CINCINNATI — Most people go through their whole lives not knowing if they made a positive mark on another's life. Anne Greenberg Bliss is one of the lucky ones who learned early enough to appreciate it.
When Bliss was 16 years old, she became a camp counselor at Camp Joy just north of Cincinnati in Clarksville, Ohio. She admits she didn't know what she was doing but enjoyed her time with the kids who came to camp.
One of those kids was William Bell Jr. Just like Bliss, he grew up in Cincinnati. But when Bell, who is Black, was a camper in 1963, he had never been to the countryside. He had never interacted with white kids.
"I lived in Black neighborhoods," Bell said. "I never had an exposure to white kids at all, I never played with any white kids at all."
Bell grew up in a foster home in Avondale. His social worker sent him to Camp Joy.
"I felt alienated there," Bell said. "I remember the first few days I was really scared there because I was never around white kids or white councils or anyone at that time."
Bliss said she remembered a little boy sitting alone in the canteen.
"So I went over and I talked to him," Bliss said. "I just felt drawn to him."
Neither remembers what they talked about, but as Bliss said, "We clearly had some sort of heart connection."
Bell said he remembers thinking, "'Why was this white woman embracing me? And why did she take me under her wing? Something that I had never experienced.'"
For Bell, being at that camp and experiencing kindness from an unlikely person left an indelible mark on him.
"It was away from the hood," Bell said. "Memories were just obliterated for those two weeks when I was there. It was like I was in fantasy land."
For two weeks, these two people from different walks of life connected. And they stayed connected for a while.
"She would come to my house and pick me up and she would take me for ice cream and take me to meet her parents and ... she was there for me all the time until she had to go back to college," Bell said.
Bliss looks back on that time and realizes what her actions meant to a little boy.
"I think as a 9-year-old or a 10-year-old little boy, he looked at me as an adult," Bliss said. "And here I was, an adult that said what she was going to do, and then I did it."
As they grew older, they grew apart and lost touch. Bliss moved from Cincinnati to Vermont. Bell went into the service and then on to medical school. He became a doctor and worked in Nashville, Tennessee as an emergency room doctor for 35 years.
But no matter how successful he became, no matter how far away he was from Camp Joy, he never forgot Bliss.
"As I got older I would sit thinking about why this Jewish girl would embrace me the way she did," Bell said. "Somebody cared. And I just never forget — I couldn't forget it."
Bell searched and searched and finally, at the height of the COVID pandemic, found an email address for an Anne Bliss.
"And I said, 'Are you the same Anne Bliss that was a counselor at Camp Joy?' And a couple hours later, I got a response. She said, 'I'm her!'" Bell said.
Bliss said she remembers feeling elated when she received the email. A therapist, she was in session when it popped up on her computer screen and "It was all I could do," Bliss said, to not end the session so that she could immediately respond. Bliss had been thinking of that little boy from Camp Joy. She had found herself wondering whatever came of him.
They stayed in touch this time. And this past September, Bell and his camp counselor went back to Camp Joy to meet once again.
"I felt like I met a little brother, somebody that I've always been connected to," Bliss said. "I just didn't have the face and the body that went with it, but that somehow, you know, in my soul, we were connected."
"It was just a beautiful moment for both of us," Bell said.
Two souls connected. Their lives forever intertwined. Each making a positive impact on the other at a camp that brought them joy. Their story is Positively Cincinnati.
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