Special to The Gazette
TIFTON — The King Association’s annual scholarship banquet will be held at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at Leroy Rogers Senior Center. Tickets are $10.
The 2009 Mother of the Year banquet honoree will be Essie Lee Bell.
Her legacy of 87 years embodies trials and tribulations as well as victories and testimonies.
Even as a young adult Bell was often tasked to look after her younger siblings and cousins. It was then that she learned to fine tune her motherly wit through activities such as combing their hair, giving them baths and teaching them to read. An avid reader herself, Bell was an advocate of education.
In 1952, fate brought Bell, along with her three young daughters (Mildred, Luci, and Diane), to Tifton where she has continued to reside for the past 57 years.
As a single parent, the move provided her with family support given primarily by her mother, the late Fannie Heath-Peoples.
Bell immediately engaged in her community while maintaining focus on the rearing and education of her children. She worked numerous jobs before finally retiring from Southern Grain Institute Research Lab in 1985 after 12 years of service.
In 1960, Bell married her husband, Lloyd. They remained together until he died in March 2007.
Once her children grew up and moved out of the house, Bell took on the task of being a mother/grandmother figure to others.
Many sought her no-nonsense advice and her home-cooked meals. During these years, Bell became a grandmother of five.
When tragedy struck in 1992 with the passing of her eldest daughter, Mildred, Essie and Lloyd without hesitation at 70 and 69 years of age accepted the duty of raising their daughter’s two young children who at the time were 13 and 9 years old. Both girls went on to graduate high school.
Bell displays all of the traits that would define what it is to be a loving, admirable mother. She is a role model who is full of life and knowledge.
Though her path has not always been easy, Bell has excelled at learning from her valleys and celebrating her peaks.
