Historic cast-iron heirloom stolen from Liberty woman's home

LIBERTY

It’s one of those things: You take for granted that it’s there, so when it registers that it’s missing, you aren’t really sure for how long.

Elizabeth Kline noticed the empty post beside her garage door Aug. 8 when she was going out to dinner. She’s doesn’t know how long the bell that belongs there has been gone.

The black, cast-iron antique from a train that hauled steel from the old Youngstown Sheet & Tube plant had been at her Wildfern Lane house for as long as she has — a housewarming gift from a friend after she and her husband moved in 60 years ago.

That friend had the bell in his garage. It had been his father’s, who had worked at Sheet & Tube. He had gotten it from the mill.

“It was off one of the early trains,” Kline, 95, said at her home Thursday. “I was thrilled! If we’d have ever moved, I’d have taken that bell with me.”

Two feet wide at the rim and weighing several hundred pounds, it stayed at its post through the years.

Read more about this family treasure and the theft in Friday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.