The Ghost of Julius
Charles Barnard Bell (1928-2010) was the third son and youngest child of Joseph and Julia Bell of Savannah, Ga. Billy was born just before the 10th anniversary of the death of his older brother Julius – he who first bore the middle name Barnard – tragically struck and killed instantly by a car at age 9. After her decade-long grief for her eldest child, perhaps Julia felt her hope renewed by her newborn boy – not a replacement for Julius per se, but a ray of light to diminish the shadow his death had cast over the home, or maybe a fresh outlet for the shattered aspirations she once held for Julius.
Joseph Jr.
Baby Charles, whom everyone called Billy or Bill, had four older siblings, the three eldest significantly so. Billy’s lone surviving brother Joseph Jr. (1912-1958), then 15 years-old, was also a son of hope, having been born on Christmas Eve. Like his father, Joe had blue eyes, brown hair, and was of slight build, 5′ 6″ and about 125 lbs. throughout his adult life. It is unclear if Joe’s demons had already begun to manifest themselves by age 16, when he is listed as an apprentice at Radio Service Laboratory on Bay Street. Like his father in the automobile industry, Joe was a part of the fledgling broadcast radio industry shortly after vacuum tubes were invented. By age 21 he was unemployed however, admittedly in the midst of the Depression. It appears 25 year-old Joe eloped to South Carolina with 19 year-old Gertrude Barner in 1938, had a newborn son they named Joseph III in 1939, and was evidently estranged from his young family by October 1940.
We only have family anecdotes to fill in the next twelve and a half years of Joe’s life. Most agree he was an alcoholic. Years later his sisters Mary, Margaret, and Betty Ann spoke about him only hesitantly, and then with much sadness. One relative hinted Joe had some connection to the Mafia, while another stated frankly, “Joe Jr. was a bum.” According to a state board of corrections log titled “Misdemeanor Sentence Register,” 40 year-old Joe was convicted of “Issuing Worthless Ck.” in Savannah’s Chatham County on June 26, 1953 and given a sentence of “4 mos. or $40.” Years later, Bill’s wife recalled that Joe was “stealing envelopes from the mail and taking checks out.” Joe subsequently served more than three months in the Georgia State Prison, and the fact that he did not ask his family or friends to help pay the fine or, equally likely, that they were asked and refused, speaks volumes.
After his release, he is said to have had no contact with his family until he was killed on the streets of Chicago in January 1958, where his obituary claims he lived ” for the past five years.” “Mugged and murdered,” is the consensus, but we have no real documentation to explain the how and why. His estranged son Joseph Bell III was by then already known as Joseph Hardy, having taken the surname of his adoptive father. Joseph Sr. took the train to Chicago to claim and bury yet another son. Years later, having outlived three of her six children, Julia was walking out of Mass with her adult grandson Dan Pruitt. With sadness she turned to Dan and said, “You’ll never know hurt until you lose a child.” Like the Virgin Mary, our Lady of Sorrows, Julia too felt multiple piercings in her heart.
Charles B. Bell, USMC
Meanwhile, like his siblings, Charles “Billy” Bell attended Catholic grade school and then Savannah High School, where he was active in JROTC (Junior Reserve Officer’s Training Corps) during the bulk of World War II. Upon graduation in 1947 Billy enlisted for two years in the then-peacetime Marine Corps and served uneventfully at a munitions depot in Arkansas, much to his mother’s relief. He returned to Savannah, joined the Marine Corps Reserves, and took classes at Armstrong Junior College. Bill was 21 years-old.
In the midst of Julia’s angst for Joe, Bill’s reserve unit was called to active duty within a year, as the U.S. became involved in the Korean War. He was sent to Camp Pendleton on the Southern California coast, easy marching distance from where Bill would someday raise a family. Sgt. Charles B. Bell appears on a muster roll there on October 31, 1950. Less than three weeks later, Bill was in Korea and joined the 1st Marine Division in their push north from Wonsan to support the U.S. Eighth Army. According to his widow, Bill was assigned to “A” Co., 1st Battalion, 1st Regiment. Bill and his Marines marched into an ambush at Chosin Reservoir where they endured seventeen days of desperate, often hand-to-hand combat in freezing temperatures and sometimes blizzard-like conditions before a daring break-out and withdrawal.
Marriage and Career
25 year-old Bill returned to college and his aging parents in Savannah, where he met Marjorie Sweerus, a nurse attending to his 64 year-old mother during a hospital visit. They married at Sacred Heart Catholic Church on Bull Street in 1954. Bill worked as a stock clerk for Steel Products Co. – founded in 1900 as Savannah Blow Pipe, which manufactured metal sawdust removal systems for sawmills. Steel Products Co. began manufacturing refrigerated truck trailers during World War II, had recently built a large plant on Lathrop Avenue, and the company was becoming nationally respected for their innovation and quality. Bill’s company became known as Great Dane in 1958, their signature red oval embedded with a silver Great Dane still an icon of the American road.
Bill worked for Great Dane into the 1960s, before becoming connected with another iconic American product. Around 1900 the Southern Oil Company of Savannah hired food chemist David Wesson, who pioneered the development of vegetable oil from cotton seeds. Wesson Oil became the industry leader, and Bill accepted a position with Hunt-Wesson shortly after the merger with the California tomato products company. When Julia died in 1969, her only surviving son and his family moved to Southern California, where he worked for Hunt-Wesson/ConAgra Foods until his retirement.
As a personal aside, I got to know Uncle Billy and Aunt Margie in my early 20s when I was a young sailor stationed in San Diego, about a hundred miles down the coast from their home in Orange County. I was a big baseball fan. Billy and Margie lived just a few miles from Anaheim Stadium and if I could make the trip when my team was in town I’d stay with them. Uncle Billy had a favorite Mexican restaurant he took me at least twice. Aunt Margie had a collection of bird magnets. She gifted me her Baltimore Oriole in a nod to the ulterior motive for my visits. The magnet graces our family refrigerator these thirty years later. Billy and Margie were kind, welcoming, and invariably asked after my grandmother (Billy’s older sister Mary), parents, and siblings on the East Coast. They’d sometimes invite others of the California Bells to their home and we’d have mini Bell family reunions including his nieces Nancy Pruitt Snideman and Ann Morgan Edwards. When their youngest daughter was married, dozens of Bells East and West including my grandmother and me descended on their home to help celebrate.
He is survived by his beloved wife of 56 years Marjorie, his three children, four grandchildren, and two great grandchildren. The most important thing in Bill’s life was his family. He was full of love, laughter, and tomfoolery. He showered his family with unconditional love and was always there to lend a helping hand. Bill’s passion later in life was exploring the Southwest with his wife Marjorie and many friends in their camping group. Bill will be missed dearly by his family and friends. He will live in our hearts forever.
From Bill’s Obituary, The Orange County Register Monday July 12, 2010.
WITH GRATITUDE TO AUNT MARGIE, ON WHOSE SHORT BIOGRAPHIES MUCH OF THE NARRATIVE OF BILL’S LIFE IS BASED, AND FOR THE PHOTOS THAT HELPED BRING THE NARRATIVE TO LIFE.
Adapted from A String of Bells: Stories of a Southern Family © 2020 by Nick J. Guevara, Jr.
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