Hillsborough County Woman Celebrates 105 Years

BRANDON, FL — Iva Lee Haygood Bell eats small meals, love vegetables, drinks coffee and never takes medicine. Whether those four factors get the credit for her longevity or not, Bell’s doing something right. She turns 105 on Sept. 10.

Born in Alpharetta, Georgia, in 1911, Bell moved to Tampa at the age of 14. Her family’s Georgia farmhouse still stands today, built by her father and grandfather in the early 1900s. While Bell recalls an actual ice box in the home, no electricity and a lack of indoor plumbing, many of her memories are of Tampa in its younger years.

The Haygood family arrived at Tampa’s Union Station in the 1920s and settled in the town of Gary, which was east of Ybor City at the time, according to her biography. She attended George Washington Middle School in Tampa and recalls talking walks and trolley rides down 7th Avenue.

It was late one evening in 1926, Iva met the love of her life at a drug store soda counter near the Columbia Restaurant. She and Rowland Bell married in 1927.

Before long, the couple moved to Seminole Heights and then Sulphur Springs. The Bells visited the Tampa Theatre after its opening, loved traveling to Bok Tower for picnics and were frequent customers at the original Goody Goody drive-in after it opened its doors in 1925.

The young couple struggled during the Great Depression, but both Iva and Rowland managed to find work. While he worked the hours he could get at the Tampa shipyards, Iva took a post at HAV-A-TAMPA, learning how to roll cigars.

When the Depression ended and their savings began to grow, the two opened Bell’s Feeds and Groceries near the intersection of Florida and Waters avenues. The store sold canned goods, livestock feed, fuel oil and other supplies. Iva’s father had once owned a general store, so the business was in her blood, her biography points out.

The Bells welcomed twin daughters in 1942 and moved to Brandon in 1953. It was in Brandon they opened Bell’s Grocery near the intersection of today’s Lithia-Pinecrest Road and State Road 60. By 1955, the family grew by one more when the couple’s third daughter was born.

Always determined, Iva enrolled in accounting classes at Brandon High in 1958. By the early 1960s, Bell’s Grocery closed down, but Iva kept working in retail. She took a post at Maas Brothers, which she held for 20 years before retiring.

Rowland passed away at the age of 83 in 1984.

Today, Iva remains in Brandon with her daughter Gloria. She doesn’t have any real health concerns, her biography notes, and she’s a regular at the Hillsborough County Department of Aging Services in Brandon.

“She doesn’t have a secret to her longevity,” her biography states. She does, however, love to read and keeps as active as she can.

As for taking medicine, she said she’s never really had a need.

“Never been sick,” she was quoted by Hillsborough County as saying. “If I took medicine, it probably would make me sick.”

Bell's family and friends plan a private party to mark her 105th birthday at the Bloomingdale West Recreation Center she visits regularly to socialize and meet with friends.

From all of us at Patch, happy birthday Mrs. Bell!

Videos and biographical information courtesy of Hillsborough County