President Joe Biden paid tribute to Tom Bell Sr., one of his closest Scranton childhood friends, who died Wednesday.
“Tommy embodied a simple truth about our nation,” Biden said in a statement issued by the White House. “There is nothing ordinary about being an American. We are extraordinary. Tommy was extraordinary.”
Biden said Irish poet William Butler Yeats seemed to have Bell in mind when he wrote, “Think where man's glory most begins and ends and say my glory was I had such friends.”
“Tommy Bell was such a friend. I will miss him dearly. Jill and I and our entire family send our prayers to Ellen, their children and grandchildren, and the entire Bell family,” Biden said. “May God bless Tommy Bell, a great American, and a good man.”
Bell, 81, died Wednesday about 9 p.m. at his Waverly Township, Lackawanna County, home, his son, Tom Bell Jr., confirmed.
Bell said Biden called the family at 4 p.m. Wednesday.
“We had a lovely 25-minute conversation with him, hours before my father died,” Bell said.
The family notified White House officials Bell died, but doesn’t know if the president will visit for the viewing and funeral Friday at St. Paul’s Church in Scranton.
Born almost exactly two months after Biden, Bell grew up in Scranton’s Green Ridge neighborhood, where Biden’s grandparents lived. Biden and his family lived with the grandparents for about five years and visited many times after that.
Bell attended most of the key events in Biden’s life, including weddings, funerals and campaign kickoff rallies. They and other Biden childhood friends met regularly when Biden returned to Scranton as a senator and vice president, sometimes behind the scenes at campaign events.
“Scranton, Pennsylvania is a place that climbs into your heart and never leaves. It’s home. It’s that special place etched in your heart,” Biden, 81, said. “I was born there. Even after my family moved to Claymont, Delaware as my dad found work, we’d return to our old Green Ridge neighborhood in Scranton and spend time with our friends, Charlie Roth, Larry Orr, and Tommy Bell.”
The president noted he lived three blocks from the Bell family.
“We sat next to each other during grade school at St. Paul’s,” he said. “From swinging on branches to running by the river, Tommy was the friend with the special heart, who would always lighten your heart. Over the next 70 years, he was the best friend at weddings, funerals, campaign rallies, and so many memories. You could always count on Tommy, and I hope he knew he could always count on me.”
Bell ran an insurance agency and served in the National Guard. He and his of wife of 51 years, Ellen, have four children.
“They became my family,” Biden said. “In building their great American life, Tommy took genuine pride in the success of his family, community, and our nation. He returned love with boundless loyalty. He was a man of honor, decency, and grace. A man of utmost character.”
Because of the relationship, reporters frequently sought out Bell for insight into his friend. Bell loved to tell stories of their youths and vouched for the president’s connection to Scranton.
“Without question, and it’s almost hard to understand it and hard to believe. You think it’s an opportunist thing, but it’s not. The guy’s that way. Before he was even in the limelight,” Bell told The Scranton Times-Tribune in January 2009. “He flatters me. He thinks a great deal of me, and he thinks a great deal of Scranton. Scranton people, Scranton values, Scranton. It’s not an imitation, and it’s not fake.”
