She loved “animals, writing, and telling dirty jokes,” Susan Jane Bell’s brother, Peter Pyatt Bell, recalled this week of his sister, who died on Jan. 20 at the Hamptons Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing in Southampton. “She just told the silliest jokes you could imagine,” Mr. Bell said.
Ms. Bell, who was 73 and had long lived in Springs, was diagnosed with cancer seven years ago.
She was born on Feb. 21, 1943, in Washington, D.C., to N. La Mont Bell and the former Rebecca Pyatt, and grew up in Larchmont, N.Y. After graduating from Mamaroneck High School, she worked for a time for the Avon Corporation. In the 1970s she was an assistant in Manhattan for the attorney Roy Cohn, best known for having been Senator Joseph McCarthy’s chief counsel during his investigations into suspected communist activity. She was mentioned in a number of books about Cohn, her brother said.
She went into the real estate field after that, working as an administrative assistant for various agencies in East Hampton and Bridgehampton.
In addition to her brother, Ms. Bell is survived by a niece, Jo Hanna Megan Bell of Truckee, Calif.
A date for a service has not been set, but her family has suggested donations in her memory to the Animal Rescue Fund of the Hamptons at P.O. Box 901, Wainscott 11975.
Joan Kulgren Martin
