Remembering Betty Bell: Founding director of The Bell Center leaves a legacy

Kathy Olive can still remember the day she met Betty Bell.

Her daughter, Beth, was born with a disability that led to heart surgery at 12 months old. When she was born, doctors weren’t sure if she was going to live, Olive said.

When Olive heard of the Center for Developmental and Learning Disorders at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, she took Beth, hoping to benefit from the city’s first early intervention program.

When Olive walked through the doors, she saw Bell, a “tall, white-haired lady” and the program coordinator, for the first time.

“Little did I know she would change our lives,” Olive said.

Decades after that fateful meeting, Beth is now 35 years old, has participated in the Special Olympics and works three days a week. She is thriving, thanks to the help of her “BB,” whom she always introduced as her “special friend.”

“She was always the one to give you hope,” Olive said. “You knew you weren’t alone. … It changes your trajectory when you have hope.”

Many children’s lives were changed by Bell, who died Feb. 20 at the age of 80.

Bell never married and never had children of her own, but she cared deeply for the children of the CDLD and the organization that now bears her name, The Bell Center, located in Homewood, Olive said.

“She didn’t see the babies … as something to be fixed or a problem to be dealt with,” Olive said. “She considered them all her kids.”

Another of Bell’s “kids” was Anne Martha Corley’s daughter, Ella Rose, who regressed physically and was blinded by a viral infection that attacked her occipital lobe.

In 2014, at 16 months old, Ella Rose started receiving help at The Bell Center. It was the first time she had been away from her mother, and Corley remembered being able to hear her daughter screaming from outside the door of her classroom. The screaming continued for six weeks as the staff worked with Ella Rose and her family to help her overcome her affliction.

But outside that classroom door, listening to her child scream, is where Corley met Bell, who at that point in time was not physically working, but encouraging the staff and the center’s families.

“At a time when you think how hard things could be … she was a cheerleader,” Corley said of Bell.

Bell reminded families of the possibilities that lay ahead and strived to help children reach their full potential regardless of their circumstances, Corley said. She would push children and families to be the best they could be, she said.

Six weeks after she started in early intervention classes, Ella Rose “could have run the class,” Corley said. She learned to trust others, and teachers at the center helped her understand what was going on around her, using a bell to alert her it was time to transition to the next activity, Corley said.

Ella Rose never looked back. She is now in a traditional third grade classroom at Vestavia Hills Elementary West. The Bell Center gave her confidence, Corley said.

“She hasn’t lost it,” she said.

Bell was feisty and strong, and for families experiencing difficulties, she offered them hope, Corley said.

Kelly Peoples, now the executive director of Down Syndrome Alabama, worked with Bell at The Bell Center for eight years and continued to interact with her as Bell served on the board of DSA.

“She was happiest when she was with the babies,” Peoples said.

As she moved over to her new job, Peoples said Bell left an impact on her life, showing her the importance of seeing the potential of those with disabilities and making sure they received love and care.

Bell laid the groundwork for so many people with disabilities, Peoples said.

“Families coming up now have her to thank,” Peoples said. “They won’t know the problems she pushed away.”

Both Peoples and The Bell Center’s current executive director, Jeannie Colquett, said Bell was a pioneer in the special needs community.

During her career as a registered nurse, Bell, originally from Texas, found herself in Miami, working at a program which introduced her to working with children with special needs. She went on to serve as acting director of the nursing division of The Mailman Center for Child Development at the University of Miami.

Following a nationwide search, UAB hired Bell to run its newly-formed child development program in 1970, the Developmental Program for Infants and Toddlers at the Center for Developmental and Learning Disorders. That federally funded program ran out of money after 13 years, and Bell took a job with the Jefferson County Health Department. It was around that time The Service Guild of Birmingham expressed interest in starting an early intervention program.

The program started in 1984 in a Sunday school classroom at Trinity United Methodist Church in Homewood. Outgrowing its space in 10 years, The Service Guild bought a building for the program in 1994. In 2002, the program was renamed The Bell Center for Early Intervention Programs in honor of its founder, and in 2018, following a capital campaign, The Bell Center’s building was torn down and rebuilt, with staff and children moving into the new space in June 2019, Colquett said.

As Colquett took over as executive director, she said Bell taught her how critically important the work is and how important it is to prepare families for the road ahead of them.

Bell’s cousin, Linda Lammersen, said she and Bell were more like sisters. They spent many vacations and holidays together, Lammersen said. Bell was “easy to be around” and had a “wonderful zest for life.

“She loved to travel,” Lammersen said.

Bell also loved sports, cheering on her home state’s Texas Longhorns, along with the UAB Blazers and Auburn Tigers, Lammersen said.

Olive recalled that Bell would tape Longhorns games and only went back to watch them if the team won. “She couldn’t stand to see them lose.”

But above traveling, sports and her love for Diet Dr. Pepper, Lammersen said Bell’s life was The Bell Center and its children.

“You couldn’t separate them,” Lammersen said. “The kids were her kids.”

Lammersen said her cousin’s work has been replicated around the nation in other early intervention programs.

Bell not only cared deeply for the children she encountered but taught others to love them as well, Colquett said.

“She really taught all of us … about loving and acceptance and how to see the child first, not any disability,” Colquett said.

That lesson, and Bell’s legacy, will live on now in the staff at The Bell Center and the children they serve, Colquett said. “We’re going to continue to show that and share that with families for years to come.”