Geneva Bell
" Box "

GENEVA BELL is a good-natured girl, a fact which has been overwhelmingly attested to by nearly all the Senior girls. Geneva is a brilliant French student and has done better than average work in her other studies. She is a model of neatness and taste. Geneva has all the grand qualifications one looks for in a professional student. She is going to Mercy in the Fall and predict she will be a great credit to Bapst.

Geneva "Jean" Bell Box
2002

The best experience I got at JBHS was my training and moral teachings.

The very worst experience I had was letting Geneva Malone get a better mark than me in French class --- and me of French descent --- and Sister Mary Thecla not letting me forget it !!!!

After graduation, I went to Mercy Hospital, School of Nursing, Portland, ME, with Geneva Malone & Therese La Flamme. I believe they stayed - I didn't.

I returned to Bangor, attended Husson College and in 1954 married an Air Force Staff Sergeant, Wayne Box, stationed at Dow Field.

He was from Mississippi and at that time I thought that was the end of the earth or at the very least I would need a passport to get there!!!!

We were married 41 years before he passed away in 1995 from complications after open heart surgery.

We had four children, two girls, Gail, Frances (nicknamed Bunny- born on Easter Sunday) and two boys, Allenand & Bruce.

We lost Gail to leukemia when she was 6 and our oldest son Allen passed away in November of 2002. Bunny is a registered nurse and is director of the ER at the VA Hospital in Biloxi, MS, and Bruce has his own specialty construction company, here in Gulfport. I have 7 grandchildren, five of them live in Gulfport and all are a great source of joy in my life.

We retired in Gulfport in 1974 after extensive traveling on the East Coast with Dupont.

After Wayne passed away, I began a busy career as a volunteer in both the civic and political arenas. I have been active in the local Coast Chamber of Commerce, Rotary, March of Dimes, Make A Wish Foundation, American Business Women's Assoc., Humane Society and the Gulf Coast Symphony.

I am a Municipal Election Commissioner and co-chaired the municipal redistricting committee mandated by the 2000 census. I had the distinct privilege of being a Mississippi delegate to the Republican Convention in San Diego in 1996 and Philadelphia in 2000.

I was a delegate at the Inauguration of George W. Bush and was appointed by our senior Senator Thad Cochran to serve as co-chair of the Convention Credential Committee.

Senator Thad Cochran and me.

I am a member of the Ms. Federation of Republican Women and serve as member - at - large.

I have held various offices in our local Republican Women's Club and serve on our County Republican Executive Committee.

Presently I am the county campaign chairman for the Republican candidate running for Lt. Governor of our state.

My children often tell me and anyone else that will listen, if I got paid for the volunteer hours I work, I would have more money than God.

My response, which they have finally accepted as a blessing, has been that I do this for therapy, to stay busy, which keeps me out of their hair!!!!! And I am quick to remind them that I DID WORK FOR MONEY AT ONE TIME, as payroll/audit secretary for the Royal Typewriter Company in Hartford, CT, and as assistant bond superintendent for the Hartford Insurance Group, Bridgeport, CT. (I think that was a 100 years ago).

The highlight of 2002 was when Shirley Mann Cassidy called to tell me about our reunion.

I have been blessed with a good life, a great family and the courage and faith to help me survive the "not-so-good" times.

BY THE WAY, DID I MENTION THAT I AM A REPUBLICAN !!!!!
(some of my best friends are Democrats!!!!!!!).