NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — A local doctor tells us a few kind words from a stranger truly changed his life. This new friendship happened 60 years ago, many miles away.
The doctor set out on a mission to thank someone for being a kind voice when he needed it.
"I remember getting stitches in my head from roller skating, and I fell," laughed Dr. William Bell Jr., looking at a picture of himself bandaged up as a child.
Bell was an emergency medicine physician for 35 years, working at places like TriStar Southern Hills. Now retired, Bell often thinks back on the important people along the way who put that kid from Cincinnati on his path.
"When I was 7 years old, I had a paper route," Bell remembered. "I was alone all the time. I was very Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn-type."
It was the early '60s. Bell said there wasn't much of anyone looking after him until one day, everything changed.
"My mother could no longer take care of all of us," Bell said. "I was placed in a little foster home in North Avondale in Cincinnati. It was a Black neighborhood of professional Blacks. I'd never been exposed to anything like that."
Those Black doctors, lawyers, and professors were some of those important people in Bell's story. Another one came into his life when he was sent to Camp Joy in Clarksville, Ohio.
"I had never played with white children," Bell said. "We're talking about 1962, '63, '64. We're talking Civil Rights — lots of things going on at that time. I remember the first few days, I was really scared [at the camp]."
That's when a counselor named Ann Bliss approached with some simple kind words.
"She hugged me, and embraced me," said Bell. "Who was this white woman? I wanted to know why this Jewish girl embraced me the way she did. I never got over the warmth she gave me."
Even after camp, the two remained close.
"She would come to my house, and she would take me for ice cream," Bell continued. "This is the '60s. This is a rough time with race, but she was there for me. Finally, with my journey in life — going into the Air Force four years, going to medical school — I lost contact with her. I just couldn't find her."
Six decades after those life-changing days at Camp Joy, William decided he was going to find Ann. So much time had passed; where in the country could she be?
Bell did many searches for the name. His search got a lead. There was an Ann Bliss working as a psychotherapist in private practice in New Hampshire.
"I asked, 'are you the same Ann Bliss that was a counselor at Camp Joy?'" Bell said, remembering the message he sent.
He waited for an answer.
"I wrote him and said, 'you found me,'" said Ann Bliss. "I was overwhelmed. It was pretty extraordinary for me."
"I couldn't believe it," said Bell. "I told my wife, 'I got it! I found her! I found her!'"
"You don't think about how you affect people, and then somebody tells you how it affected them; I was overwhelmed," Bliss said.
It took some time. It took some planning. Then, 60 years after that original meeting at Camp Joy, Bell and Bliss reunited there.
"We clearly had some sort of heart connection," said Bliss.
"Those moments at Camp Joy weren't like anything I'd ever had before," said Bell. "It was just a freedom. Somebody cared."
This reunion proves how a small interaction, a few kind words, can have a lifelong impact.
"Paying attention to how we talk to one another and being respectful and being thoughtful about how we interact — that's what matters, particularly in this climate and people being terrified of the other," said Bliss. "If you spend some time talking to somebody, you'll find out they're not so other."
"This white Jewish girl came into my life and impacted it," said Bell. "It was just a beautiful moment for both of us."
