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May Bell - death

I have long attempted to locate information on the husband and daughter of Mary (Finnestad) Bell.    Both Mary's husband and daughter had passed away prior to the 1900 US Census and little information was known about them other than her husband was a clergyman and their daughter died as a child.

This summer I digitized the Finnestad family photo and on the back was written the names of those in the photo as well as a single line "married a preacher - one daughter - May Belle who died of pn" (pneumonia).    

I recently located a death record for a May Bell from the First Lutheran Church* ledger in Lee County, Illinois.




































May Bell passed away February 21, 1900.    Based upon the church records, May was 10 1/2 at the time of her death, indicating her birth was approximately August 1899.  

The last column seems to indicate the location where the decedent had lived; in this case it states "Nord" which leads me to believe** the Bell family were probably living in Alto township as Mary was residing there with her parents, Mari and Ole Finnestad on June 1, 1900 when the census was taken for that year.


*First Lutheran Church records provided by Pastor Steve Dow, Faith Lutheran Church, Rochelle, Illinois.

** Other locations: "Long Pr" stood for "Long Prairie", "Shabbona" the village of "Shabbona", etc.

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