The skyline on South Bend’s near east side will change a bit this summer. Good Shepherd Montessori School is taking down its bell tower.
The tower has stood over the corner of Jefferson Boulevard and Eddy Street for 55 years.
Good Shepherd Montessori bought the former First Christian Church property in 2009. Josh Kaiser says when he became head of school in 2022, they started noticing fractures in the brick. Since then they’ve received extensive engineering consultations and have had to install some masonry pins and repair a steel supporting rod.
Kaiser says that while the school is sad to remove what’s become a fixture in the area, spending money on such things does not serve their mission of educating students. They’ll have the tower down by the time school starts in August.
“It kind of became an ongoing concern for us, just in terms of, here’s something where we’re spending money to keep it safe, make sure that’s top priority for students, faculty, community members, and I think at a certain point we just realized we need to get ourselves in position to fix this in a more sustainable way going forward," Kaiser says.
Kaiser says the school will soon launch a website inviting current families, alumni, neighbors, and community members to offer ideas on how to memorialize the tower.
“I think of things like, there’s a church in Kansas City that has sort of a light display, and I think after the Twin Towers came down they did something similar. I don’t know if that’s the direction we would go or not but we’ve tried to think creative because you think, oh, that is a shame.”
