In 2007, St. Pauli revived a bell ringing tradition that took place in the early days of the church when Nels Marius Nelson was the klokker (bell ringer) and custodian.
His family tell of this custom in Pennington County History (1976),
Mother and Dad were members of the
St. Pauli Lutheran Church which is located about a half mile north
of the home place. All eight of us children were baptized and
confirmed from that church. Mother herself (Hannah Louise
Lokken) was confirmed there around 1900 [August 4, 1903] with
Carrie [Karen] Fredrickson, Fred Fredrickson, Annette Loken,
and a Hostvet boy [Adolph]. I. T. Aastad was the pastor at the
time. Dad was the klokker or bell ringer and custodian of
the church for many years. Many times we would help clean the
church, and when there was to be a funeral we would assist Mother
in decorating the church for the funeral. In winter Dad would have
to go to the church early to get a good fire going so that it
would be fairly comfortable by the time church services started.
On Christmas Eve some of us would trudge [with Dad] through the
snow over to the church and ring the bell, heralding the birth of
the Christ-Child, and again on Near Year’s Eve to ring in the new
year....
When Nels and Hannah’s daughter, Myrtle
Erickson, was in her mid-80s, she spoke of this tradition to a
member of the congregation and the church reinstituted the bell
ringing on Christmas Eve 2007.
Myrtle passed away less than three months later on March 14, 2008.