Paul G. Bell papers

Collection

Identifier: urn:taro:utexas.cah.00336

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

Speeches, correspondence, chronological files, genealogical research, photographs, financial and legal documents, certificates, Bell’s 1999 biography My War Story, and military records comprise the Paul G. Bell Papers, 1824-1877, 1912, 1937-2002. Genealogical research on Bryan, Gawley, Austin, Perry, Shepard, and Lewis families includes copies of letters, financial invoices, a diary, a 1912 school yearbook, and photographs. Original correspondence, receipts and bills, property inventories, land papers, and other legal and financial documents, 1824-1877, pertain to the personal and business lives of Guy M. Bryan, Moses Austin Bryan, Cora Lewis Bryan, the Bryan family, Thomas Jefferson Chambers, Chauncy B. Shepard, the Shepard family, Ira Randolph Lewis, and the Lewis family. Additionally, correspondence, certificates, army officer’s notebooks, a military patch, an insignia medal, and other military records document Bell’s service during and after World War II as an officer in the U.S. Army. His 1999 privately printed biography, My War Story, contains transcriptions and photocopies of his war documents.

Dates

Creation: 1824 - 1877
Creation: 1912
Creation: 1937 - 2002

Creator

Bell, Paul G. (Person)

Conditions Governing Access

This collection is open for research.

Conditions Governing Access

This collection is open for research.

Biographical Note

Paul Gervais Bell, Jr. (1922-2016) was born July 15, 1922 in Fort Knox, Kentucky to Paul Gervais and Mary Bryan Bell. After graduating from Lamar High School in 1939, he graduated from the New Mexico Military Institute in 1942. During World War II, he entered the U.S. Army in 1943 to fight in the European Theater of War and earn a Purple Heart and an European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal with Two Bronze Stars, among other honors. After the war, he was promoted to Captain on November 8, 1949, and continued to serve until his honorable discharge in 1954. Bell served the Texas State Historical Association as second vice president (1996) and president (1998-1999). He was a descendant of Moses Austin Bryan and a member of the Sons of the Republic of Texas. Due to interest in his family genealogy, Bell extensively researched the Bryan, Gawley, Austin, Perry, Shepard, and Lewis families. He died in Houston in 2016.