By Henrietta Valcourt, Nursery and Family Life Writer

WEST CALDERBY — The oak rocking chair in the nursery at Millpond Road Fellowship has rocked an estimated 600 babies to sleep since it was donated in 1984. Somewhere along the way, it also became the most reliable musical instrument in the building.

The chair squeaks on the backward rock. According to church pianist Delphine Okafor-Riggs, 58, it squeaks in a clean, steady B-flat, and it has done so for as long as anyone can remember. The nursery shares a thin wall with the sanctuary, and the sound carries.

"Our piano drifts. Everything drifts. That chair does not drift," Okafor-Riggs said. "So at 10:52 every Sunday, I wait for the first squeak and tune to it. Then we start the opening hymn."

The arrangement was discovered by accident. In 2011, a well-meaning trustee oiled the chair during a spring cleaning day. The following Sunday, the congregation began the doxology in what one member called "three separate keys and a fourth one that was just Harold." Attendance at the evening service dipped. A second oiling in 2016 produced the same result, as did a third in 2019 and a fourth in 2023, which was blamed on a visiting youth group with a can of spray lubricant and good intentions.

After the fourth incident, the church council voted 7 to 0 to classify the chair as "musical equipment" rather than "furniture," which moved it out of the grounds committee's oversight and into the music budget. A laminated sign now hangs on its back reading "DO NOT OIL. THIS MEANS YOU, GARY."

Gary Pettibone, 71, the trustee responsible for the 2011 oiling, said he had made his peace with the sign. "In my defense, it squeaked," he said.

The nursery volunteers have had to adjust. Rocking is now scheduled. Head nursery volunteer Marisol Dunphy keeps a laminated card listing which Sundays need a steady rock before the opening hymn, and which can be "freestyle." Volunteers new to the rotation spend one training session learning to rock "on the beat" so the pitch holds through the first verse.

"The babies don't know they're part of the music program," Dunphy said. "But they have perfect attendance, so honestly they're more reliable than the tenors."

The choir has embraced the chair as well. Members now refer to it as "the Elder," and the alto section brought it a small cushion for its 40th anniversary this summer. A proposal to move the chair into the sanctuary for the Christmas cantata was voted down after several members worried it might "get stage fright."

Not everyone is convinced the squeak is truly B-flat. A retired band director in the congregation insists it is "a hair sharp, like it's got somewhere to be." Okafor-Riggs said the debate was welcome, as long as it stayed out of the nursery during nap time.

At press time, the church had purchased a backup rocking chair for emergencies and was rocking it daily, in hopes of breaking in a second squeak in the same key by 2031.