A successful search is much like the harvesting of a successful crop; the result of careful planning, preparation, planting, nurturing and, many times, luck. He walked from the shadows and into life one day in early September 2006. Had my patience and perseverance, tenacity and doggedness finally flushed him from cover? Or had he taken me by surprise? On this particular day, the old cliché spoke true: “I’d rather be lucky than good.”

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The early-to-mid 1960’s were the first times I remember hearing the name Samuel Bell. That name mentioned rarely and never directly to me, rather in quiet conversation between my father and mother, sometimes between my father and paternal grandmother. In those early teen years I, unfortunately, paid little attention to bits and pieces of conversation not meant for my ears.

More years would pass until I spoke directly with my father about Samuel Bell. May 1975 was the first time. I had too many questions: What did he know of him? How did he learn of him? Where was he? Had he ever met him? Had he ever seen him? He had too few answers but shared with me what little he knew. The seeds were planted.

As the years rolled by, Samuel became more familiar to me. I thought about him occasionally, sometimes more. Did he know he had a son born from the relationship with my grandmother? Was he tall and lean like his son, like his grandson? Were his eyes hazel-colored too? Why did he leave her? I wondered how my father reconciled knowing hardly one thing about Samuel. I couldn’t. In late 1981, seeds planted years earlier sprouted. With my father’s understanding, I began the search.

The story had few known facts; the names Izetta Walters, Samuel Bell, George Dimit, Myron Sears; the time period 1914 – 1917; the place, Chester Township, Poweshiek County, Iowa. With too much ‘can-do’ enthusiasm and even more naiveté, I set off to find our Samuel Bell. Little did I dream that journey’s end would be 25 years in the future and half a world away!

More than a few times during those years of, literally, not finding so much as one iota of information about Samuel, I became frustrated and discouraged. Many times I grew tired of hitting dead-end after dead-end. Self-talk was convenient therapy. Should I throw in the towel and completely give up the search or just step back and take a break from it? I always chose the latter. For several weeks or months, sometimes much longer, the search would be put on-hold. Samuel was returned to his box where he waited too patiently for me to connect his dots. He lurked there, in that box, I was sure of it, somewhere among the accumulation of many different Bell family genealogies, assorted documents, letters, records, photos, a ledgers worth of research notes, old emails, DNA results, and various other information. We both would rest knowing the chase would eventually resume, always with more determination than before.

In the spring of 1914, my paternal grandmother, Izetta Walters, with her mother Emma, and youngest brother Ivan loaded their few possessions, and themselves, onto older brother Addie’s wagon. The Walters farm was near the rural hamlet of Mt. Pisgah in the southeastern corner of Wayne County, Kentucky. Theirs was one of three farms in the hollow and lay at the far end. Addie and his wife Molly had offered to take them to Monticello, fifteen miles away. There, they would meet the coach that would carry them on to the train depot at Burnside, Kentucky. The train would then take them all the way to a new life in Poweshiek County, Iowa. With her father’s death the previous summer and three older brothers already moved to Poweshiek, it seemed a good decision to join them. They’d try for a better life in Iowa, farming the rich, black loam.

Addie gave a sharp whistle and snapped the reins. The mules gee-hawed and the wagon lurched forward up the mountain road. It would be all day to Monticello. Izetta took in the beauty of the hills and hollows covered in rolling carpets of white, pink, and lavender blossoms. She accepted it as a going away gift from the spring dogwoods and redbuds and mountain laurel, a bittersweet memory never forgotten. She would look back toward home many times that day.

Three years earlier, brothers John and Samuel Bell stood quiet along the roadside one morning as they turned to look back at the magenta heather covering the hills and glens, the misty rushes and brown bogs, and the granite hillsides surrounding their family farm in Crankill Townland, Craigs Parish, County Antrim, Northern Ireland. Like their father and grandfather before them, the brothers were Ulstermen, staunchly Presbyterian, independent and self-reliant. Now they were bound for Liverpool to board the S.S. Laurentic sailing for America. Twelve days later the big ship would dock at the Port of New York and funnel her passengers into the whirlpool of new immigrants swirling through Ellis Island. The Bell brothers were no exception. To the immigration official they stated their occupation as farm-laborers and their intended destination to Grinnell, Poweshiek County, Iowa. With a married sister and her family already farming in Poweshiek and an uncle and two aunts and their families farming in neighboring Jasper County, John and Samuel felt satisfied with their decision to try for a better life in that place.

Izetta quickly found work as a domestic on the Myron Sears farm in Chester Township, Poweshiek County. A few years earlier Samuel had found employment as a laborer on the George Dimit farm, also in Chester Township. The two farms were less than a mile apart with the northern boundary of the Sears farm sharing the southern boundary of the Dimit farm. The closeness made certain that Samuel and Izetta would notice the other; first from a distance, then intimately. In late February 1916, Izetta became pregnant. She was now eighteen and Samuel twenty-six. Although both were single, they did not marry. By the early summer of 1916, most likely between mid-April and mid-July, Samuel Bell left the Dimit farm and returned to County Antrim. The timing of his departure seemed to coincide with nature’s clock for Izetta to know that she was with his child. Late in her seventh month she married another man, likely for the security of a provider. My father, Ralph, was born early December 1916 in Poweshiek County. Some months later, Izetta with new baby and husband, moved 90 miles west to Des Moines. Although never legally adopted by his stepfather, my dad was given the Nelson name as a young boy.

In 1931, my father was fourteen years old and in the 8th grade. His class was given a homework assignment for each student to draw his or her family tree and do a class presentation. As dad related the story: He came home from school that afternoon and sat down at the kitchen table to work on his family tree project. Knowing very few of the names, dates or locations of his ancestors, he asked his mother for help. The more questions he asked, the more flustered and nervous his mother became. Finally, she asked him to come to her bedroom. He sat quietly on the bed while she went to her dresser, opened a drawer, dug down underneath her clothes and pulled out a photo. As she handed the photo to him, she explained that the man was his biological father. “His name is Samuel Bell,” she said. Completely stunned at this revelation, dad tried to think of something say. He asked where she and Samuel Bell met and how they knew each other. She said they had met when she worked on the Sears farm and Samuel worked on the neighboring Dimit farm in Poweshiek County. Dad sat and stared at the photo for a minute or two and she then returned it to the bottom of her dresser drawer. Although he never saw the photo again, he remembered a “nice-looking young man with dark hair and a dark complexion.”

In 1983 I had contact with and elderly gentleman by the name of Merle Dimit. Mr. Dimit was a young boy in 1915-1916 when Samuel Bell worked on his father’s farm. Merle said, as best he remembered, that Samuel had left their farm about 1916 and his family never knew where he went. Izetta’s story of Samuel working on the Dimit farm was now confirmed. But the next two decades offered only a continuing string of no new discoveries and dead-ends.

By 2004 I had begun to wonder if Samuel Bell was my biological grandfather or if, for some unknown reason, his name had been used as a rouse or decoy. Why was it so exceedingly difficult to find any information on him? With frustration again building, I was ready for a fresh approach. Then I discovered the Bell Y-chromosome DNA Project. DNA testing has proven itself an excellent tool to enhance and support traditional genealogy research and, in my situation, the project offered a potential triple-play opportunity to significantly advance the search. #1.) Genetic analysis of my Y-DNA would confirm, or not, male Bell ancestry, #2.) My results would be added to the project database for possible genetic matches with other participants, and #3.) My results could be inserted into other Y-DNA public databases containing thousands of surnames to further expand the search for possible genetic matches.

In mid-December 2004 I was accepted as a participant in the Project and received the test kit. By mid-January 2005 I had my results. Y-DNA comparisons with other Bell Project participants showed one 25/25-marker match and a 23/25-marker match with a second Bell participant. Since then, seven more Bell’s have joined our cluster of ‘close encounters,’ including a 31/32-marker match. According to the DNA testing facility, a 31/32-marker match provides an 80+% statistical confidence level of a common male Bell ancestor, at some point, within the past 400 years, extending to the mid-90% range within the past 600 years. Although fortunate to have 31/32 and 25/25-marker matches, and other close matches, as yet I have been unable to place Samuel Bell within the known family lines of these matches. However, anecdotal information from the family histories of the matches correlates precisely with the known location of Samuel’s ancestors, indicating a geographic point of convergence to the Ulster region of Northern Ireland. Of particular interest is my 31/32-marker match, an elderly Bell ‘Londoner’ who is a direct (documented and proven) descendant of William ‘Red Cloak’ Bell. Red Cloak was the last Chief of the Scottish lowlands Bell Clan. He lived daringly, rode fast, and fought hard against the English in the Western Marches during the last decade of the 1500’s and into the late 1620’s. He was also a brigand and notorious border reiver. This Bell clan, along with more than a dozen other Scots border family clans, were considered by many to be the best ‘light cavalry’ in all of Europe. As one observer of the day noted: they were “able with horse and harness, nimble, wily, always in readiness for any service and inclined to wildness and disorder.”

By the mid-1600’s England had established the Ulster Plantation system in Northern Ireland and had removed (as ‘undesirables’ in many cases) thousands of Scottish lowlanders to the Ulster province. Today, Bell is the 20th most common surname in Northern Ireland.

In early 2006, I returned to the DNA project for SNP (Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms) testing. In lay terms, the SNP test analyzes male DNA to estimate deep geographical and anthropological origins of the participants’ direct male line. My results show a direct male line DNA signature commonly found among people living in the region of northwest Spain and northeast Portugal many thousand years ago. I am both fascinated and amazed to know that within me reside the genetic links to my ancient male ancestors.

Ground zero, so to speak, of my research centered on few known facts; the names: Walters-Bell-Dimit-Sears; the time frame: 1914 – 1917; and the location: Chester Township, Poweshiek County, Iowa. For too many years these were my only reference points and my strategy reflected as much. When I came to a dead-end or the trail went cold, I would come back to those reference points. The process would start again, expanding outwards from ground zero.

In early September 2006, like a crime scene detective suffering another dead-end investigation, I was back at ground zero. For the umpteenth time I checked the reference points. One evening, as a lark, with a ‘what have I got to lose’ attitude, I decided to take a closer look at a young male Bell farming in Chester Township, Poweshiek County. At this time, I had no reason to suspect him of any connection to Samuel Bell. His name was George R. B. Bell. His WW1 draft registration form stated his birthplace near Ballymena, County Antrim, Northern Ireland. He had immigrated to Poweshiek County in the late summer of 1914 to farm for his widowed sister, Sarah Turtle. Who was Sarah (nee Bell) Turtle? A search of the 1910 census showed a John and Sarah Turtle farming in Montana. They had emigrated from Ireland in 1909. By chance, I glanced further down the same census page and discovered a John Bell family farming near John and Sarah Turtle. This family had also emigrated from Ireland in 1909. Could this be the same John Bell, whom I had noticed years earlier on a public record, farming in Chester Township, Poweshiek County in 1915? Again, at that time, I had no reason to suspect him of any connection to Samuel Bell. But now, looking at this census, it was clear that his name, age and nationality matched the record I had seen years ago. Hmmm, was I connecting a few dots? If so, who’s dots? Who were these Bell’s? Since the Turtle’s and Bell’s had emigrated from Ireland, I decided an on-line search of immigration records at Ellis Island might reveal more information. I soon found a John Bell who arrived at the Port of New York on 19 March 1911 aboard the steamship Laurentic. His name was cross-referenced to a Laurentic passenger manifest number and he was processing through Ellis Island with a young man, also from the Laurentic, identified only by passenger manifest number.

On immigration forms, John Bell and his traveling companion declared a common father, a common birth place, a common occupation, and the same destination: Grinnell, Iowa. The brief physical description of John Bell’s traveling companion surprised me: Tall, dark hair, dark complexion. Who was he? What was his name? Could this possibly be my grandfather? The age range, physical description, and occupation were a match, and he was traveling to exactly the right location! Within minutes I was on the telephone with an Ellis Island customer service assistant. Could she help me find the name of the young man arriving 19 March 1911 aboard the steamship Laurentic and processing through Ellis Island with a man named John Bell? She quickly found the Laurentic’s manifest, listing passengers by full names, rather than by manifest number only. She came back on the line saying, “His name is Samuel Bell.” I’d rather be lucky than good … and I was ecstatic!

Further research determined that John Bell, upon the death of his wife, left Montana in late 1910 and returned to County Antrim. He then returned to the U.S. with his brother, Samuel, aboard the S.S. Laurentic in March 1911. A check of the 1920 census showed Sarah (Bell) Turtle and brother George Bell had relocated from Poweshiek County, Iowa and were now farming in LeSeuer County, Minnesota. However, John Bell and Samuel Bell were nowhere to be found in this census. Where did they go? As I would soon discover, Samuel left Poweshiek County, Iowa in 1916 and returned to County Antrim. John Bell left Poweshiek in 1917 or 1918, also returning to County Antrim.

Additional on-line immigration research at Ellis Island found Samuel Bell returning to the U.S. on 10 April 1922 aboard the S.S. Baltic. On arrival, Samuel declared he was previously in the U.S., specifically Iowa, from 1911 to 1916. He was now married. His wife, Ellen, and children would join him six months later. A search of the 1930 census found Samuel and Ellen Bell farming near St. Peter in Nicollet County, Minnesota. Their fourth child, a son born 1929, was named Ralph (the same as my father). Farming nearby, also in Nicollet County, was Sarah (Bell) Turtle and brother George Bell.

Facing another dead end, I placed an ad in the Mankato (Minnesota) Free Press for information on the Samuel Bell family or the Sarah (Bell) Turtle family living in the St. Peter, Minnesota area during the early 1930’s. I received six responses from descendants of Sarah (Bell) Turtle and learned that she, John Bell, Samuel Bell and George Bell were siblings; four of eleven children born to Alexander and Agnes (Kennedy) Bell of Crankill Townland, Craigs Parish, County Antrim, Northern Ireland. I was informed that Samuel and Ellen Bell had returned to County Antrim in May 1935, this time to stay. The names of Samuel’s two surviving children, a daughter living near Ballymena, County Antrim and a son in Alberta, Canada, were also shared with me. With that information, I found the telephone numbers of both.

My first call was to Ballymena. Up until the moment I spoke with Samuel’s daughter, I wasn’t quite sure of the best approach to introduce myself and explain the purpose of my call. For some reason, when I heard her voice, the story flowed effortlessly. She was surprised but very gracious during our conversation. A few days later, I telephoned Samuel’s son in Canada, speaking to both him and his wife. The son asked if I knew the name Harry Baxter; he remembered hearing his father speak of working for that man. I answered that I did not know the name. I then asked if his father ever mentioned working for George Dimit in Poweshiek County, Iowa. He responded, “Yes, he worked for him, too.” At that instant, I knew this was my Samuel Bell.

Since then I have spoken with many new cousins and Samuel’s surviving niece in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. Not once has there been even a hint of a harsh word or an indignant “how dare you suggest such a thing!” Yes, there was surprise, but to a person, the hospitable reception, the graciousness and the willingness to listen to the story has been extraordinary. I was prepared for far worse. In the past several months many letters, emails and family photos have been exchanged. The definite physical resemblance between Samuel Bell and my father is apparent to all.

And what of the photo of the nice-looking young man shown to my father that afternoon in 1931? In my grandmother’s old-timey photo album there is a photo of an unidentified young man taken at a Grinnell, Iowa photo studio about 1915. The photo is mounted on paperboard frame and backing. The sides of the frame are lightly foxed with faint smudges of long ago fingerprints; telltale signs of a photo picked up and looked at many times. Who might he be? I mailed the photo to Samuel’s daughter in Ballymena. Her response, “he must be a Bell, as it is so like what I remember my father in his younger days.” Is his the face of the man that passed into mine?

Samuel Bell died in December 1955 and is buried in the Billy Parish Church Cemetery, near the villages of Armoy and Dervock, County Antrim, Northern Ireland.
My grandmother, Izetta (Walters) Nelson, died in August 1975 and is buried in Glendale Cemetery, Des Moines, Iowa.
My father, Ralph E. Nelson, died in November 1996 and is buried in North Lawn Cemetery, Fort Dodge, Iowa.

The story of Samuel Bell and Izetta Walters remained silent more than ninety years. Yet, it was meant to be told. My role in the telling has been to chronicle the events, facts, and circumstances as I have learned them to be. And in the process came the understanding that my siblings and I, and our children and grandchildren, are part and parcel of their story, not simply a result of it. No, this is not the end but rather the beginning, for this story is a long one whose ending is yet to be.

Craig E. Nelson
May 2007

Cengold@aol.com