Summary
Bradley Van Deusen was born on the 11th of May in 1905 in the Colorado frontier town of Canon City. His father, Jack Bell, was a large handsome man in a cowboy hat, who didn't look all that sure of how to hold his baby boy. As it turned out, he wasn't that good at holding a wife either, and Bradley's parents divorced when the boy was four years old.

Jack Bell was a gambler down to his finger tips. A mining engineer, he went west with a useful profession and a hope to strike it rich. And he did. Over and over again. And in between, he went bust. His name was a familiar one in the mining communities from Alaska to Mexico, and he was a pioneer in all the big mining camps. He was one of the first in the rare metals fields of vanadium, sarnotite and carnotite, was one of the pioneers of Goldfield and Rawhide, and was on the staff of John Hays Hammond's silver mine in Cripple Creek. That last story included a gunfight at the bottom of the mine. Appropriately enough, Jack Bell would eventually die of a gunshot.

The first known mention of Jack Bell and Catharine is on Aug 24, 1905, when they returned from a 14 month trip through Arizona and Mexico in a covered wagon. Along on the trip was eight year old Catherine, from a previous marriage of Catharine's, who was noted to have ridden a horse for 4000 miles. Strangely enough, the article doesn't mention their baby, Bradley Evans Bell, who should have been born in Canon City by then, but dated baby pictures confirm Bradley's approximate birth date.

Catharine and Jack purchased a newspaper in Canon City, the Canon City Cannon. This must have been a tough change for a man used to travel, excitement and taking chances, because it wasn't that long before Jack Bell took some chances with his marriage. While off on a vacation, he arranged for Western Union wires to be sent back every day. Unfortunately for his plan, they were delivered as a batch on the day he got back.

On June 11, 1909, the marriage was over.

After that date, the only thing firmly known about Jack Bell is that he cowrote an article with the famous cowboy poet, Arthur Chapman.