BELL, Catharine "Tita" ReQua Johnson

Travel agent, 86. Catharine "Tita" ReQua Johnson Bell, 86, of Astoria, Oregon, died Monday, June 19, 2006, in Astoria. She and her husband were summer residents of Desbarats since the 1930's and year-round residents of Ophir from 1972 to 1983. Tita was born July 6, 1919, to J. A. Stewart Johnson and Catharine Haven ReQua Johnson at the American Embassy in Caracas, Venezuela, where her father was Charge' d'Affaires. During her early childhood, her father's diplomatic service caused the family to move first to Washington, D.C., then to Berlin (Germany), and then to Cairo (Egypt). After her father's untimely death in Cairo in 1926, Tita and her mother settled near her father's family in Winnetka, Ill., where she attended North Shore Country Day School and became a passionate, if long-suffering, fan of the Chicago Cubs. She graduated from Miss Porter's School in Farmington, Conn., and attended Briarcliff College in Briarcliff Manor, N.Y. As was then common with popular and beautiful debutantes, Tita was sought after for amateur modeling assignments. She was a Noxema girl in 1938, for which she received a lifetime supply of the product. In 1939, she married Alexander "Lex" Chartis Bell in Lake Forest, Ill. Their mutually devoted marriage of almost 58 years ended with Lex's death in 1997. Mrs. Bell was a homemaker in Lake Forest until 1955, when she and a business partner bought the Lake Forest Travel Bureau and she became a travel agent. Her new career provided many opportunities to engage in her passion for travel. She was also proud of her success as a business owner, and of her service in the American Society of Travel Agents, of which she served a term as president of the Midwestern Division. In 1970, the Bells moved to Troy, N.Y., to care for her aging mother. They enjoyed many years of retirement there and at "Havilah Farm," the farm near Ophir whose house they renovated. They were active in both communities. Mrs. Bell was an avid member of the Horticultural Society in her Canadian community, and in Troy she served a term as president of the Rensselaer County Historical Society. In 2001, Mrs. Bell moved to Astoria to be nearer to family members. Family members said, besides her many other interests, Mrs. Bell was a devoted mother who loved to gather her children and their families together at their Desbarats summer home; a devoted wife who cared for her husband through his long final illness; and a devoted daughter who tended to her mother until her mother's death in 1996 at the age of 104. Mrs. Bell is survived by three daughters and sons-in-law, Chartis and Ned Tebbetts of Cohasset, Mass., Cici Bell and Jim Buxton of Vernonia, Ore., and Alex Bell and Ron Wetteroth of Rockville, Md.; one son and daughter-in-law, Stewart Bell and Lis Stubberfield of Astoria; two granddaughters, Catharine Bell Wetteroth and Agnes Bell Wetteroth of Rockville; four grandsons and their partners, Bill Langmaid and Rachel Schuller of Vernonia, Jamie Langmaid and Katie Berry Langmaid of Milton, Mass., Noah Bell and Dawn Weaver of Portland, Ore., and Woody Buxton of Vernonia; one great-granddaughter, Iris Moon WeaverBell of Portland; three step-granddaughters, Julie Mullen of Canby, Kathy Chakos of St. Helens, and Liz Welland of Gervais, all in Oregon; and six step-great-grandchildren. There will a memorial gathering at the family's Desbarats camp ("Range Lights"), 430 Range Lights Road, from 4:00 to 6:30 Thursday, July 27. Friends are invited to come by for all or any part of that time.