THE
HOPWOOD UNITED METHODIST CHURCH
HALL
OF FAME
INDUCTION
– May 27, 1990
EDNA
HORNER BELL
1889
– 1988
About two months
before the horrendous Johnstown Flood, a little girl was born on March 25th,
1889, into the Stahlstown, Westmoreland County home of Noah John Horner and his
wife, the former Cora Leacock. They named their girl Edna.
All eight of her great-grandparents had been born in
Pennsylvania and at least five of her great-great-grandfathers had fought in
the American Revolution.
When Edna was twelve,
her beloved father died and the widow took her family of six to Philadelphia
for a year. Then the widow moved to Uniontown where Edna completed her
schooling and went on to California (PA) State Teachers College where she
earned a permanent teacher's certificate.
In those days before
World War I, it wasn't easy for women to enter the working world and Edna had
to take the worst imaginable school assignments at $45.00 a month!!! Then, too,
public transportation wasn't good so Edna walked from Uniontown to Windy Hill,
New Salem and Leith. Those long hikes to work are probably what contributed to
Edna's incredible good health and long life, but no one today would endure
those hardships.
Around 1914 Edna
succeeded in obtaining a school in Hopwood, --only two grades and about 45
students in her room. And a steady income for nine months a year!!! Many early
20th Century Hopwoodites received their education and deserved paddlings from
this 100-pound, five-foot young lady.
Edna met and married
Robert Bell, a true Hopwoodite. Somehow, between teaching assignments, she
built a house in Lick Hollow and raised three children, Ruth, Jack and Bobby.
One of her greatest triumphs came during the Great Depression
when, alas, she was not teaching and her husband was
unemployed. Bells were having it rough! But, I Pennsylvania was celebrating its
Centennial of Free Public Schools and the biggest event was the Great
State-wide Spelling Bee. Edna entered and won the South Union Town- ship
elimination out at Areford in record tire.
Next came the Fayette County elimination, which was open to all
the township winners plus all the disgruntled losers who thought they hadn't
had a "fair shake" in the town- ship eliminations.
Edna won! She spelled them all down--the lawyers, the school
principals, the brains of Fayette County.
Edna was required to represent the County in the elimination of
the 67 candidates at Harrisburg. And the Bells just didn't have the money to
properly dress and send her there.
Squire William Q. ('Big Bill") Maust, the unofficial mayor
of Hopwood pulled some strings and Edna was sent to Harrisburg in borrowed
finery and very little spending money, to compete with the giants. She finished
fourth. There were still two male lawyers from the Philadelphia Area and a man
from Pittsburgh. So, Edna was declared Pennsylvania's Best Woman Speller.
Edna was probably
tired, worried about her family at home, and possibly undernourished when she
misspelled a highly technical word not used in any but the most scientific
circles. A list of the words used in that spelling bee is still among Edna's
mementos. Mind-bogg-ling! How did the dear woman stand up as long as she did?
She got back to
teaching and became principal at Hutchinson's two room, six-grade, brick
building with indoor furnaces to be fired by the teachers and outdoor toilet
facilities, three grades to a room and no school nurse. Edna was back to
walking through snow from Lick Hollow to Hutchinson. The township wouldn't make
her bookshelves in their high school shop so Edna made them herself, (now a
widow) and had a parent transport them to the school.
Hutchinson school might have been the bottom of the list in
modern schools but the South Union Township Music Director always brought
visiting officials to hear Mrs. Edna Bell's Rhythm Band, the best in the
township.
Edna retired when she was 64. She was tired and had lost a
daughter, who had produced two beautiful, brilliant girls, to an incurable
illness. Edna walked to Hopwood or Brown- field churches to help the ladies
with their quilting. She taught the Annie Hopwood Class and later the Arthilla
Devan Class of the Hopwood United Methodist Church Sunday School. Possibly
scale people thought Edna Horner Bell was "tapering off".
At age 80 she made her
first trip to Europe, --all alone. Surely her Sunday School Class and her
Sewing Club must have thought she was mad. But, she had a son over in Holland
and she wanted to visit him. She went to Pittsburgh and took a plane to New
York where she transferred, all alone, to the Dutch Airlines, KLM, which had
orders to meet her and put her on the rinky-dink plane at Amsterdam for Jack's
town in southern Holland.
But neither KLM nor
Jack realized that Edna was becoming so deaf that she couldn't hear the loudspeakers.
"Donald Duck", she called their bleating. However, Edna coerced half
the uniformed officials in Skiphol Airport to get her on the plane “ . . . down
to my son's town". She even made one of the fancy uniformed guards take a
tip because he carried her suitcase. Edna was proud; she didn't want favors.
She made two more trips to Europe after that—when she
was 82 in 1971 and when she was 841in 1973. But KLM was ready for her then. A
pretty little Dutch girl met planes in New York and in Amsterdam carrying a
placard saying, "Mrs. Bell, COME WITH ME!"
Jack retired in 1974 and came home to "care for" his
mother. He remodeled the house while
she did the cooking and cleaning.
In 1979, when she was
90, she had a heart attack, which would have been fatal if it had not happened
in the Uniontown Hospital. Her heart stopped beating. She was legally dead. But
the staff got her heart started up again.
For 3 weeks she lay in
Intensive Care while all the experts advised Jack and his niece, Carol, to make
funeral arrangements because death was imminent. This is where prayer makes a
difference and miracles happen. She started to recover! In a week she was back
home and in several months was completely well.
Still in her 90th year
she memorized a long poem, which she recited flawlessly for the Uniontown Music
Club. The members gave her a standing ovation.
Several months after
her 97th birthday, she had a slight stroke. Her brilliant mind began to go and
her health declined. For two years she lingered in a nursing home Edna Horner
Bell died on June 8, 1988, aged 99 years, 2 months and 14 days.