building with each pass.
That’s how this whole absurd adventure began, you see, with those enormous turquoise bells dangling nearly 125 feet above the earth.
I had just arrived back in Kansas almost two years ago, my entire life ashambles, when I learned a local priest had mischievously dared my brother and I to climb the rickety ladder leading to the building’s apex.
What did I have to lose?
Deathly echoes swept all around me as I craned my neck upward and started climbing, wrapping my elbows tighter and tighter as the ladder swayed and creaked with every motion.
After a series of dark antechambers, I emerged in the tower room to find not only the impressive antique bells, but the corpses of a dozen round-faced owls that had been trapped inside the space and died.
Patterns made by their tiny bones made it seem as though Jehovah had done battle with the goddess Athena and triumphed, though in a combat perhaps less bloody than that which erupted when it was proposed the Piqua church be rebuilt at its present location.
Eventually tensions cooled, and on a gloomy, rainy day in November 1922, the neoclassical brick structure designed by Grant Naylor and Fletcher Bird was dedicated, with silver coins and newspapers tucked away in the cornerstone.
The whole project almost never happened due to massive church debts and pre-Great Depression financial conditions.
Along these lines, the Rev. Augustine Heimann had noted how “the economic situation during the past few months has become acute, and our own community has become seriously affected by it … We are filled with gloom and dread lest our ship might wreck.”
The ship ultimately managed to stay afloat, but with great personal cost to parishioners, who were contributing both significant money and labor to the effort.
They were mostly poor farmers after all, and paying for the Chicago-sourced design work, plated lamps, marble tables, stained-glass windows, precious artworks and porcelain statues was no small feat.
One of those weathered but stunning statues is of Isidore, patron saint of farmers, and another is of Martin of Tours, for whom the church is named.
Martin was a pacifist discharged from the Roman army for refusing to kill enemies in battle, but as a bishop, he gained renown by destroying non-Christian temples, holy sites and sacred relics (including a mythical pagan tree).
That’s why inside the church he’s depicted wiping blood from his orange and pink cloak, perhaps a metaphor for having vanquished those cultures deemed “unholy.”
On a lighter note, the church’s name can also be traced back to Mrs. Martin Klocke, who won a contest to name the church by raising donations, and who wanted to honor her husband and the saint for whom he was christened.
