Janice Barbara Bell

of Arlington Heights

Janice Barbara Bell was born in Milwaukee on December 31, 1937 to Sigmund and Margaret (née Miller) Eichman. Born on New Year’s Eve, every year it seemed her birthday was celebrated by the whole world. And with good reason - her love of life, cheerful spirit, and eagerness for adventure made every occasion fun.

She grew up in the south side of Milwaukee, also spending long summers with aunts, uncles and cousins on farms near Trempealeau, Wisconsin - some of her happiest memories, and inspiring her lifelong love of gardening.

Her intelligence was clear from an early age. Her father, renowned as a builder and handyman, trusted young Janice to help with his projects, once relying on her to calculate the concrete needed to pour for their new porch - which proved exactly correct. Taking after her father, she was handy with tools all her life, expert at every kind of DIY.

At Marquette University Janice’s academic achievements were so formidable that one of her professors stole one of her scholarly papers - on the historical strategic importance of Heligoland - appropriating it as his own research.

After college and a perfect score on her civil service entrance examination, Janice moved to Washington DC, where she met and married Raymond Bell, a handsome young man from Georgia. Ray was warmly accepted into Janice’s Polish-American family even after they realized it was “poker,” not “polka,” that in his Southern accent he professed to enjoy.

Ray was a country boy at heart, so the young couple moved from DC to Kansas City to a small town in southern Missouri, and finally to a large, scenic house and property in southwestern Wisconsin, overlooking the Mississippi River, where Janice loved to fish. She once said her favorite sight was the bobber on a fishing line going down underwater.

After nine years of happiness together, and a brief nine months in their dream home, Ray died, leaving Janice alone with three young children. To build a new life she rejoined the civil service - again with a perfect entrance score - this time in its office in downtown Chicago, relocating her family to Arlington Heights, where she lived the rest of her life.

A talented organist, Janice loved music and literature, Beethoven and Shakespeare, her house filled with great books and music, providing her children a treasure of knowledge and culture. Her greatest love was opera. She attended for decades every production of the Lyric Opera of Chicago, thrilling to the world’s greatest voices.

Janice loved sports, baseball above all, rejoicing in the 1957 World Series victory of the Milwaukee Braves over the hated New York Yankees. After the Braves left Milwaukee, that void was not filled until she moved to Chicago, where her devotion to the Cubs became her greatest sports passion, culminating in her joy for their 2016 World Series triumph.

Janice played sports and games with great enthusiasm, always ready and happy to play. With sports as in all other things she served as father as well as mother, tirelessly playing catch with her boys. Her strong throwing arm earned her place as the starting third-baseman on her local softball team.

Professionally Janice served thirty years as a benefits specialist with the Social Security Administration, followed by ten years with the Arlington Heights Senior Center, where she guided tours and excursions in and around Chicago. She was a devout member of Saint James Parish.

Above all Janice’s life was devoted to the loving care of her three children, each different in character, each alike in their great love for her. All their lives, through every challenge, Janice kept her children free from want, and shielded them from every care. She would have done anything for her three kids; and from the moment her first child was born, that is exactly what she did.

Admired and loved by all who knew her, Janice died peacefully on Saturday, March 27, 2021 in Arlington Heights. She is survived by her children, Thomas (the late Lori Mentel) Bell, Margaret Bell, and Michael Bell; siblings, Marian (the late Robert) Smith and Kathryn (Russell) Shomperlen; and several nieces and nephews. She was preceded in death by her husband and her parents.V

Visitation Thursday, April 8, 2021 from 3:00 pm until 8:00 pm at Glueckert Funeral Home, Ltd., (capacity limits, PPE requirement, and social distancing in effect), 1520 N Arlington Heights Rd (four blocks south of Palatine Rd), Arlington Heights, IL 60004. Prayers 10:15 am Friday, April 9, 2021 at the funeral home proceeding to St. James Catholic Church(also with capacity limits and PPE, and social distancing), 831 N Arlington Heights Rd, for a funeral mass at 11:00 am. Interment is private.

Condolences can be given at www.GlueckertFuneralHome.com or (847) 253-0168.