By Cornelius Bramwell, Buildings and Trustees Reporter

LOWER BRENTMOOR — The master key ring at Willow Bend Gospel Chapel hangs on a nail inside the church office closet, where it has hung since at least 1981. It holds 63 keys. After a three-week investigation this fall, the Board of Trustees can say with confidence what nine of them open.

"We know the front doors, the side door, the office, the kitchen, the supply closet, the boiler room, the mailbox, the piano and the padlock on the shed," said trustee chair Myrtle Hanselman, 66, reading from a legal pad. "After that, it gets spiritual."

The audit began in September, when the church hired a locksmith to rekey the fellowship hall and he asked, reasonably, for the old key. Hanselman brought him the ring. The locksmith, according to witnesses, held it up to the light for a long moment and asked whether the church also owned a castle.

The ring weighs two pounds and three ounces on the kitchen scale. Its keys include brass, steel, a small silver one shaped like it belongs to a diary, and a large iron key that members of the women's circle believe may predate the current building, which was finished in 1958. One key is wrapped in yellowed masking tape that reads "DO NOT USE." Nobody remembers who wrote it, and nobody on the board has volunteered to find out what happens.

Volunteers spent three Saturdays walking the building with the ring, trying every key in every lock. The effort turned up a filing cabinet nobody knew was locked, a cabinet in the choir room containing 40 copies of a 1986 Easter cantata, and a door in the basement that most members had assumed was painted onto the wall.

The basement door opened into a small room holding two folding chairs, a box of flannelgraph figures and a coffee can of mismatched screws. "It felt like finding a room in your own house," said volunteer Dennis Albright, 58. "Then we tried the rest of the keys on the coffee can, just to be thorough."

Longtime custodian Ruthanne Bixby, 79, who carried the ring for 22 years before retiring in 2014, said she had never needed most of the keys and never questioned them. "You don't take a key off a church ring," she said. "That key is there for a reason. Maybe the reason moved to Arizona, but it's still a reason."

The trustees voted last week to keep all 63 keys rather than risk throwing out one that matters. They also approved a color-coded tag system, a laminated key map and a second, smaller ring for everyday use. The everyday ring holds nine keys and fits in a pocket. Within four days, three people had asked to add "just one more."

The board has scheduled a second audit for the spring, when the weather is better for testing the keys on the outdoor sign case, the bell tower hatch and a 1972 station wagon that still sits behind the shed.

At press time, the locksmith had finished rekeying the fellowship hall and handed over two new keys, which Hanselman thanked him for and promptly hung on the big ring.