She took sales and marketing courses with the intention of teaching business. Instead, she was hired as an executive assistant in 1964.
“I started right out of high school as a secretary to the CEO of Top Value Stamps,” Bell said. “Then I moved to Dews Construction Company and continued to move up.”
Bell married her first husband, Bob, and had two children. In 1965 when her son was four years old and her daughter, three months old, her husband had an opportunity to take the family to Europe to visit friends.
“It was my first time out of the US,” Bell said. “I was just taken away being outside of everything that was familiar.”
But that didn’t stop Bell. She already loved travelling but put off more until her children were older. In April of 1982, she went with a girlfriend to France, Switzerland, Germany and Italy.
Already a member of the Dayton Ski Club, Bell returned to Europe in 1984 for a ski trip.
“At the time we had our little resort here in Bellbrook, (Sugarcreek Ski Hills)” Bell said. “The very next year (1985), my husband and I went to Canada to ski.”
This marked the beginning of Bell’s many trips abroad. In 1986, she and her husband went skiing in Italy and in Spain. Later that same year, they visited the Cayman Islands for the first time.
“I really had the travel bug by that time,” Bell said. “We started visiting different places in the Caribbean like St. Martin and Aruba. I just didn’t want to miss a single thing.”
Retired from full time work since 1989, Bell ramped up her travelling, visiting Japan, China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Thailand as well as countries in both North and South America. In 1997, she visited Antarctica.
“I did a lot of trips by myself too,” Bell said. “In 1997 I went with a tour group to Denmark, Holland, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Russia.”
In 1998, Bell went to London with her friend Judy Vanshagen. A master gardener herself, she enjoyed the Chelsea Flower Show especially.
Then in 1999, Bell, who was raising her granddaughter Amber Havlin after her son passed away, decided to take Amber’s Girl Scout troop on a trip to Europe.
“When the girls got to junior high, they all started talking about not being in Girl Scouts anymore,” Bell said. “I made them an offer that if they would stay in the troop through high school, I would take them to England, France, Belgium, Holland, Switzerland and Italy.”
Bell and her friend Judy Vanshagen hosted the girls on the two-week adventure, staying in hostels and experiencing firsthand the culture of the different countries.
“I had indoctrinated the girls into travel by the time we left, and they really enjoyed it,” Bell said. “I told the girls if you travel the world, you will be totally amazed by the people and the sights you will see.”
Bell’s now ex-husband (divorced in 2004), Bob, was a marathon runner and she researched marathons in the countries she wanted to visit. In 2000, the couple traveled to New Zealand and then to Australia. They then made their way to the Island of Fiji in the South Pacific.
“In Fiji I wanted to scuba and snorkel and see everything,” Bell said. “I was fascinated and didn’t want to get out of the water. I have pictures of royal blue starfish I haven’t seen anywhere else.”
Over the subsequent years, Bell visited Napal and saw Mt. Everest, Israel and Jordan, the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary. She traveled to Zimbabwe with her husband and took a cruise with their children through the Panama Canal.
After her divorce from Bob Bell in 2004, Bell continued travelling with girlfriends, experiencing an Amazon River Cruise and other river cruises in Europe.
“We visited all these places on our own,” Bell said. “We flew and then used the trains to get around. It was always an adventure.”
In late 2006, Bell met her current partner, Elmo Wilson, who, though not an avid traveler himself, agreed to accompany Bell to a few of her favorite places, including the rain forest in Costa Rica.
Now 86 years old, Bell has slowed down a bit but is proud to say that she has visited 126 countries in seven continents. Her partner took his last trip in 2008, and she travelled out of the country last in 2013. After experiencing so many destinations, Bell said her absolute “favorite place on Earth” is the Caribbean. She has a goal to write a book about her adventures, but admits the prospect is a bit overwhelming. Instead, she often speaks to groups about her travels.
“I had no clue when I started that any of this would happen,” Bell said. “I just started doing it. My experiences have changed my life.”
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