WHEN TIME STOPS AT 4:23 by Pennie Hunt

I have an old clock. It is a Westclox Big Ben De Luxe, made by the Western Clock Company of La Salle, Illinois. The patent date is March 29, 1927, and was made in the late l920’s. This was one of Westclox’s premium lines of mechanical alarm clocks and has the green crackled enamel finish, which was a signature style at that time. It cost $3.75. This clock was a dependable middle-class family item that was required if you were a farmer or a railroad worker and needed to be at work on time.

There is a plate on the bottom of the clock that is stamped, A.R. Davis. After researching this, I learned that A.R. Davis was a Westclox engineer and patent holder. His name is stamped on many clocks from that era. 

My great-grandmother was married to a man named Albert E. Davis and lived less than 2 hours from where this clock was manufactured. So, of course, I wonder if somehow there was a connection. That is a mystery that may never be solved.

Other than that, it is just a clock. A clock that I always remember seeing on the bookshelf of our family home when I was growing up. A clock that I was drawn to. When my mother passed, it was a treasure that I brought to my house. ​Now it sits on a bookshelf in my office.

Today I looked at it and kept wondering why. Why was it always in our home? Why did my parents believe it was important to keep? Why didn’t I ever ask questions about it?

It was fun to do a little research and learn the details about where it was made and how old it was, but there is so much more I wish I knew. I wish I knew how many shelves it sat on. I wish I knew how many hands have held it, wound it, and set alarms on it. I wish I knew how many hours it counted before it stopped working. How long has it been permanently locked in at 4:23?

In my mind, I think of a family in 1930. They probably lived in a small farming community in a small home, and this clock woke them every morning. The story in my mind is sweet and simple, but the real truth is a mystery.

I think about the tick, tick, tick it made as it counted the minutes of a life from a time I never lived in. I wonder what the alarm sounded like as it went off in the morning. I wonder if the base is cracked and chipped from being slapped and knocked off a shelf when the alarm rang.

I think of how this clock has been passed down in my family. I wonder when the story of who it belonged to and how many shelves it sat on stopped being told. 

Now it is a piece of décor that looks cool on my bookshelf without a story attached to it. The days of counting seconds, waking people up, and ticking away time are done. To me, it is a reminder of a past connected to me. A reminder of how fast time goes. And a reminder of mysteries that will never be solved.
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                                                       Pennie’s Life Lesson:
                   The real stories of the generations before us remain mysteries.
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​YOUR TURN...        
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