In Memoriam Joseph Leo "Joe" Connors
(1934-2013), tower bell enthusiast
Joe and I became acquainted in the 1990s as a result of our shared passion for tower bells - primarily chimes in his case, and primarily carillons in my case, although for both of us the wider field was of almost equal interest.
Actually we only met face to face a few times, but we communicated fairly regularly by email or telephone, exchanging information or discussing problems or rejoicing over new discoveries.
Joe liked to say that we were "friendly competitors" because we both maintained Websites that presented information about North American tower bell instruments, albeit in different ways and using different methods.
But in actuality we cooperated more than competed, to our mutual benefit.
When I received the news of Joe's sudden and untimely death, I recalled immediately his concern over the continuation of his Website after his demise, and determined to do what I could to make that happen.
To make a long story short, with the cooperation and support of Joe's long-time companion (Gayle Walrath) and his executor (oldest son, Michael), AllChimes.org continues to exist, in fulfillment of Joe's wishes.
Details are given below.
(Joe had another Website, joepostcard.com, related to his sideline of producing and selling postcards; it was very small, and has been abandoned.)
The first and most difficult step was to wrestle with the bureaucratic intricacies of taking control of the domain name registration for "allchimes.org" and the hosting of Joe's Website under that domain name.
Domain registrars and hosting companies are justifiably leery of possible hijacking efforts, so they have strict policies for validating transfer of control following death of a customer.
Having cleared that hurdle, I arranged to accept billing for renewal of the domain registration and for the hosting contract - both fairly small amounts.
Then it was on to the technical matters of the Website itself - pages, photos, the links between them, and the hidden machinery that presents it all to the visiting public.
Here's what I've done (or deliberately not done) with Joe's "AllChimes" Website:
- Added obituary references to the home page (along with a link to my Website).
- Replaced email links for Joe's eddress with mine, as I intend to answer any queries
about bells or chimes from visitors to AllChimes.
(Any valid email sent to Joe's old AOL eddress will be forwarded to me by Gayle.)
- Identified his page change dates with his name;
added my change dates with my name.
- Corrected typographical errors (spelling, punctuation, &c.), but did NOT change
any of Joe's wording or phrasing.
- Replaced non-standard HTML with standard HTML, eliminating quirks
and inefficiencies caused by Microsoft Front Page.
- Made links between pages and other files consistent in terms of case, even though
that is not required for Websites hosted on Windows servers (as this one is).
This will become essential if this Website is moved to a Unix-based server, where case is respected.
- Fixed unrotated images.
- Expanded black border on photos that include Joe.
- Reformatted "pictures" page; moved pictures and thumbnails into
new subdirectory (pix1) for ease of reference.
Moved photos for site visit pages from a single huge directory into
smaller ones for efficiency and ease of management.
- A few small textual additions are [bracketed and marked /CSZ/],
and are in black rather than the orange text that Joe usually used.
Larger textual additions are boxed with a black border
like the obituary reference on the home page.
- A few textual corrections are marked with strikeouts (on the error)
and italics (on the correction), without change of color.
- Removed month/day/ from dates in Meneely genealogy, for simplicity.
- Deleted many 5-pixel junk images, not referenced by any Webpage,
that must have been artifacts of some upload process error long ago.
A few bits of other stuff also fell into this category, and were similarly handled.
- Reorganized links on the chime and carillon photos index page
to distinguish between Joe's site visit pages and external pages.
- Added commentary to a few of Joe's photo pages to explain more fully what
can be seen there; resized a few photo displays based on actual file sizes.
- Replaced "allchimes.com" image on home page with "AllChimes.org" version
that Joe had evidently made but never installed.
- Added the page you are now reading, as my personal memorial to Joe.
While this lengthy list looks like a lot of changes, in actuality they constitute simply a small amount of polishing of rough edges, some visible and some invisible, but all aimed at keeping Joe's content available to the public and following his style as much as possible.
Rest in peace, Joe.
Current status as of the modification date of this page (see below):
over 100 Webpages polished (see above),
over 1300 photos reviewed and confirmed in those pages;
about 240 additional pages, photos and other items remain to be reviewed,
including all pages containing extracts from Joe's database.
Carl Scott Zimmerman, Campanologist
Webmaster, www.TowerBells.org
Send mail to Carl Zimmerman
with questions or comments about this Website.
This page originally written 14-Feb-2014, and last modified 15-Feb-2014