Education
University of North Dakota.
University of North Dakota.
Born in East Grand Forks, Minnesota, she went for one year to the University of North Dakota across the state line in Grand Forks, North Dakota. She apparently stood out there for her skills at basketball. She was also a fine rider of horses and good with a rifle and a pistol.
By her own account, she appeared in Buffalo Bill Cody"s Wild West Show, although her biographer John A. Harrison was unable to verify that.
In any event, it is clear that she was both a rodeo rider (in male disguise) and later a reporter. She moved to Portland, Oregon, in 1920 to be near him, and in 1928 he bought her 35 acres (140,000 m2) on the Columbia River and built her a 22-room house, to which she added an elaborate garden.
The house was eventually lost to the construction of the Bonneville Dam. In her 20s and 30s she had a career as a reporter for various newspapers around the United States, including becoming, in San Francisco, the first female crime reporter in the country.
Hill was clearly the love of her life, although she had two brief marriages, one to a dentist and one to a doctor.
In 1933, the United States. government decided to obtain Bell"s land for the Bonneville Dam project They offered her United States$25,000. She went to court and in 1935 received $78,661, ($72,500 plus interest).
In both places, she was known for her elaborate gardens.