Claudia Ann Bell

Claudia Ann Bell was born on August 8, 1948 in Fairview, Oklahoma to parents Genevieve May (Long) Bell and Claude Martin Bell. She lived with her parents in Longdale, Oklahoma until the family moved to Burlington, Colorado, in 1950. She suffered a heart attack and passed away at her mother’s home in Security-Widefield, Colorado on July 4, 2020. A memorial service is being held at 2:00 p.m. on July 24, 2020 in the Chapel at Memorial Gardens Cemetery in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Claudia initially attended the rural Smokey Hill School while the family lived on a farm outside Burlington, then attended Burlington schools after the family moved into town. Following graduation from high school, Claudia enrolled for one year at Oklahoma State University, then chose to go into nursing and received her registered nursing diploma from Good Samaritan Hospital in Phoenix, Arizona.

She immediately began working as a Registered Nurse at the hospital in Salmon, Idaho and remained there for several years before returning to Colorado and working in the Intensive Care/Coronary Care Unit at Penrose Hospital in Colorado Springs for many years. Prior to retirement, she worked in home health care in the Colorado Springs area.

Claudia had a lifelong love of reading and enjoyed sightseeing and camping in the Rocky Mountains. While in Idaho, in addition to nursing she had part-time employment in river rafting and trail clearing, spending her days in the sunshine and her nights under the stars.

An animal lover, Claudia always had a cat or two and had dogs, first Tawny, then Pepper, after retirement. In addition to her pet cats, she managed a cat colony for feral cats.

For the past ten years of her life, Claudia lived with her mother and they took care of each other.

Claudia was preceded in death by her father, Claude Martin Bell of Burlington, Colorado; her paternal grandparents, Goldie and LeRoy Bell of Fairview, Oklahoma; her maternal grandparents, Dollie and Addison Long of Burlington, Colorado, and her brother-in-law, Roland Timney of Pueblo, Colorado.

She is survived by her mother, Genevieve (Long) Bell of Colorado Springs; her sister, Jeanette (Bell) Meyer of Pueblo, Colorado; her aunt and uncle, Pauline and Joe Long of Stroud, Oklahoma; as well as by her best friend, Gilda Rolls-Dellinger and daughter Danielle Dellinger of Colorado Springs. Claudia loved hosting and attending the Long-Miller Tea-Page Reunions where she could catch up with cousins scattered coast to coast, and connecting with cousins from the Bell side of her family when she was visiting Oklahoma.

Interment of her ashes will be at the Fairview Cemetery in Burlington, Colorado.