John Ferris Bell

John Ferris Bell (January 14, 1890 - October 10, 1959) was a funeral director and mortician who founded J.F. Bell Funeral Home in Charlottesville in 1917.

Biography

Bell was born in Petersburg, Virginia in 1890, where he grew up attending Blacks-only schools. He attended Hampton University, and moved to Jefferson City, Missouri, following his graduation, where he taught future tailors at the Lincoln Institute. He trained as a funeral director in Chicago, Illinois. His cousin, Dr. John A. Jackson, a dentist in Charlottesville, informed him that the city was in need of a well-trained mortician, leading to Bell's return to Virginia. He served in the US military during World War I

In 1917, Bell established the J.F. Bell Funeral Home at 275 West Main Street. He lived across the street from his company, in a boarding house run by the Inge family until 1919, when he married Maude Lee, a Charlottesville native. The couple lived together on Preston Avenue until 1925, when Charles Coles, another local Black businessman, built a new funeral home that contained an upstairs apartment for the couple to live in.

Bell and his wife had four children:

• Rosamund Bell Jamison - a longtime teacher at the Jefferson School.
• John F. Bell, Jr. - trained as a mortician in Boston, eventually returning to Charlottesville to work at the family funeral home.
• Henry H. Bell - trained in Boston as well, apprenticed under his father, and founded the first Black-owned taxi company in Charlottesville with his wife, Verlease.
• Raymond L. Bell - joined the family business in the late 1950s; the first Black appointee to the Charlottesville School Board

The Bell funeral home is the oldest African-American owned business in Charlottesville.