BELL, JOHN ALEXANDER MCLEAN (1894-1959)

BELL, JOHN ALEXANDER MCLEAN, doctor and sportsman; b. Norfolk Co., near Simcoe, Ont., 1894, s/o Dr John C. Bell and Sarah McLean; m. 1923, Cannie Fairbank Armstrong, d/o Robert Henry Armstrong and Minnie Clara Russell; d. Fredericton, 13 Aug 1959.

J. A. M. ("Alex") Bell received his early schooling in Ontario and was trained in medicine at McGill University (MD CM 1918). He served for a short time as a lieutenant with the Canadian Medical Corps in World War I and was assigned to work in Rogersville during the influenza epidemic of 1918. He arrived in Newcastle to open a practice in the summer of 1919. In 1938 he relocated in Fredericton.

Bell enjoyed an excellent reputation as a physician and surgeon. While in practice in Newcastle he was a coroner and surgeon of the militia. He was the chief medical officer for the RCMP at both Newcastle and Fredericton. In 1931 he was elected president of the New Brunswick Medical Society. Prior to his death he was the director of the provincial polio clinic in Fredericton.

Bell was a member of the Highland Society and was president in 1935. An avid sportsman, he succeeded his father-in-law, Robert H. Armstrong, as manager of the Miramichi Fish & Game Club in 1931, and he was a charter member, director, and honorary president of the Miramichi Salmon Association. After his death, friends acted to perpetuate his memory through the establishment of the "Dr J. A. M. Bell Memorial Scholarship" at the University of New Brunswick. He and his wife, Cannie F. Armstrong, had three children.