Edna Piercy Bell

Edna Piercy Bell of Austin passed away Thursday, July 15, 2010. She was best known to friends and family as an excellent seamstress, authentic quilter, gardener, great Southern cook, classic homemaker/mom (as was common in the 1950’s and 60’s), and as a ‘woman around the neighborhood’, as the saying goes, tending to neighbors young and old over the years.

For 65 years she was the steadfast wife and partner of A. J. Bell. Her support made possible his success at the Texas Highway Department’s headquarters, where for 45 years he operated the popular coffee shop that came to be known as “A.J.’s Place”.

She is survived by her husband and all three of her children: Morris Bell and wife Gay of Hempstead, TX, Wayne Bell and wife Mary of Austin, and daughter Linda Bell of Austin. She is also survived by four grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren: granddaughter Brooke M. Burton and husband Jeff and their four children in Bryan, TX, granddaughter Bobbye M. Marrs and husband Chad and their four children in Albuquerque, NM, and grandsons Avery Bell, 14, and Patrick Bell, 10, of Austin.

She was born Edna May Piercy, June 17, 1915, on a farm in southern rural Kentucky, near the town of Summer Shade, where she grew up in a world more 19th Century than 20th. Her family, all now long deceased, included parents Samuel Piercy and Roxanna Clemmons Piercy, sister Mary Piercy and infant brother Edwin Piercy who died in the 1918 flu pandemic. She was the only of her family to attend college, Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green and Lindsey Wilson College in Columbia, KY. In the summer of 1943 Edna took the adventurous step of joining the ranks of college students hired by Southwestern Publishing to sell Bibles door-to-door over summer vacation. During training at company headquarters in Nashville she met a dashing young blind Texan, A. J., and his Seeing Eye dog, Bex. She and A.J. were married on February 6, 1945 in Nashville, moved to Austin and joined First Baptist Church in that same year, and in 1948 purchased and moved into the home where they raised their family and lived until Edna entered the hospital in May of this year.

In addition to her longstanding membership in and love for First Baptist, Edna was a charter member of First Austin African Violet Society and a founding member of the Austin Quilt Guild. She is fondly remembered by her quilting bee, the May Bees, as the genuine article, the authority when it came to the art of quilting.

Edna’s family wishes to offer a special thank you to the nurses and staff at the Summit at Westlake Skilled Nursing Facility for their tender loving care and patience.

The family will receive friends on Sunday, July 18, 2010 from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM at Weed- Corley-Fish Funeral Home, 3125 N. Lamar, where funeral services will also be held the following morning, 10:00 AM Monday, July 19, 2010, Dr. Doug Keenan Associate Pastor of First Baptist Church of Austin, officiating. A brief graveside service will follow at Austin Memorial Park Cemetery, 2800 Hancock Dr.