Emanuel C. Bell

06/18/1935 - 08/04/2020

Graveside services for Mr. Emanuel C. Bell, 85, will be 9:00 a.m. on Tuesday, August 11, 2020, at Millender Cemetery. Visitation will be 2-7 p.m. on Monday, August 10, 2020. The service will be live streamed on Terry's Facebook page (click the blue F on the home page of this website).

Mr. Emanuel Bell, 85, known to everyone as Buddy, passed on August 4, 2020 in Oxford, Alabama. Born to Emanuel and Cornelia Bell in Birmingham, Alabama on June 18, 1935, Buddy never met a stranger, his outgoing personality enabling him to talk to anyone and everyone, which he did at every opportunity. He approached life with gusto, enjoying fishing even when he caught nothing and planting a vast garden of fruit and vegetables that he took pleasure in touring with guests. Just as much, he enjoyed participating in a hospital ministry, going from room to room, visiting sick people, and working in retirement as a security guard, chatting and joking with all the customers who patronized the credit union.

Perhaps most of all, Buddy enjoyed working. In a career that spanned three decades, he was a helicopter inspector at Avco, in Bridgeport, Connecticut, where he moved in the mid-1960s. Buddy took pride in ensuring that everything built for the government and the military was done with excellence. Then, in 1980, he married Geneva Millender, helping to create a warm and happy marriage that lasted 40 years.

Buddy is survived by an extensive family that includes, his wife, Geneva; his sister, Louise Colley of Birmingham, AL; his daughter, Alvetta Robinson of Birmingham, AL; two sons and their wives: Michael and Madeleine Bell of Pelham, NY, and Roderick and Christine Bell of Orlando, FL; two stepdaughters: Denise Facey of Atlanta, GA and Melba Sands of New Windsor, NY; 9 grandchildren and their spouses: Elizabeth Robinson King and Preston King, Mica Robinson, Spencer Bell, Ryan Bell, Justin Bell, Michael Bell Jr. Shanna and Kenneth Muigai, Stacey and Andre Lee, Sean Sands; 9 great-grandchildren; and many nieces and nephews.