Some thirty years ago, there was published an English book, that received considerable attention, entitled ‘Bealings Bells.’ The principal statements are as follow: On February 2, 1834, the bells in Major Moor’s residence, at Great Bealings, began to ring, without any visible cause, and continued to do so daily for nearly two months. A row of nine bells was almost constantly in motion, at times all of them ringing at once, at other times only five. The ringing was witnessed by a great number of people, and many efforts were made to discover the agency, but in vain. Major Moor published an account of the annoyance in the Ipswich Journal, and, much to his surprise, received numerous letters from different parts of the kingdom, giving accounts of similar ringings, occurring at about the same time. At Greenwich Hospital, the phenomena took place under so remarkable circumstances as to excite general attention. All persons were excluded from the apartments where the bell-pulls were, and the bells were watched night and day. In some localities, where the ringings were heard, the bell-pulls were cut, to end the disturbance; but the bells rang on as merrily as ever. When once under way, they seemed to be electrified; nothing could stop them but force.

— Appletons’ Journal of Literature, Science and Art, 1870

Choir practice normally started at 7:20 p.m. at the West Side Baptist Church in Beatrice, Neb. But on March 1, 1950, all 15 members were late.

One pair of sisters had car trouble; they called for a ride from a third member, who was delayed by homework. A mother and daughter were detained at a relative’s house. The choir director was late because her daughter, the pianist, had fallen asleep. Other members needed to finish a letter or hear the end of a radio program. One was “just plain lazy.”

So no one was there at 7:25 when the building exploded. The blast shattered local windows and forced a nearby radio station off the air.

The church furnace, it seems, had ignited a gas leak.

Back in 2005 we noted that 7’9″ M.V. Bates had married 7’5″ Anna Swan in 1871. They conceived two sons; the first was stillborn, but the second was delivered successfully in 1879, weighing 23.75 pounds. Obstetrician A.P. Beach published an account of the delivery that year in the New York Medical Record. Excerpts:

• “After a convenient time, with my patient in the usual position, I proceeded to make an examination, but was unable to reach the os uteri, it being so far up. I could not, with my hand, by any ordinary effort, make a satisfactory examination, but concluded that she was in the initial stage of labor.”
• “At 4 P.M., on the 18th, while conducting an examination during pain, the membranes gave way spontaneously and the amniotic fluid came pouring out so profusely as to startle every one. … The bed was well protected by rubber blankets, which carried the waters over the side of the bed, where they were caught in vessels to the amount of five gallons.”
• “The forceps could not be successfully applied because of the unusually large head which lay, with the neck, in a vagina that would measure on its posterior aspect 12 inches at least, and from 7 to 9 in its anterior.”
• “After further consultation, as it was our great desire to deliver if possible, without mutilation, we passed a strong bandage over the neck of the child, and while one made downward and lateral traction, the other, after several attempts, succeeded in bringing down an arm, and finally after a laborious seige we succeeded in delivering our patient of a male child.”

“We believe that this is the largest infant at birth of which there is any authenticated record,” note the editors. “The placenta usually weighs one-sixth as much as the foetus. In this case the secundines in all weighed nearly half as much as the child.”