One of President Joe Biden’s closest Scranton childhood friends has died.
Tom Bell Sr., 81, died Wednesday about 9 p.m. at his Waverly Township, Lackawanna County, home, his son, Tom Bell Jr., confirmed today.
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.
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.”