For the younger generation of Pricetown, where Ms. Audrey grew up, Ms. Audrey was the precious lady who sat at the back left of the Sanctuary on Sunday mornings, and they’d say she lives in the house up the road that has pecan trees with strips of tin around them…many have wondered why those trees had tin. Was it a fashion statement? Were they lawn ornaments? Reflectors for cars, to prevent them from driving into the house? No, they are intended to keep worms from eating the pecans in the trees, and they work just fine - last year Ms. Audrey’s daughter, Blythe, picked a tremendous amount of healthy pecans.
In her prime, Ms. Audrey liked being outside...she loved flowers, and her favorite flowers were always whatever was blooming at the time... she loved the color blue…
An avid quilter, she sewed, and she crocheted, she made everything Blythe and Wanda wore when they were younger, and she did alterations at the little dress shop she tended after she’d spent 16 years working as a supervisor at Jenmark.
Clearly, she loved her loyal daughters, who have ministered to her for many years, and she loved her husband, whom the family refers to as ‘Daddy Bell.’ Audrey, they refer to as “Ma Bell.” When Ms. Audrey worked at Jenmark, she’d come home at lunch to check on her husband, and they’d have lunch together…and then he’d get back to his farming, cane in hand…
She loved her three granddaughters, Sandy, Marsha, and Christian, and each of them have fond memories of her.
Sandy remembers the time she first brought Frank over to meet Ms. Audrey, who asked him if he liked Pecan pie. He told her, yes, and after a time, he got comfortable, and he dozed off in the chair where he sat. As he was sleeping, Ms. Audrey could be heard shuffling around in the kitchen, and when Frank woke up, she handed him a fresh pecan pie! Sandy then looked over at her grandmother and said, “Well, I like cheesecake, Ma Bell…”
Christian remembers Ma Bell letting her drive to the store when she was young, and how Ma Bell was fun to take on trips to the mountains, or to Branson, Missouri. Wanda recalls that, when Christian was about 4 years old, Ma Bell told her, “You’re going to have a high phone bill this month.” - Christian had learned to use the phone, and called her grandmother every day, to keep her abreast of everything that was happening in her life.
Marsha remembers how Ma Bell loved eating in the cafeteria at Mount Olive College, when Marsha was a student there, and how Ma Bell would sometimes bring friends with her. Blythe recalls how she called her mother one afternoon, and was told that Marsha - who was supposed to be doing laundry at the time - was “taking a nap.” When Blythe asked her mother if she was doing Marsha’s laundry, Ma Bell answered her, “Maybe I am, and maybe I’m not. That’s between me and Marsha.” Marsha let Ma Bell do her laundry for four years. She seemed to enjoy doing it. She also enjoyed cooking for Marsha and her friends, and occasionally slipping Marsha lemon meringue pie without the meringue, which Marsha didn’t like, or making her famous blueberry muffins for her.
Ma Bell also loved making Sea Foam Candy, which sometimes sold for up to $100 a plate, even if there were only 12 pieces on it. And, like her older brother Mr. Dorch, she loved something sweet. Mr. Dorch recalls driving his sister to see the evening premiere of GONE WITH THE WIND on the back of his motorcycle in 1939, and how cold it was that night, but they didn’t complain, and they enjoyed the movie a great deal.
When Mr. Dorch was 17, he started driving a school bus, and one afternoon when he had Ms. Audrey with him, Atlas Price - who had just started school, and was younger than the two of them - turned around and said to them, “You two better start calling me Uncle Atlas.” - At Ms. Audrey’s recent birthday party, he gave her a card with the words, “To a special niece” on it…
She was an avid Pepsi drinker, and Blythe would buy them for her in bulk. Ms. Audrey would keep track of when she was running low, and let Blythe know in advance.
She always ate 3 meals a day, and she loved fried pork, and country ham, and she was loyal to Piggly Wiggly. She liked to go out to eat on Friday nights…years ago, she’d spend countless hours with her husband’s cousins, and they’d quilt together in a little store up the road.
When Ms. Audrey was young, she skipped a grade and, after graduation, went to Meredith College for a semester, but got sick, and never returned. She married her husband in 1943, and moved into the house her husband was born in, and helped her sister-in-law, Ruth, take care of Ruth and her husband’s mother, Mama Price. Ms. Audrey took care of others her entire life.
Wanda recalled, “Mama helped me raise Christian; she was a big help to me.” And Blythe remembered how her mother would drop everything to be there for her in a time of need.
A lifelong member of Zion United Methodist Church (she and her sibling walked to church when they were young, and lived down the road from it), Ms. Audrey was never one to complain, even when she was hospitalized. She took her faith very seriously, and respected the pastor’s role. Last Christmas she was in the hospital, and she seemed to know this day was coming; it was scheduled to be warm over the holidays, and she looked at me and said, “A hot Christmas means a fat graveyard.” I’d never heard that turn of phrase before, but she was grimly serious about it, and she was a little low when I next saw her.
Ms. Audrey loved pastoral visits; she cherished small gifts from her pastor, and would put them on display by her chair in the living room. Last year I stopped by to see her at the hospital, and she seemed to be sleeping. Blythe and Wanda were in the room, and before I left, I said, “I’d better say a prayer, because Ms. Audrey wouldn’t like it if she found out I didn’t pray when I stopped by,” and she opened her eyes, and looked at me and said, “Yes, would. Pray.” And so I did. She was always a pleasure to be around, and despite her frustration at not knowing exactly what was making her feel so physically low, she never complained about her situation, at least not to me. The last time I saw her, I told her we missed seeing her at church, and she told me she missed coming to church most of all. I told her how much we all loved her, and she said, “I’ll remember that. I’ll remember that.”
I thank the Lord the last week she had before she fell ill last week was a good one. I’m grateful to God that she was able to attend her birthday party, and felt good for several days when she returned home. I’m grateful for the blessing Wanda received when Ms. Audrey, who was never known to tell jokes despite her dry humor, told her about the ignorant man who wanted to become a chicken farmer, and bought 50 biddies from another farmer. Then he bought 50 more, and then 50 more. Finally, the man who sold the biddies asked, “Are you having any luck?” and the prospective chicken farmer answered, “Well, no, I’m not sure what’s going on. I keep planting them, but nothing seems to want to come up!”
Ms. Audrey is now a part of what the Word of God describes as the Great Cloud of Witnesses, and she’s aware of these proceedings this evening, in some form or fashion. She would want us to celebrate her home going, and to rejoice that she’s now with Daddy Bell, and all her Christian loved ones who are with the Lord above. She’d want us to remember the good times. The pleasant times. The happy things. The things that make us smile when we think of her.
Audrey Bell, for example, was ahead of the curve when it came to recycling; she saved her Pepsi pull tabs for years, and took them down to the beauty parlor so they could be donated toward good causes, and to help school children, long before it became a widely known practice. She kept a stack of mixed papers in the living room to recycle, and she threw food scraps into the garden to return them to nature.
In her later years, her schedule revolved around going to the beauty parlor to have her hair done; even her Home Health workers and doctors made notes of when Ms. Audrey was to have her hair done - Ms. Audrey never felt so bad that she couldn’t make it to the beauty parlor.
Ms. Audrey was practical, raised on a farm to be a hard worker alongside her siblings; their father hung scissors on the branches of the apple trees, so they could cut worms in two when their wasn’t work to be done. Ms. Audrey lived by the adage that “idle hands are the devil’s workshop,” and “everyone ought to try to do their best,” and this applied to her, too.
Hanging on the wall of her living room, where she could see it from where she sat, is a cross stitched print that reads as follows,
I shall pass this way but once.
Therefore, any good I can do,
Or any kindness that I can show,
Let me do it now.
For I shall not pass this way again.”This, too, is how she lived her life. And this is the legacy she leaves with us.
When I reflect on Ms. Audrey in the future, I’ll see her rising up from the back pew, where young Jesse Grady will stand waiting to take her arm. I’ll see her interlace her arm with his, and envision him escorting her out the church. “That boy’s a politician,” she once told me, because of his lineage, and because of his eagerness to see her to her car each week when she came to church. I’m going to remember their last conversation, where he looked over at her and said, “You know, I think you’re getting a little better,” to which she replied, “You think so?” - He responded, “I do,” and I rejoice this evening, because I know she’s now more than a little better. She’s a lot better. She has a new body, and she’s in the presence of the Lord, and she’s no longer sick, or suffering; in fact, I’m sure she feels better than she ever has in this life - and she’s waiting for us. Her Christian legacy offers us the promise that if we, like her, have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, and we’re faithful to our Christian duties and responsibilities, one day we will see her again, and there will never again be a separation, and there will never again be sickness, or sorrow, or pain.
In His name, and in His presence, Amen.
From the News-Argus Obituary, with an amendment:
May 21, 1924-June 13, 2009
MOUNT OLIVE -- Audrey Price Bell, 85, 674 Bennetts Bridge Road, died Saturday at Kitty Askins Hospice Center in Goldsboro.
Funeral services will be held at 7 p.m. today at Tyndall Funeral Home, with the Rev. Bud Jenness officiating, after which the family will receive friends. Burial will be at 10 a.m. Tuesday at the Bell Family Cemetery located at the home.
Mrs. Bell was a lifelong member of Zion United Methodist Church. A homemaker and an accomplished seamstress, she was known for her love of quilting, and had been an employee at the former Jan-Mark sewing room. She was very fond of her native community at Pricetown, as well as the White Flash/Scott's Store community, which had been her home for many, many years.
She is survived by two daughters and a son-in-law, Blythe Bell Tillett of Elizabeth City and Wanda Bell Lanier and Douglas Lanier of Chinquapin; three granddaughters, Sandy Tillett and husband, Frank Pando, of New York, Marsha Tillett and husband, Brantley Sawyer, of Raleigh and Christian Lanier of Chinquapin; a brother and sister-in-law, Dortch and Iva Lois Price of the Pricetown community; two other sisters-in-law, Ruth Bell Uzzell of Goldsboro and Mamie Price Barwick and husband, Marian, of the Pricetown community; and numerous nieces and nephews, and a younger uncle, Mr. Atlas Price.
She was preceded in death by her husband, Jasper Waters Bell; a son-in-law, Marshall Tillett; her parents, Darius and Alice Price; a brother, Rex Price; and a sister, Dorothy P. Sandford.
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