Where is the Old Ayersville School Bell?

 

 Miss Jessie M. Blanchard, oldest daughter of Frank and B. Alma Blanchard of Highland Township, spent many of her years as a missionary in Africa.  In February, 1941, she was home with her family and friends for a furlough after a five and a half year stint in the Belgian Congo.

The Defiance Crescent-News reported on February 21, 1941, that she was preparing to go back to her work in Africa after a short stay in Pennsylvania and Washington D.C.  She was taking back with her a portable organ that fit into a suitcase, food, and the old Ayersville school building bell.

The school bell was to be shipped from Defiance and eventually placed at the Kasengu chapel, a chapel that stood at the top of a mountain.  It would be the first time the villagers had even seen or heard a bell!  The paper reported that "it will be the only bell for 200 miles and is expected to be heard for 20 miles because of the chapel's location.  The bell was to be placed on a special sled to take it up the mountain after its trip across the ocean with Miss Blanchard.

The Defiance Crescent-News reported on June 4, 1941:

"First word from Miss Jessie Blanchard, Highland Township missionary who was aboard the ill-fated Egyptian steamer ZAM ZAM, when the vessel was sunk by a Nazi raider in the South Atlantic, was received here today in a cablegram to her parents...

The cable came from Portugal where Miss Blanchard was safely in a hotel awaiting transportation home.  She had left Defiance in March, sailing with a group of missionaries.  


"When the ZAM ZAM was sunk, a part of the cargo was the old bell from Ayersville school which Miss Blanchard was taking with her to the mission at Kasengu, Belgian Congo."

Later news reports indicated that the ZAM ZAM was not hit by a submarine, but rather by a German warship.  The Germans confiscated all the cargo and moved it to their ship along with the passengers before the ZAM ZAM sunk.  Jessie and all her fellow missionaries were eventually sent to Portugal, while the ambulance drivers and other men with war jobs were held for about three months by the Nazis before an agreement was made to release them.  Apparently, the Nazis attacked this ship because it contained war supplies for the British.


Was the bell saved and returned for use in Africa, or perhaps kept for Nazi munitions, or does it rest at the bottom of the Atlantic?
 
Please take a moment to watch this short film about the ZAM ZAM incident.
https://vimeo.com/265170826