Saner Cook Bell (1875-1945)

Saner Cook Bell, a portrait featured in the 1936 Waterloo Daily Courier.

  This oddly named Iowan is Saner Cook Bell, a distinguished businessman and civic leader based in the county of Black Hawk. Bell's inclusion here on the site rests on his unsuccessful candidacy for the Iowa State House of Representatives in 1934, his candidacy for mayor of Waterloo in 1936, and his service as a delegate to the Iowa Convention that ratified the 21st Amendment in 1933. 

   Born in the town of Bowers, Pennsylvania on May 7, 1875, Saner Cook Bell was one of five children born to John Wilson and Elizabeth Cook Bell. Saner C. Bell received his education in the public schools of Pennsylvania and at age sixteen began attending the De Pauw Preparatory School in Greencastle, Indiana. He later continued his education in Pennsylvania, enrolling at Bucknell University in the borough of Lewisburg. 

  After completing his education, Bell moved to Plymouth, Connecticut, and in May 1903 married in this city to Ella Mae White (1876-1951). The couple is recorded as having one daughter, Dorothy A. Bell (1911-1985), who was born in Syracuse, New York. The Bell family resided in both Pennsylvania and New York between 1903 and 1914, and while living in the Empire State Bell became a member of the Madison County Trust and Deposit Company, beginning in 1913. In the following year, the family moved to Iowa, settling in Black Hawk County where they would reside for the rest of their lives. Soon after their resettlement, Bell became the secretary and manager of the Waterloo Canning Company, based in the town of Waterloo, Iowa.

   Bell spent fourteen years with the Waterloo Canning Company before organizing the Bell Canning Company, of which he was President and General Manager. The Bell Company is recorded by the Waterloo Daily Courier as turning out "500,000 cans of corn yearly, enjoying a distribution thru the Central, Western, and Southwestern States-bringing in over $250,000-of this amount $160,000 goes to some 300 farmer planters and $90,000 to the employees of the five factories." The Courier also notes that Bell operated a chain of ten farms throughout Iowa and "feeds a herd of 225 dairy cows."

                        This sketch of Saner Bell appeared in the Waterloo Daily Courier in May 1928.

  Saner C. Bell first became active in Iowa political circles during the early 1930s. In 1933 he served as a delegate to the Iowa State Convention to ratify the 21st Amendment, which overturned the 18th Amendment that had outlawed the sale and manufacture of alcohol. Although he was a delegate to a convention that repealed prohibition, Bell himself stated in the Waterloo Daily Courier that:

 "I am not in favor of liquor running wild. We thought that when the eighteenth amendment was passed that the young people would never know anything about liquor. But instead, they know more about it today than older persons who were adults before the amendment was first passed." 

   Returning to politics in 1934, Bell mounted a candidacy for the Iowa House of Representatives from Black Hawk County and ran in that year's June 4th primary. An article on his candidacy appeared in the Courier that year and is shown below. 

   Although his campaign was dealt a losing blow, Bell was undeterred, and in March 1936 announced his candidacy for Mayor of Waterloo. Throughout the primary campaign season advertisements for Bell's candidacy appeared in Waterloo newspapers and further detailed his campaign platform, which included the condition of city streets, gas and electricity prices, city parking conditions, public welfare, city council proceedings, and city cleanliness.

  Opposing Bell in that year's race was incumbent mayor M.J. Morgan and Ralph B. Slippy, and on election day in March, it was Slippy who emerged victorious, polling 5,482 votes. Saner Bell placed third with 1,398 votes. Following his defeat Bell continued prominence in non-political areas, serving as the head of Waterloo's chapter of the National Recovery Administration in 1934-35 and as Exalted Ruler of the Waterloo Elks Lodge #290 from 1929-1935. Bell was also involved with the Waterloo Industrial Council and a federal farm loan insurance agency. Besides his involvement in the local Elks lodge, Bell was a parishioner at the First Presbyterian Church of Waterloo and was a member of the Waterloo Rotary Club.

   In 1940 Saner Bell became the general manager of the Unique Cleaners Inc. of Waterloo, serving in this position until he died in 1945. He died on November 4th of that year at the local hospital of "virus pneumonia" that had extended two weeks. He was 70 years old and was survived by his wife and daughter. Bell was later interred at the Waterloo Memorial Park Cemetery, also the resting place of Ella Bell and daughter Dorothy.

                     Bell's obituary from the Waterloo Daily Courier, published on November 5, 1945.