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  (Sound of bells tinkling.)

VIRGINIA BELLE BREWER:My name is Virginia Belle Brewer and right now we're at Brewer's Bell Museum and Gift Shop in Canton, Texas.

(Gong sounds.)

I've been collecting bells for 52 years. Started in the fall of 1940. My sister Helen came in with a Tiffany crystal bell, and said "This is a gift of a lifetime to come." Little did she realize what she was starting!

(Church bell music begins.)

All the time I was collecting everybody said, "Virginia when you gonna' get enough bells?"

I said, "Well, I'll never have enough bells!"

"What are you going to do with them?"

I started to trying to think, and I thought, "Yes, a bell museum!"

Well, when I opened up, I thought that when you build a better mousetrap the world will beat a path to your door, is the old saying. And I thought when I moved here "build a better mousetrap" -- there was no other bell museum in Texas -- and that people would start flocking in. Well it didn't work out the way I anticipated. People didn't come to see the bells.

Got a little dog -- Sissy Bell. She watches the parking lot for me and tells me when somebody drives up. I had two last week -- a couple came. And that was it.

It's lonely back here, but when someone's with me and I can tell them some of the stories behind the bells. Well, then the bells come alive, and I come alive.

(Sound of a streetcar bell.)

Denver street car bell. Up on top of the streetcar and the conductor pulled the cord. Here's another one here . . .

(Sound of a wooden bell.)

Cowbell from Bali, Indonesia carved out of a solid piece of wood.

And this one don't look like a bell . . .

(Sound of a bell.)

But it's a bell from China that's shaped like a big "O".

(Sounds of many bells.)

Fancy cars and diamonds and fancy clothes never did stir me, but a bell -- oh my.

It's good clean entertainment for all ages. But it's to the spot where I can't do it anymore.

(Church bell music begins again.)

Well, I gave it four or five years, you know. They usually say a business first starting, that they have to take care themselves for the first five. So, I decided that we'd have to buckle down, so I had to start saving in every way I could.

Going on food stamps . . . that was very hard to do, but I had to do it.

(Somber church bell music.)

We've found out that things that I thought was necessities really aren't. You can live without them. And one by one by one . . . so it's just one of those things.

I feel like the Lord intended me to share the beauty of bells with others. I wish it could have been easier but, gotta keep on . . .

(Church bell music ends.)

Producer: David Isay / Mix engineer: Caryl Wheeler / Funding provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Photograph by Harvey Wang.

"Brewer Bell Museum" premiered December 23, 1992, on All Things Considered. Copyright © 1992 Sound Portraits Productions. All Rights Reserved.

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		intro
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		Holding On, a book with an oral history based on this documentary
		Update on the Brewer Bell Museum [posted 4/13/01]

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