It is interesting to see the spread of a new technology reflected in my great-grandfather’s journal[1]: in this case, the electrification of the Bells’ farm in Kempsville, near Norfolk, Virginia. A little less than a century ago, this was a project one could undertake oneself.
1920
9 October: Bought truck today for $793 and turned in the old one for $200.
Estelle and I bought light fixtures today for the new Delco system which we installed this week.
23 October: Turned on electric lights tonight.
9 November: Estelle and I went to New York to attend the Hotel Exposition.
14 November: Stopped at Annapolis on way from New York to see Fred.[2]
22 December: Muddy[3] came to spend Christmas with us.
24 December: Fred arrived from Annapolis accompanied by his roommate Donald Olson.[4]
For all his future worries about enjoying a bowl of eggnog, on 25 December 1920 Frank wrote:
Having a big Christmas. Lots of company and plenty [of] Egg-Nog.
1921
The Norfolk Armory can be seen in the middle distance, beyond the Monticello Hotel.
Frank Bell’s mother-in-law went back to New York in January, and a month later Estelle and Frances[5] paid her a return visit. In a rare reference to his professional activities, on 12 April he wrote: Rotary Convention. I served 1500 in Armory.
3 May: Entered flowers in Norfolk Flower Show and won first prize on Snapdragons [and] Poppies and second prize on Sweet William.
16 May: Very cool spell. Log fire in living room.
27 May: Estelle, Frances and I went to Annapolis to see Fred off on his first cruise.
Fred Bell in Glasgow, 1921.
3 June: Fred left today on his cruise to Norway, Scotland, Lisbon & the Mediterranean.
22 June: Presented Frances with pony.
10 July: Estelle and Frances left for Chicago.
7 August: Received only one letter from Fred written from Norway.
Watermelons and Cantaloupe ripe in garden. No one [at home] to help me enjoy them.
14 August: Received letter from Estelle today from Memphis, Mo.[6]
21 August: Estelle and Frances returned home from Missouri and Chicago.
28 August: Fred returned from his midshipman cruise to Christiania,[7] Lisbon and Tangier, Africa.
30 August: Fred came to spend the month of September with us, leaving Sept. 29 after a happy month.
Served Kiwanis banquet, 800 plates.
1 October: My 43rd birthday. Estelle baked a wonderful cake for me and placed 43 candles on top, all lighted when I walked in the dining room.
Continued here.
Notes
[1] J. Frank Bell (John Francis Bell, 1878–1944) was married to Minnie Estelle Jackson 1902–35 and to Margaret Feller Stegall in 1936.
[2] My grandfather Frederick Jackson Bell (1903–1994) was in his first year at the Naval Academy.
[3] Estelle Jackson Bell’s mother Rebecca Jane Eggleston (1856–1937) was married to Oliver Dodridge Jackson 1875–1915 and to William E. Waterman in 1924.
[4] Like my grandfather’s future brother-in-law, in 1922 Donald Palmer Olson dropped back from the Naval Academy class of 1924 to ’25.
[5] Frank and Estelle’s daughter Frances Fairfax Bell (1909–1997), who married Robert Gentry Norman in 1929.
[6] Mrs. Jackson was the youngest in a family of six children. In 1920, her sister Lucinda Mankopf, her widowed sister-in-law Emily Eggleston, and her brother Harvey Eggleston all lived in Memphis: presumably the Bells were visiting their cousins in July–August 1921.
[7] Renamed Oslo in 1925.
