Hattie Elizabth Bell
Written by David Barth in 1969
Hattie Elizabeth was born in Cooper County, Missouri. She preferred to use her middle name, Elizabeth. Following her graduation from high school, she attended
college at a normal school in Iberia, Missouri. Normal schools usually had a two-year curriculum, primarily to train elementary school teachers. In 1910 she married a
St. Louis streetcar motorman, Clyde Dessie Bell, who had grown up in Missouri near the Ritchie's home town of Eugene. He had also attended a state normal
school.
After their marriage, Hattie Elizabeth and Clyde settled in Eugene, Missouri and had two daughters, Norma and Ruby Fae. Clyde was employed by the largest and
oldest mercantile firm in Eugene. He was superintendent of the local Sunday school for eight years and was a church deacon.
By 1919, Hattie Elizabeth's mother, Addie Belle, was suffering from cancer and not expected to live long. On January 31, 1919, Clyde caught influenza during the
epidemic of that year. It was complicated by pneumonia a few days later, and he died at 2:30 PM, February 13, 1920 at the age of 35. Addie Belle died March 3,
1920.
In 1921 Hattie Elizabeth and her widowed father, Jacob, took Norma and Ruby Fae on a camping trip. They visited Kansas and Texas, where they saw the sunken
gardens in San Antonio.
At one campground, Jacob returned to the camp to find the tent had burned to the ground. Apparently the stove in the tent had caught fire. He was relieved to find that
Hattie Elizabeth and the girls had also been away from the tent at the time of the fire.
Following the camping trip, Hattie Elizabeth bought a house in Windsor, Missouri where she lived with her daughters.
In 1926 Hattie Elizabeth and her daughters, now eleven and seven, accompanied Leoda and her son, Milburn, to Colorado Springs to visit Hattie Elizabeth and Leoda's
eldest sister, Mamie, for the summer. Mamie had moved to Colorado Springs in 1920 following the death of their mother, Addie Belle. That Fall, Leoda and Milburn
moved into an apartment in Colorado Springs, hoping the climate would help cure Milburn's tuberculosis. Hattie Elizabeth took her daughters back to Windsor,
Missouri. Leoda got a job in Colorado Springs and Milburn, too weak to attend school, spent much of his time reading. He slowly recovered from the bout with
tuberculosis.
In 1927 Leoda and Milburn moved to Denver and got an apartment in the same building as Leoda's younger sister, Nannie Mae, at 1430 Pearl Street. Hattie Elizabeth
decided to move to Denver with the girls, returning to Windsor long enough to sell the house.
In 1937 Hattie Elizabeth married L. W. Paul. They bought the apartment building at 1430 Pearl Street. Hattie was elated to see her first grandchild, David Victor Barth,
after his birth on September 23, 1942. In 1944 Hattie Elizabeth died of cancer and is buried at Crown Hill Cemetery in the Pool of Quiet section. Six months later, her
second husband, L. W. Paul, died of a heart attack, intestate, and the estate went to his previous wife's children. Norma and Ruby Fae received only some familyb
photographs and knick nacks from an estate consiting of securities and real estate, including the apartment building at 1430 Pearl Street, that in today's dollars, was
worth millions.