Page 8 - Demo

The J. M. Bell Foundry
This is a pre-1946 picture showing the original foundry and workforce. From left to right: Pop, neighbor Turner “Brer Rabbit” Wilkerson, Pop’s brother Rob Bell , and Harrison Flinchum who lived next door and was also a molder. Others in the photo are unidentified.
BY JOHN MITCHELL BELL IN COLLABORATION WITH ROBIN BELL JEWETT AND PETE JEWETT
All photos are courtesy of Robin Bell Jewett
My grandfather and name- sake, John Mitchell Bell, called “Pop” by everyone, was a foundry man who worked in Bonsack, an area and train stop just outside of Lynchburg where the Unit- ed Tobacco Equipment Company was located. The United Tobacco foundry made castings that could be finished in the company’s on-site machine shop. When the Great Depression hit, Pop, then in his mid-forties, lost his job. For months, as the story goes, he sat in a rocker on his front porch and talked to everyone who passed by. However, the
loss of his job did not keep him idle for long. Having no skills other than those needed for foundry work, Pop asked himself what he could do to utilize his experience as a skilled molder.
The Bell home, a Sears-Roebuck pre-fab, built in 1916, was in front of the foundry.
He started reflecting on household items—things that people of all stations needed—and one day, he came in for lunch and told my grandmother Emma, known affectionately as “Big Momma,” that he had decided to open a small foundry to make coal-stove grates and stove liners. Everyone used them to heat their homes and would hopefully find a means to pay for them. Thus, the J. M. Bell Foundry was established sometime in 1931.
Pop began the business in his back- yard garage at 3216 Campbell Avenue Extension, deciding that, as more work- space was needed, he would simply add to the building. The new foundry was a wood-frame structure covered by sheets of tin. It had a flat tarpaper roof with
22 LYNCH’S FERRY