Did Your NE Montana Grandma Have This Clock Chime Too?

When I would walk across "the yard" at Howard University, I always felt right at home as I passed the library. A familiar chime would ring across campus. It was the same chime that I heard in my grandma's living room in Glasgow, Montana as a kid.

Tick Tock.

Since TikTok was all over the news, one of our radio listeners- Evan in Belt, Montana- said he was reminded of his grandma's clock that he grew up hearing in Northeast Montana. I then played a chime over the radio and asked Evan if that was the same chime his grandma had on her clock. Sure enough- my grandma had the same clock chime in Glasgow, Montana.

Here's the message that Evan sent us this past Thursday night which sparked the conversation.

As a child I remember listening to my grandmother's mechanical clock in Northeastern Montana as I was drifting off to sleep. Tik...Tok , Tik...Tok. It was eerie that between the Tik and the Tok was silence. I think it is no coincidence that the Chinese are using this platform to silence America. People need to understand that the very things they are arguing to keep TikTok(medical needs, business opportunities, agriculture and even religion just to name a few) are the very things they are trying to silence taking away the very liberties our country was founded on. It is amazing to me that some people are ambivalent to this and are allowing the demise of our freedoms thinking that the Chinese are not interested in their little corner of the world. WELL THEY VERY MUCH ARE ! and it is time to wake up and ban this platform. TIK.......TOK." (Evan, Belt)

What was the familiar chime? The Westminster Quarters. Where did it come from? Here's what Encyclopedia Britannica tells us:

Composed at Cambridge University by an organ student, William Crotch, for use with the new clock at Great St. Mary’s Church, in 1793, its subsequent use in the clock tower of the Houses of Parliament, London (1859), resulted in its present name.