By Robert W. Dalton
Wofford’s All Saints’ Remembrance Tolling of the Bell ceremony took on a special meaning for Patrick Lindsay ’23 this year.
The names of students, staff, faculty, alumni and friends of the college who have died during the past year are read each year on Nov. 1, and the bell in Main Building tolls for each of them. It tolled 177 times this year. Number 151 was for Dawson Jerome Stallworth Jr. ’64, Lindsay’s grandfather.
“It’s a little more personal this year,” says Lindsay, an international affairs major from Camden, S.C. “It means a lot to me, and I know it would mean a lot to my grandfather.”
Stallworth was supposed to visit Lindsay and Margaret Ann Hughes ’24, his granddaughter, over Homecoming Weekend. But he died on Friday, Oct. 28.
“We were supposed to eat dinner together Thursday night,” Lindsay says. “The last time I talked to him was last Sunday (Oct. 23). “We were just catching up on Wofford and South Carolina football.”
The tolling of the bell is a Wofford tradition. It tolls three times for every student — to welcome them to campus as firstyear students, to celebrate their graduation and upon their death.
Before the operation of the bell was mechanized, students known as bellringers received a scholarship to ring the bell. Today’s bellringers assist the Office of Admission with recruitment events and receive a scholarship for their participation.
The Rev. Dr. Ron Robinson ’78, the college’s Perkins-Prothro Chaplain and Professor of Religion, decided to add the modern-day Bellringers to this year’s ceremony.
“I wanted to bring the past and the present together,” says Robinson. “Wofford is a place where tradition and history matter, and I thought it would be meaningful to bring them together.”
Bladen Bates ’23, an art history and psychology double major from Travelers Rest, S.C.; Anna Lee Hoffman ’23, a humanities major from Milton, Ga.; and Olivia Turner ’23, a humanities major from Lexington, Ky., climbed into the tower to toll the bell. Robinson noted during the ceremony that it was the first time women had tolled the bell.
Nick Ackard ’23, a finance and humanities double major from Mt. Pleasant, S.C.; and Hampton Randall ’23, an environmental studies major from Simpsonville, S.C., are two of the bellringers who participated in the reading of the names.
“This is probably my favorite Wofford tradition,” says Turner. “Each tour I give, I tell about the tolling of the bell, and I get chills. It’s a testament to how Wofford cares for you throughout your lifetime.”
View the list of those remembered at wofford.edu/about/news/ news-archives/2022/all-saints-day.