291104 - Mission Bells

This episode of Empire Builders was notable for several reasons. The topic focused on California, a territory just barely served by the GN, and then only by way of an eventual link through central Oregon connecting with the Western Pacific Railroad at Bieber, California.

This episode was also one of the first to bring to the radio audience Robert Hunter “Bob” MacGimsey, a man of singular and remarkable talent. He could whistle in 3-part harmony, in perfect pitch. I intend to write at greater length about Bob MacGimsey (he deserves his own biographical tome, to be honest) in a future post. At this time, however, I’ll keep things more brief – and I’ll come back to him later.

Another point about this episode that deserves attention is the use of a dramatic technique called “self-reference.” Near the end of the story being dramatized, the characters tune in a radio to listen to the very radio program they’re a part of – Empire Builders. That’s not to say they were listening to the very broadcast they were broadcasting (woof… THAT would be weird!), but rather, characters in this evening’s program were having a conversation onboard an Empire Builder train, and they tuned in a radio in the train’s observation car and caught a few closing seconds of one of their own shows. More about that later.

 

As for the California connection, later episodes of Empire Builders revisited this theme as the GN was working to complete their access to the south. The GN’s rail link into the Golden State was completed two years after this episode aired, but it is clear the GN wanted to draw plenty of attention to both freight and passenger travel options down the west coast. At the time of this broadcast, GN passengers wanting to visit California had to transfer at Portland, Oregon, to a train operated by the Southern Pacific. In fact, any thoughts of developing regular through-passenger service over the GN via central Oregon and the Bieber connection fizzled, leaving the SP connection as the only viable option for passengers to travel from the Pacific Northwest southward to California. It was preferable to connecting with the Union Pacific, which also served Portland, but which then worked its way southeast to Salt Lake City, through Nevada, and finally into Los Angeles.

 

Bob MacGimsey (pronounced “mack-JIM-see”), was quite an interesting and talented man. Not only could he whistle in 3-part harmony, he sometimes achieved a 4^th part – all of them in perfect pitch. He also had the ability to create a discord if he did so deliberately. He was capable of playing numerous instruments by ear, including the piano, pipe organ, and saxophone. MacGimsey devoted virtually his entire life to music, spending many years travelling his native Louisiana and elsewhere interviewing and tape recording songs of older generations of blacks across the plantation South. The GN signed him to a contract that ended, oddly, in April – well before the end of the scheduled second season of Empire Builders. It is not clear exactly why they did not sign him to continue through the end of the season, although MacGimsey had a share in a partnership that operated a cotton plantation, and he wrote to his partners that he felt his foray into professional recording and broadcasting had created an unfair burden on the others.

From a press release indicating doctors were unable to identify anything out of the ordinary upon examination of whistler extraordinaire, Bob MacGimsey.

The opening text of this broadcast’s continuity explains MacGimsey’s participation:

(MUSIC:           Opening bars of Spanish music of a sentimental character. Fade down for Announcement.)

ANNOUNCER:  You are listening to EMPIRE BUILDERS, a program sponsored by the Great Northern Railway. And with us again tonight is Bob MacGimsey, whistler extraordinary, who whistles three-part harmony probably with less effort than most of us in carrying an ordinary tune … Bob MacGimsey.

(MUSIC:            Music up again, this time with Bob MacGimsey, and then fade down to background for the following scene.)

 

The whole point of the Empire Builders radio series was to serve the railroad as an advertising campaign. Along the way, many new frontiers were explored in the fledging realm of radio broadcasting. It is not clear how often, prior to the Empire Builders series airing, that a regular network radio series drew attention to itself as a device embedded in the broadcast itself, but this episode may well be the first time it happened on Empire Builders. Either way, it was a novel idea that was not yet commonplace.

The story of the “Mission Bells” was rooted in the history of early California. After the story reached its climax, sound effects were utilized to segue to modern times, and bring to the microphone the Old Timer and some travelling companions, riding the Empire Builder westward. Here is how this passage played out in the continuity:

(THE BELLS BREAK INTO A JOYOUS PEAL, AND THE MUSIC CATCHES IT UP, BECOMING GAY AND LIGHT, BUT RETAINING ITS SPANISH QUALITY. GRADUALLY THIS FADES DOWN, AND THROUGH IT CAN BE HEARD THE NOISE OF A TRAIN, APPROACHING FROM A DISTANCE. BRING IT FAIRLY LOUD TO THE FRONT, THEN AS IT STARTS TO RECEDE, MAKE TRANSITION INTO INTERIOR TRAIN NOISE, CLICK OF RAILS, FAINT WHISTLE. FADE MUSIC OUT COMPLETELY, AND KEEP TRAIN NOISES VERY FAINT. USE DISTANT WHISTLE ABOUT EVERY 30 SECONDS, SPOTTING IT BETWEEN SENTENCES, SO AS NOT TO DETRACT FROM DIALOGUE.)

PIONEER:          Well, folks, that’s the story of how the San Gabriel Mission was founded, way back about the time of the American Revolution. Hardship an’ romance went pretty much together in those times.

MAN:                Is the mission still there, Old Timer? Can we see it when we get out to California?

WOMAN 1:     Oh, I hope so!

PIONEER:          Well, I’ll tell you. About four years after the story I told you happened, the original mission was attacked and burned, but you’ll find the adobe ruins there to this day. They put up a new mission then, an’ that’s still there.

WOMAN 2:      And the bells too?

PIONEER:         The bells too.

MAN:                Just about where is it?

PIONEER:          Let’s see. It’s just about nine miles east of the present city of Los Angeles.

WOMAN 1:      HOWARD, we must visit that mission. I want to hear those bells. Oh, Howard, that reminds me! Do turn on the radio! It’s just about the time the Great Northern’s Empire Builder program is going on in New York, and it would be such fun to hear it way out here in the west, riding on the Empire Builder train!

The Old Timer announced that he was ready for bedtime (odd, since the Empire Builders show was live on the air, and he not only would have still been up if he were on the radio, but it would be at least a couple hours later since the shows were being broadcast from New York City). It’s probably just as well that the Old Timer left the observation car, since he couldn’t very well have been standing there listening to the radio, and at the same time come on the radio in a live performance out of New York!

Here’s how the continuity handled the closing minutes of the radio show, as heard onboard the Empire Builder train:

HOWARD:         I’ll see if I can pick up the Empire Builder program for you. Wait … Here it is.

(MUSIC:            MUSIC COMES IN, AS IF TUNED IN ON RADIO. IN MIDDLE OF PIECE, WITH BOB MACGIMSEY WHISTLING. INTERIOR TRAIN NOISES OUT. MUSIC FADES TO BACKGROUND.)

ANNOUNCER:   While California basks under the rays of a warm sun, Old Man Winter plies his magic craftsmanship in the Rockies and the Cascades along the route of the Great Northern Railway. Jagged peaks and frowning precipices assume fantastic shapes. Tumbling waters peak out from under sheets of crystal. Californians and visitors to California find that the Great Northern way affords an opportunity to become intimate with this winter fairyland from the snug warmth and luxury of two of America’s finest trains – the Empire Builder and the Oriental Limited – always dependable. These trains, piercing the Cascades through the great 8-mile tunnel, crossing the Rockies at a low altitude, and pulled by giant super-powered locomotives – can be relied upon to maintain their fast schedules the year around.

(MUSIC:           MUSIC SWELLS FOR A FEW BARS: THEN FADES AGAIN.)

ANNOUNCER:  You have been listening to Empire Builders, a program sponsored by the Great Northern Railway. Next Monday evening at the same hour you will hear another romance of the West. This is John Young announcing.

WOMAN 1:      Oh dear! We only got it at the very end.

                           (MUSIC SWELLS QUICKLY WITH LIGHT, FAST STUFF. MUSIC FADES OUT. FAINT LOCOMOTIVE WHISTLE HEARD IN DISTANCE.)

The Empire Builders program has come to you from the New York studios of the National Broadcasting Company.

 

Many episodes of Empire Builders were historically accurate fictionalized accounts of people and events that helped shape the early development of the Pacific Northwest. This was especially true of broadcasts during the first season of the series. During the second season, primary continuity writer Edward Hale Bierstadt took liberties with many published works that addressed the early days of the West and crafted them into his own stories for the radio. I am not a scholar of the early days of the western U.S., but to the best of my knowledge, there never was a man named Don Luis de la Torre, associated with the San Gabriel Mission, as related in this episode of Empire Builders. Bierstadt’s story appears to be borrowed heavily from a work of fiction, a short story, published in 1902 and written by Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton. She wrote a collection of short stories under the title of “The Splendid Idle Forties,” one of which was “The Bells of San Gabriel.” In Atherton’s story, her protagonist, Don Luis de la Torre, is sent from Mexico City (where his fiancé awaits his return) to the fledgling mission of San Gabriel with a contingent of soldiers to protect the padres. Atherton set the stage for an underutilized and somewhat bored military man: “The Indian workmen were slugs; California, a vast region inhabited only by savages and a few priests, offered slender attractions to a young officer craving the gay pleasures of his capital and the presence of the woman he was to marry.” In Atherton’s story, de la Torre and his men fell under a sudden and overwhelming attack by the Indians. The battle raged on until, being one of the last defenders standing, de la Torre was slain and fell dramatically across the threshold of the mission he was trying to defend.

Meanwhile, back in Mexico City, the fiancé of Don Luis de la Torre – the stunningly beautiful Delfina de Capalleja – pined away for her distant lover. She soon learned of his sad fate, and was consoled by the padres there who were founding a set of bells to be shipped to the mission. Distraught with grief, señorita Capalleja took a gold chain from her neck and flung it into the molten silver. Others in attendance were just naturally caught up in this odd behavior and immediately did the same, tossing enormously valuable jewels into the molds to become one with the mission bells. Having instilled in the bells a remarkable tonal quality not found in pedestrian bells made without such fervent tossing of jewels and other such personal adornments, the lovely señorita “who had stood with panting chest and dilating nostrils, turned from the sacrificial caldron… ”  and then “raised her bewildered eyes … and thrust out her hands blankly, then fell dead across the threshold.”

 

The end.

Bierstadt apparently took this tale and molded it into this night’s episode that he called “Mission Bells.” In the Bierstadt version of the story – the one aired on Empire Builders – Don Luis de la Torre is presented as very compassionate and benevolent toward the Indians. Another Spaniard is alluded to, one who despite being married has a reputation for trifling with the native women, and this man apparently raised the ire of the menfolk among the native population – so much so that they attacked the mission. In this version of the tale, de la Torre is brought down by a poisoned arrow and separated from his men. Later they cannot find him, and give him up for dead. Once again we find the heartbroken fiancé down Mexico way, hanging out with some padres who are making bells for the mission. The young lady (still just as beautiful, but now going by the name Carmen) is once again compelled to toss all her jewels into the molten silver (only this time it’s just her gem collection that gets sacrificed). Señorita Carmen travels to the Mission San Gabriel to help deliver and dedicate the new bells. Wouldn’t you know it, but who should appear after months of absence but that zany Torre guy. Turns out some young Indian maiden he once befriended came to his aid and nursed him slowly back to health. After the mission bell dedication ceremony, the first wedding ceremony at the mission was conducted, and this version of the tale ended on a decidedly happier and less tragic note than Gertrude Atherton’s original story.