The loud silence from the tower atop St. John’s Episcopal Church always bothered Dennis Stuekerjuergen. Once-glorious reverberations from the church’s historic bell stopped nearly 35 years ago.

More troubling to this stalwart member of the East Dallas church, a man who rarely met a problem he couldn’t correct, was his inability — along with everyone else’s — to get the massive 145-year-old bell operating again.

Attempt after attempt failed. Solutions were deemed too expensive. When Father David Houk arrived at the church 18 years ago, he found congregants still grieving the bell’s loss — and convinced that repairing the 250-plus-pound bronze alloy object encased at the top of its 50-foot-high tower was impossible.

Yet on this special holiday weekend, bookended by Thanksgiving and the first Sunday of Advent, the church’s bell peals once more — an 1879 relic propelled by space-age technology and rung not by hand but by Father David’s iPhone.

I learned the story of the bell’s reawakening while sitting in Father David’s office with the key conspirators and the pastor’s unofficial comfort dog, a black Goldendoodle named Floyd.

Theirs is a tale of generosity, perseverance and a sly conspiracy. They also had a few assists from divine intervention.

Dennis’ fondness for St. John’s antique bell dated back to his childhood in a small Iowa community where he attended school and went to church in the same building. He cherished memories of a similar bell calling him to class and worship services.

After Dennis moved to North Texas as a young adult and found a church home at St. John’s, the sounds echoing from its bell tower, part of the original midcentury-modern building begun in 1961, reminded Dennis of his childhood and an old-school call to worship.

Once Dennis met and married Leah, the church was central to their lives, and many hours each week were spent at St. John’s, tucked in the Peninsula neighborhood near White Rock Lake’s northeast shore. Dennis helped lead the men’s camping group and served as chef for the outings and other church meals. Leah’s contributions included the altar guild.

“He was 100% German,” Leah told me. “Kind, generous and thoughtful. He had courage to say things other people wouldn’t and that made him an enemy to some and endearing to others.”

Until retirement, Dennis was a financial planner with Northwestern Mutual and Leah worked in education, teaching and later as a school counselor. They lived for years in Garland before relocating to Dallas’ Casa Linda neighborhood in 2017.

When pancreatic cancer struck Dennis several years ago, St. John’s swept the couple up in love. Clergy brought communion to their Casa Linda home and most afternoons church members gathered there for “happy hour” visits.

Leah and Dennis, married for almost 31 years, talked a lot about his wish that something be done for the church after his death — including the possibility of providing funds to repair the bell.

Dennis never got over his disappointment that his previous work to restore the bell had fallen short. The couple laughed about the button in the church that purportedly prompted the bell’s hammer to strike its exterior. “Why do we even have this?” said Leah, who had never heard it ring.

After Dennis died in summer 2023, Leah decided restoring the bell would be the best way to honor her husband’s memory. Surely, someone would know how to fix it, she said.

After running into more cries of “No, no, not the bell — it can’t be fixed” inside the church, Leah reached out to David Farrell, the couple’s longtime friend and fellow congregant.

David, with Farrell Architects, knew the repair would be a herculean task, but he couldn’t refuse Leah’s desire to honor Dennis. David’s first job as project manager was to figure out the cost for a professional restoration.

A few church members recalled a bell expert, contacted 30 years earlier, who inspected the apparatus and quoted a price. St. John’s leadership considered the proposal but decided against moving forward. No one could recall the repairman’s name, so David started from scratch.

His first call was to Chime Master, which manufactures, sells and installs electronic carillons and church bell-ringing equipment. When they passed along the name of a North Texan they regularly worked with, David dialed Gary Loper and blurted out the whole story.

Gary, who owns Duncanville-based Loper Pipe Organ Service Co., was quiet for a few minutes — long enough for David to worry he had the wrong person. Finally, Gary said, “I guess you don’t know I gave St. John’s a quote for the work decades ago.”

In two phone calls, David had found the guy who already investigated the workings of the bell, which, church records show, was cast in 1879 and forged at the Buckeye Bell Foundry in Cincinnati. Why church architects chose this bell, or where it served prior to 1961, is unknown.

David talked over prices and options with Leah, and she opted for the plan that would ensure the bell both strikes and swings. Gary’s work was scheduled for early 2024. Only a few people were aware of what they were up to.

“I was afraid we’d get caught up in vestry bureaucracy,” Leah recalled. “I couldn’t have dealt with that so soon after Dennis’ death. I just wanted to get it done.”

With ladders about to be positioned inside and outside the tubular steel bell tower, Leah decided they better fill Father David in. His response? “When do we start?”

With 50 years of experience, Gary loves a challenge and the St. John’s bell was a big one. Several parts were missing and new pieces proved faulty. Rain caused delays. Most tricky was working in the narrow caged space and lowering the bell for part of the refurbishing.

Technology made much of the once cantankerous machinery unnecessary. “The main part that needs to move now is the bell,” Gary said. “So it ought to swing for a long time.”

The new system allows the bell to both toll, the result of the hammer striking the bell, and to swing, which allows the clapper inside the bell to strike with each movement.

The previous system required someone to swing the bell with a rope attached to a steel cable running from the sanctuary through the bell tower to the instrument’s wheel. Now magnets pull the bell back and forth until gravity takes over.

Toward the end of the work, retired electrician Bill Knowles, another of Dennis’ close friends and part of the bell restoration crew, phoned Leah with a surprise.

“Listen to this,” he said before turning the call over to the swinging bell. Through tears, she whispered, “That’s good. I like it.”

The bell was dedicated June 23 at the church’s annual picnic. The restoration cost Leah about $25,000, an amount that would have been higher without so much volunteer support.

Father David told me tradition calls for bells to be named because each one has its own voice. In a strong Advent tie, the St. John’s bell is Gabriel, the name of the archangel who announced the conception of Jesus to Mary.

Father David knew the joy the restoration would stir in longtime church members. He didn’t expect the same to be true for newer members, many of whom discovered the parish through its adjacent St. John’s Episcopal School.

“They were as excited as the people who had been here for years when we got the bell going,” he said. “It connects with people. Those strong feelings endure and connect to the realm of God.”

Father David’s job in the restoration was to determine how and when the bell would be used. It is programmed to toll at 9 a.m., noon and 3 p.m., following ancient Christian teachings that call for prayer three times a day.

The swinging bell also calls people to worship on Saturday night and Sunday morning, and is used for weddings, funerals and other significant moments in the life of the church.

Father David and other church leaders can access the bell through a smartphone or connect to the programming box near the sanctuary via computer or tablet. As he demonstrated how he can direct the bell through various strike and swing sequences on his phone, Father David admitted the app is not always intuitive.

“At present, I have done all the programing, but I have very detailed instructions written down in case I get hit by a bus,” he laughed.

While Thursday’s national holiday provides a chance to say thanks for the bell’s restoration, Father David pointed out that every Sunday is “thanksgiving” at St. John’s. “Episcopalians call our worship ‘Eucharist,’ a Greek word that means Thanksgiving. Churches have at their very center the idea of giving thanks on a weekly basis for all the blessings of this life.”

Leah considers the project, in part, a gift to herself. She regularly arrives early to services to spend time enjoying the bell’s joyful tones.

From inside the sanctuary, the restored bell’s ringing evokes a sense of age and history. Outside, the light, joyful strokes are a sound uncommon in residential neighborhoods.

Leah said the curiosity factor was key to her decision on how to honor Dennis. She wanted to pay forward the gifts of God and St. John’s, which did so much to support the couple in good times and bad.

The bell seemed the best way to do that. St. John’s is a special community, but it is hidden, she said.

“If that bell rings every day, people will hear it and some will go, ‘What is that?’” she said. “I want people to come who want to be a part of a community and a part of caring for others.”

All are welcome to hear the bell and attend services at St. John’s, 848 Harter Road, at 5:30 p.m. Saturdays and at 8 a.m., 9:15 a.m. and 11 a.m. Sundays.