Obituary for Alice Joyce Brown (Bell)
Alice Joyce (Bell) Brown, 95, of Bloomington, Indiana, passed away peacefully on June 18, 2020, at home. She was born on April 7, 1925 to Harry Allen Bell and Heloise Maurine (Tuttle) Bell in Fredericksburg, Virginia. The family soon moved to Jackson, Michigan, where Alice graduated from Jackson High School in 1943. She graduated from Kalamazoo College in June 1947 with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry, but not before she had married Douglas Burton Brown in December 1946. The couple moved to Illinois where Douglas studied for the ministry at Northern Baptist Theological Seminary. During their nearly 62 years of marriage, Douglas pastored seven churches and served as general director of the Conservative Baptist Association of Pennsylvania for five years before retiring.
After years of devoting herself to caring for their four children, Alice taught chemistry at Roosevelt High School, in Wyandotte, Michigan, earned a masters degree in guidance counseling from Eastern Michigan University, then served as a high school guidance counselor in Wyandotte and later as a middle school science teacher in Reed City, Michigan.
Alice lived to give glory to God as a wife, mother and teacher. Her calm, cheerful and confident outlook on life strengthened and assisted her husband in his work and was an example to all of diligence, excellence and contentment. She cultivated beauty and order in her surroundings and gratitude to God in her heart. She was often heard to pray, “Thank you for all the good things You give us every single day. Help us to do what is pleasing to You and helpful to others.” Her reliance on the goodness and faithfulness of God was the foundation of her life.
“Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord—for we walk by faith, not by sight—we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord. Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad….
For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died; and He died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf (2 Corinthians 5:6-10, 14-15 NASB).
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16 NASB).
Alice is survived by her four children Janice (Robert) Goddard of Bloomington, Indiana, Maureen (James) Loucks of Spokane, Washington, Marilyn (Forrest) Coe of Fox River Grove, Illinois, and Douglas (Elizabeth) Brown of Lago Vista, Texas, as well as her 15 grandchildren and 37 great-grandchildren. She leaves behind her two brothers Carl (Rose) Bell of Columbus, Indiana, and Nicholas (Sandra) Bell of Stillman Valley, Illinois.
She was preceded in death by her husband, Douglas B. Brown, her parents, Harry and Heloise Bell, her sister Kathryn Bell, and her brother Harry Allen Bell, Jr.
Visitation will be 4-8 p.m. on Tuesday, July 7 at The Funeral Chapel in Bloomington and 1-2:30 p.m. on Wednesday, July 8 at Trinity Reformed Church, 2401 S. Endwright Road, Bloomington, Indiana 47403. The funeral will be at 2:30 p.m. Wednesday, July 8 at the church. Alice will be interred with her late husband at the Florida National Cemetery in Bushnell, Florida.
Memorial gifts can be made to:
Trinity Reformed Church
2401 S. Endwright Road
Bloomington, IN 47403
After years of devoting herself to caring for their four children, Alice taught chemistry at Roosevelt High School, in Wyandotte, Michigan, earned a masters degree in guidance counseling from Eastern Michigan University, then served as a high school guidance counselor in Wyandotte and later as a middle school science teacher in Reed City, Michigan.
Alice lived to give glory to God as a wife, mother and teacher. Her calm, cheerful and confident outlook on life strengthened and assisted her husband in his work and was an example to all of diligence, excellence and contentment. She cultivated beauty and order in her surroundings and gratitude to God in her heart. She was often heard to pray, “Thank you for all the good things You give us every single day. Help us to do what is pleasing to You and helpful to others.” Her reliance on the goodness and faithfulness of God was the foundation of her life.
“Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord—for we walk by faith, not by sight—we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord. Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad….
For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died; and He died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf (2 Corinthians 5:6-10, 14-15 NASB).
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16 NASB).
Alice is survived by her four children Janice (Robert) Goddard of Bloomington, Indiana, Maureen (James) Loucks of Spokane, Washington, Marilyn (Forrest) Coe of Fox River Grove, Illinois, and Douglas (Elizabeth) Brown of Lago Vista, Texas, as well as her 15 grandchildren and 37 great-grandchildren. She leaves behind her two brothers Carl (Rose) Bell of Columbus, Indiana, and Nicholas (Sandra) Bell of Stillman Valley, Illinois.
She was preceded in death by her husband, Douglas B. Brown, her parents, Harry and Heloise Bell, her sister Kathryn Bell, and her brother Harry Allen Bell, Jr.
Visitation will be 4-8 p.m. on Tuesday, July 7 at The Funeral Chapel in Bloomington and 1-2:30 p.m. on Wednesday, July 8 at Trinity Reformed Church, 2401 S. Endwright Road, Bloomington, Indiana 47403. The funeral will be at 2:30 p.m. Wednesday, July 8 at the church. Alice will be interred with her late husband at the Florida National Cemetery in Bushnell, Florida.
Memorial gifts can be made to:
Trinity Reformed Church
2401 S. Endwright Road
Bloomington, IN 47403