John Elmer Bell, Cottonwood Falls
VALLEY CENTER
The graveside service for former Cottonwood Falls resident John Elmer Bell of Valley Center will be at 11 a.m. Saturday at Matfield Green Cemetery in Matfield Green. The Rev. Melody Kimbrel of the Cottonwood Falls United Methodist Church will conduct the service. Military honors will be conducted by the U.S. Navy Funeral Honor Guard. Friends may call until 8 p.m. today at the Brown-Bennett-Alexander Funeral Home in Cottonwood Falls.
Memorial contributions to the Good Shepherd Hospice in Wichita may be sent in care of the funeral home, 201 Cherry St., Cottonwood Falls, KS 66845.
Mr. Bell died Thursday, May 31, 2007, at Asbury Park care center in Newton. He was 91.
He was a pulling unit foreman for Phillips Petroleum in the Hays-Plainville-Great Bend area for 32 years before he retired. He was a Navy veteran of World War II.
The son of Wardie E. and Josephine McHone Bell, he was born March 2, 1916, in Rosalia. He married Ruby Perkins in March 1936 in Cottonwood Falls. She survives.
Mr. Bell was a member of the Christian Church. He was a 32nd degree Mason with the Masonic Lodge at Lyons.
He is also survived by two daughters, Darlene Kasselman of Valley Center and Diane Cunningham of Park City; one son, Ronald Bell of Bushton; a twin sister, Ellen Berno of Topeka; nine grandchildren; and 18 great-grandchildren.
Two sisters, Myrle Skinner Cofer and Mabel Blankenship, died earlier.