Robert Jay Bell

Bob went peacefully in his sleep after suffering a debilitating stroke a few days earlier. He was barely three months shy of his 98th birthday. He was born on April 24, 1918 in Spokane WA, the second child of Jay D. and Jane E. Bell of Osburn ID. He and his older brother would eventually by joined by two younger brothers and a sister.
As a teenager, he worked in the mines in Silver Valley surrounded by the communities of Wallace and Kellogg, Idaho. He graduated from Wallace H.S. and traveled the country before joining the Army. He was discharged after a car crash left him unable to serve. He was working for the Navy as a civilian contractor at Hickman Field when it was bombed on December 7th, 1941. He spent part of the war in the Merchant Marine service. In 1943, in Gresham, he met Mildred "Millie" Miller, the love of his life. They had three boys and a girl. He started his own plumbing and heating business in Sandy OR. In 1949, he moved back to Gresham and spent two years working construction for the military on the Aleutian Island of Adak, Alaska. He returned to work for Gresham Plumbing & Heating where he eventually became shop foreman. He was one of the founders and a charter member of the Gresham Elks. He was active outdoors and regularly hunted deer and elk and occasionally moose in British Columbia. He finished his plumbing career as a plumbing inspector for the City of Gresham. During this time, he developed ten acres of SE Division (Section Line Rd) and 257th (Kane Rd) into a mobile park he named "Bellacres". When he sold this in the '70's, he and Millie traveled all over the world. They owned several large motorhomes and visited every state in the country. They owned a winter home in Yuma AZ and a summer home in Otis OR. Millie died of Alzheimer's in 2000 and Bob was devoted to her to the end. The last years of his life were spent living with his daughter, Sharon, who took loving care of him until it was time for care in a professional setting.
Bob was preceded by his son Robert Jr. and his grandson Christopher Robert Sands and is survived by his brother Jay (Alma); sons Michael (Linda) and Kenneth; daughter Sharon Burns (Marsh) and many grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
A Celebration of Bob's Life will be held on Sunday, January 31, 2016 at 2:00 p.m. at the Gresham Elks Lodge #1805 in Gresham, Oregon. Private interment at Forest Lawn Cemetery. Arrangements entrusted to Bateman Carroll Funeral Home.