1954: Florian and Hostyn’s ‘Painted’ Church

I was about in the 6th grade attending Hostyn School in Hostyn.

The school was located about 100 yards in back of the wooden church at Hostyn. It was the custom at that time for the Sisters or Nuns teaching there to send two altar boys from the school each day at noon to the church to “ring the Angelus.”

I never learned the true meaning of this ritual but it had something to do with celebrating “The Incarnation.” It consisted of ringing the church bell three times at three separate intervals; then the bells would ring loudly for 33-38 times in quick succession. The reason two boys were sent to do this chore was because the bell in the steeple of this church was so huge it took two 50-pound boys hanging on the rope to get it going.

One day when my classmate and I went into the church to ring the “Angelus”, we decided to explore the belfry. This meant climbing stairs all the way to the top of the steeple. The first flight of stairs led to the choir loft which could hold about 50 people. The next flight of stairs went into a small room used to store items such as candlesticks, old pews and chairs not being used at the time. Then there were no more stairs, but a flimsy ladder nailed to the wall leading to a trap door in the ceiling. With goose bumps and hair standing up on the backs of our necks we cautiously climbed through the narrow opening and peeked in.

Wow! There was the massive bell standing all alone in the dimly lit tower. There was a six-foot wooden wagon-wheel-like pulley attached to the bell with a rope attached to it. Now, at least we had seen how it all worked to make all that noise. Seeing all the spider webs and dust on everything, we must have been the only humans to visit that bell tower in quite some time. Being right at noon, we scampered down all the stairs and proceeded to ring the bell as we were told to do.

But there is more to this story…..

When hanging up the bellringing rope and as we were about to exit the church, I happened to spy a shiny gold cylinder resting on a bracket in the corner of the belfry. Upon closer inspection, the label on the canister read “fire extinguisher—to operate, turn upside down.”

Having always been inquisitive and having an inquiring mind, I was curious what just might happen if I did turn this thing upside down. I took it off the bracket, turned it upside down and that’s when all hell broke loose. Apparently, there is a powder or chemical stored in the cylinder; and, when turned upside down, it mixes with the other liquid and forms pressure, causing foam to come shooting out of the two-foot attached hose. Believe me, it was spewing. That short hose was swinging back and forth and all around covering the walls and contents on the table with this milk-like foam. Even the statue of the Blessed Virgin got a healthy dose of it. This all happened in about 1520 seconds. In trying to stop it, I figured if I put my thumb on the end of the nozzle it would stop. No such luck; it was like putting your thumb on the end of a water hose under pressure. It only made the liquid shoot farther and higher; and, the next thing you know, I was foaming off cob webs from the ten-foot ceilings. As a last-ditch effort, I opened the door of the church entrance and simply threw the extinguisher past the steps and onto the grassy lawn.

After it fizzled itself out, I figured I had better put the evidence back in its place and after doing so, I raced out of there. Evidently I wasn’t as fast as my partner in crime because I could see him running far ahead of me.

This mess wasn’t discovered until a few days later and the Sunday bulletin had a write-up about malicious mischief that had occurred in the church. Although the true pranksters were never found, I never believed it to be a prank or malicious mischief on my behalf. It was simply a case of curiosity overcoming common sense. That is also why I never confessed this “sin” to my pastor at that time. I figured if I did he might have stuck his arm through that confessional window and grab me by the ear and exclaim “So it wasYOU!!!”