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Subject: Bell.Eugene.L.1875.Hardin.BIOS


Eugene L. Bell July 28, 1875 - unknown
Hardin County KyArchives Biography

Author: History of Atchison County, Kansas by Sheffield Ingalls - 1916

Eugene L. Bell, prosperous farmer, Walnut township, was born at Oak Mills, Kan, 
July 28, 1875, a son of Joseph and Sydney (KING) Bell, natives of Missouri and Kentucky, respectively. Joseph Bell, the father, was born in October 1844, in Platte County, Missouri, of slave parentage. He lived in Missouri until 1863, and then located in Leavenworth, Kan., where he joined the United States Army, becoming a member of Company G, Seventy-ninth Regiment, United States Colorado Infantry. He served until the close of the Civil War, taking part in fourteen battles. After the war he married Miss Sydney King at Leavenworth, Kan. In 1872 he removed to Oak Mills, Atchison County, and settled on a farm in Walnut township. He was one of the pioneers of this settlement and developed a fine farm. Mr. Bell took an active part in matters pertaining to the betterment of his community and was an exemplary citizen. Many of the noted men of his day in Kansas were his warm and steadfast friends. Mr. and Mrs. Bell were the parents of nine children, six of whom were reared to maturity: Eugene L., the subject of this review; Mrs Birdie NORMAN of Omaha, Neb.; Mrs. T.C. BROWN, and Miss Pearlie Bell of Chicago Ill.; Humphrey Bell of Pittsburgh, Pa.; and Mead Bell of Cleveland, Ohio. Joseph Bell died May 30, 1914. Mrs. Bell died April 18, 1903. Like her husband, she ran away from slavery to Kansas. Eugene L. Spent his boyhood days assisting his father in cultivating the home farm, and managed to attend school about two and one-half months out of the year until he attained the age of nineteen years. He then began to hustle for himself and completed a three years' course in the Atchison County high school at Effingham. Ambition and a desire to educate himself led him to make sacrifices in order to prepared himself to better cope with the struggle for a livelihood. The priceless boon of an education as his after considerable effort, and he graduated from the county high school in 1896. He then returned to the avocation of farmer and rented land in Walnut township, which he cultivated for some years. Mr. Bell is the owner of a fine farm in Walnut township. He was married December 26, 1901, to Miss Mamie CHURCHILL, of Monrovia, Kan., a native of Hardin County, Kentucky. They settled in Atchison, Kan., and lived there three years after this marriage. Mr. Bell then moved to Walnut township and taught school for two terms in District No. 20. He then bought forty acres of land, on which he has since made his home. Seven children have been born to Mr. and Mrs.
Bell: Inez, Orville, Eugene, Leslie, Jr., Justin, Irene, Pearlie, Ruthanna. Mrs. Bell died December 7, 1912. Mr. Bell has been the local newspaper correspondent of his neighborhood for several years and has a decided literary talent. For the past eighteen years he has been connected with school district No. 20 in the capacity of teacher and school trustee. He is a progressive Republican in his political affiliations, and has been honored by his party. On May 27, 1915, he was appointed by Governor Capper as a member of the board of trustees of Quindaro University, Kansas, and also received a complimentary appointment to attend the Farmers' Congress as a negro delegate, held at the Panama Exposition at San Francisco. He is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church of Atchison, and has been a member of the Masonic Fraternity for the past fifteen years. Mr. Bell has taken a prominent part in the educational and civic life of Atchison County. He has served as a delegate to county and state conventions of his party, and filled the position of doorkeeper and sergeant-at-arms in the house of representatives at Topeka. His newspaper experience includes a term of employment in the printing department of the Omaha Bee when nineteen years old, where he learned typesetting, going from there to Chicago and attending the World's Fair. After this experience he returned home with the intention of securing an education and succeeded. Mr. Bell is one of the well respected citizens of his community, and is one of the recognized leaders of his race in Kansas. His father, Joseph Bell, was a member of the Grand Army of the Republic, Scot Post, of Hydro, Okla., whither he removed in 1900.



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