Max Bell - Personal Life

Personal Life

Bell's marriage to Suzanne ended in 1949. The couple had four children: sons Chester (died 1970) and Paul, and daughters Diane and Gretchen. He later married Frank McMahon's daughter-in-law Agnes, who was widowed when her husband Frank Jr. was killed in an automobile accident in 1953. The family maintained a winter home in Palm Desert, California and a ranch in Okotoks.

An ardent member of the Presbyterian Church, Bell was said to have read the Bible as often as his weekly horse racing forms. He neither drank nor smoked, and was a generous donor to his church. He enjoyed playing golf and badminton, and frequently sailed his yacht, Campana, throughout the area around Vancouver Island and used it to ferry politicians and businessmen to a special forum on Canadian-American relations which he organized in 1959. Bell was a supporter of organized sport at several levels and helped finance the Vancouver Canucks' entry into the National Hockey League.

Bell fell ill to a neurological illness in 1967 that resulted in numerous surgeries over the following five years. He died on July 19, 1972, at the Montreal Neurological Institute. Shortly before his death, he created the Max Bell Foundation and funded it with $17 million of FP Publications stock. Within 30 years, the foundation's assets had grown to $55 million in addition to over $65 million distributed as part of 200 grants across the nation. Thirty percent of the grants go to McGill University, half to the Faculty of Medicine specifically. Max Bell Foundation has funded charities in a variety of areas since its inception, and currently focuses its grants on health and wellness, environment, and education. Capital grants have also helped to fund several facilities throughout western Canada, including Calgary's Max Bell Centre.