It’s that time of year when those of us with Norwegian roots, celebrate our Norwegian heritage. On this Syttende Mai, I thought I’d tell you about the Moen “Bells for Peace.”
When you watch the winter Olympic games on TV and hear what sounds like cowbells ringing, do you know where those bells come from? I’m proud to say a relative in Norway made most of those bells!
When our Norwegian relatives, Arne Olav and Vivi Østrem, visited us a few years before we went to Norway, they brought us some Moen Bells as gifts. We have our sheep bell near our front door and our clock bell sits in my home office. They are cherished because we know their history.
Tobias Osmundsen Moen, Vivi’s grandfather, started the Moen Bell Factory at Moi, Norway in 1922. Tobias had a son, Osmund, and a daughter, Esther, who is Vivi’s mother. The Moen family is related to us on the Sherpe (Skjerpe) side.
Osmund now runs the Moen Bell Factory, along with his family. They have been making bells for 91 years. Bells are needed in Norway so the farmers can find their animals in the country’s hard-to-reach mountains and valleys. Originally made to be worn by animals, mainly the sheep, goats, and cows, the bells have gradually become adopted as “cheering bells” at sporting events.
Moen Bells were extremely popular as the official bells at the 1994 Lillehammer Winter Olympics. Crowds of spectators rang bells to cheer on the ski racers. The bell ringing motivates the athletes and adds to the spectator’s fun. If you’ve watched the Winter Olympics since 1994, you may remember the sound of spectators ringing bells. Those were Moen Bells.
The Moen Bell Factory was asked to produce 220,000 bells for the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer. That was quite an accomplishment for the small factory in Moi that had been making bells for animals to wear before that time.
During our trip to Norway in 1999, Linda and I had the chance to visit the Moen Bjøllefabrikk (Bell Factory) in Moi. Vivi and Arne Olav took us there to meet her uncle and see how the bells are made.
We were fortunate that we were able to meet Osmund because he had a bad accident two months before our visit. On February 6, 1999, he was working in the forest in the mountains above their home with his tractor when it slid and rolled 150 feet down a rocky hillside. He was thrown through the front glass of the cab and the tractor rolled over him. It’s a miracle that he’s still alive! He was hospitalized with injuries, but appeared in good shape when we visited him.
People said, “He has more work to do. It was not his time to leave this world yet.” No one could understand how he had survived. We saw the mangled John Deere tractor at his home when we were there and it was hard to believe that he wasn’t killed.
Since our visit, those bells have gone from the mountains of Norway to sporting events around the world. They were produced for the Olympic Games in Japan, but it wasn’t known how bells would go over in Japan so they hadn’t placed a large order. They sold out the first day and the organizers called Osmund to see if they could get more bells. They worked night and day and shipped more bells that arrived on the next to last day of the games. They also sold out immediately!
They are now made for many sporting events, including: World Alpine Championships, soccer games, Grand National Rodeo, and many other events worldwide. The U.S. Ski Team has also adopted Moen Bells as their official “cheering bell.”
While we were at the factory, they were busy producing bells for the 2002 Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City. They had orders for 300,000 bells. That’s a lot of bells to produce!
Osmund showed us how the bells are made and engraved. They are cut from iron sheets, formed, the handle and bell soldered on, and then coated with brass that is recycled from spent ammunition cartridges from Norwegian military practice ranges. Osmund calls his bells coated with melted down bullets, “Bells for Peace.”
After the bells reach this stage, they’re engraved by a machine that does several bells at a time. The designs and imprinting are computer generated of course! While we watched, he engraved the Salt Lake City Olympic logo on one side of a bell, and then engraved Howard and Linda Skjerpe (the original Norwegian spelling of the Sherpe name) on the other side, and presented it to us.
It was a real pleasure meeting Osmund and getting a tour of the bell factory. He has developed a very successful international business and the name, Moen Bells, is becoming known around the world.
Now when you hear bells ringing during the next Winter Olympic games, or any sporting event, you can tell people you know all about those bells. They are “Bells for Peace” and come from the little town of Moi, nestled at the base of the mountains in southwestern Norway.
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