F a m i l y W e b P a g e
f o r
Charlie King Bell
F a m i l y
Early Years
Sanders and Rubye Bell's third child, a son, Charlie King Bell, was born on Thursday, May 1, 1941 at the Sunflower County Hospital in Indianola, Mississippi. At the time, the Bell family had been living in their new home at the north end of Davis Avenue (across from the Robert Vanlandingham home) for a little more than 4 months. Charlie King was welcomed home by his brother, Jimmy Lee Bell, age 2 years, and his sister, June Sandra Bell, age 1 year.
King began attending the Inverness Consolidated School in September of 1947. His elementary school teachers were:
First grade, 1947-1948: Miss Francis Hemphill
Second grade, 1948-1949: Mrs. Hettie Combs (wife of the school principle, Mr. W. W. Combs)
Third grade, 1949-1950: Mrs. Hazel Littleton
Fourth grade, 1950-1951: Miss Pauline Thomas
Fifth grade, 1951-1952: Mrs. Bessie Dallas
Sixth grade, 1952-1953: Mrs. J. W. Morgan
Activities: Boy Scouts.
Inverness had a very active Boy Scout troop -- perhaps thirty-five boys. King joined in 1952 at age 11 years and went to summer camp at Camp Tallaha at Charleston, Mississippi. The camp offered a wide variety of activities for a young boy--from swimming and lifesaving, to crafts, to camping and hiking, to cooking out-of-doors and campfires. Also, some of the counselors would exhibit Indian costumes and demonstrate Indian ceremonial dances. This all impressed King as a young boy. Throughout the year, the troop would meet at the Scout Hut in Inverness every Monday night. This gave the boys a good excuse to go out on a school night and have fun. King was a member of the Boy Scouts until age 13 or 14 years, attending summer camp at Tallaha for three or four years.
Summer work:
When King finished the 8th grade in 1955 at age 14 years, he and his brother, Jimmy, went to work on their Granddaddy King's farm. They were put to work driving tractors. King was given jobs to do such as clipping the bitterweeds in the pastures and pulling a two-row disc behind a John Deere tractor. The boys were not allowed to plow or work row crops, for they might plow under the cotton and soybeans. The experienced tractor drivers that lived on the farm cultivated the row crops. King and Jimmy had to be on their tractors and in the field at sunrise by 5:00 a.m. and their work day on the farm ended at sundown at 7:00 p.m. In 1955, King worked for three dollars a day. The following two years, tractor driving brought four dollars a day.
In the summer of 1958, following his junior year in high school, Mr. Kirby Day had a job opening at the Drug Store. The job paid five dollars a day and the work was in an air-conditioned building. King was hired. Jerry Hughes, a classmate, had been working for Mr. Day for a year and knew what was expected. King mostly ran the soda fountain while Jerry handled patent medicines and gift items. Mr. Day told the young men that it looked bad for them to be sitting down when customers came into the store. The young men were required to stand on their feet from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. Suddenly the ideal summer job became hard work.
"Many occupations today require people to be on their feet for 8, 10, or 12 hours a day. For sixty years, Daddy stood as a Dentist to work. In Dental School, I was trained both ways to stand and work, and to sit and work. When I was a senior dental student, we only had two or three sit-down dental units out of the several hundred dental units in the whole school. Until 1965, dentists all stood up to work. That concept rapidly changed in the 1960s with the availability of new sit-down dental equipment. This innovation really saved a dentist's legs. You could work hard all day while sitting down, and still feel like going dancing at night after work. You were not nearly as tired as you would be if you had to stand all day. In 1967, I purchased a sit-down dental unit for our office in Inverness. I enjoyed the work very much."
In the summer of 1954 at the age of 13 years, King was asked by his Grandfather, Mr. C. W. King, Sr., to drive him to Greenville to a cow sale. His grandfather did not have anyone to go with him. King had driven the 1954 Chevrolet, but never on the highway.
"He told me it would be all right if I got a traffic ticket for not having a driver's license, he would pay it. Although we made a safe trip, on the way home, I got behind a slow car on the highway. Big Daddy suddenly stomped his cowstick to the floorboard and said, 'Let's go!' I pressed the accelerator pedal down and eased into the passing lane. I was scared as I passed the car. Some things you don't learn until you try it. I grew up a little that day."
High School: Clubs and Organizations.
Member of Future Farmers of America. Was an officer and represented local chapter at the F.F.A. National Convention in Kansas City, Missouri.
Member of the Hi-Y Club.
Senior trip info:
The Senior Class of 1959 took a trip to Washington, DC and New York.
University Years
King attended Mississippi State University for 2 years: 1959-60 and 1960-61. He roomed with his brother, Jimmy, for the spring 1960 semester, then with a friend for the fall 1960 and spring 1961 semesters. Jimmy had married Carline Bates on July 1, 1960 and in January 1961, Carline now joined Jimmy in Starkville, and they moved into a house.
King attended Delta State University for two semesters, 1961-62 to take physics. During the summers of 1959, 1960, and 1961, King worked for the ASC Office measuring cotton acreage (checking allotments).
King entered the University of Tennessee Dental School on July 6, 1962. At the time, new students from Mississippi and other states were required to enter the college and begin classes during the summer (college was operating on the quarter system). Students from Tennessee were required to enter the college in September. King's class consisted of 35 students from 16 states. King graduated in September 1965.
While in Dental School, King enrolled in the Air Force. He was a 2nd Lieutenant, then 1st Lieutenant, and entered the Air Force as a Captain in October 1965. He was sent to Gunter Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama for a 2-week orientation, then sent for his permanent assignment to Homestead Air Force Base located south of Miami, Florida. King worked as a dentist in the Air Force.
He received an honorable medical discharge in December 1966.
King returned to Inverness and began working in his father's dental clinic. During coming months, King purchased new dental equipment.
Marriage
It was September 1974. King was living and working in Inverness. Each year, the Lions Club had a banquet in October. King began making plans to attend the banquet and wanted to invite a date to attend with him. He asked Lavenia Maxwell, a high school friend. Lavenia was working in R. L. Maxwell's Cotton Office at the time. The fall months were busy for this business. Lavenia would work days teaching school, and then night hours, and even weekend hours, at the Cotton Office to get the work done. Lavenia was pleased with the invitation from King, but declined because she would be working at the cotton office that night. She, however, told King she had a friend that she would like for him to meet. Lavenia introduced King to Farilyn McGovern, a friend who lived in Indianola, and was originally from Cleveland, Mississippi. At the time, Farilyn lived in Dorsett Street Apartments in Indianola. Farilyn attended the Lions Club Banquet with King. She and King dated for two weeks and King asked Farilyn to marry him. Farilyn said she would if he would adopt Bert (her son by a previous marriage). King agreed that this would be done. They became engaged and continued dating until they married on June 6, 1975 in Farilyn's mother's home in Cleveland, Mississippi. Both Sanders and Rubye Bell attended the home wedding. The marriage rites were performed by Reverend Macklin Hubbard, pastor at the First Baptist Church of Cleveland (Farilyn's church).
For a honeymoon, King and Farilyn Bell had planned to go to Disney World in Orlando, Florida for a few days. Following the wedding, they rode to Hattiesburg and spent the night. The following day, they rode to Panama City, Florida where they rented a room for 2 nights. Then they decided not to go to Orlando, but to go to Tallahassie, then to Montgomery, then to Tuscaloosa where they stopped by to see Don and Linda Bell.
King and Farilyn continued to live in the Dorsett Apartments in Indianola for about one year. Then they moved to Inverness and lived in Mrs. Clark's house (one side of the house was an apartment). About 1978, Mrs. Hattie King went to live in a Nursing Home in Greenville. As accommodations became available, she moved to a Nursing Home in Indianola. King and Farilyn agreed to rent her vacant house. Mrs. King passed away on April 13, 1979. In the months following her death, Sanders and Rubye purchased the house. King and Farilyn continued to live in the house.
King continued to work in the Dental Office in Inverness and Farilyn taught school in Indianola, then Belzoni, then Inverness. A lawyer in Cleveland arranged for King to legally adopt Bert Bennett McGovern. On July 6, 1979, a daughter, Erin Philen Bell, was born.
Children
Bert Bennett Bell finished high school at Humphreys Academy in Belzoni, graduating in May 1989. While in high school, he played on the men's basketball team. Bert attended Delta State University, graduating with a degree in Business Management in May 1993 (or 1994?). While attending college, he worked for Heilig-Myers Furniture Company. He was transferred to the Heilig-Myers store in Oxford, Mississippi, and he took an accounting class at the University of Mississippi at night. Bert married Aimee Harper from Hazelhurst, Mississippi on (date?) . The marriage took place at the First Baptist Church in Hazelhurst, Mississippi.
Bert and Aimee Bell lived in Jackson, Mississippi where Bert was working as a manager of a Heilig-Myers Furniture Store and Aimee was working as an MRI Technician at the Baptist Medical Center. The Bells moved to Weatherford, Texas where Bert was manager of the Heilig-Myers Furniture Store there. They bought a house in Weatherford. As the Heilig-Myers Company began to close stores and go out of business, Bert went to work as a manager of a Home Life Furniture Store in Fort Worth, Texas.
In October 2001 (?), Pier One Imports was opening a new store in Brandon, Mississippi. Bert and Aimee moved to Byram (about 20 miles south of Jackson) and Bert began working in the new Brandon store as manager. In February 2002 (?), Bert began working as a Sears representative for the Mississippi-Louisiana-Arkansas region.
When the Bells moved back to the Jackson, Mississippi area, Aimee resumed working at the Baptist Medical Center as an MRI Technician.
Erin Philen Bell graduated from Indianola Academy in May 1997. She attended Mississippi Delta Community College for the summers of 1997 and 1998. She attended the University of Mississippi, majoring in Business Administration, for 1997-98 and 1998-99. She then attended Mississippi Delta Community College for the 1999-2000 college year and changed her major to Nutrition (attended MDCC to take science courses). Erin then attended Mississippi State University from August 2000 through December 2001, graduating with a degree in Nutrition. During the spring of 2002, Erin worked as an intern at St. Dominick's Hospital in Jackson to get certification in Nutrition as a Dietician. She received the required certification in June 2002.