Isabella “Bell” MacLean

Island story

Isabella MacLean, also known in family sources as Bell, is commemorated at R4-007 with Torquil MacLean and Daniel T. MacLean. Ruth Munro’s retrospective family list names Bell as Torquil’s wife and records a family including Katie, Bell, John, Willard, Charlotte, Dan and Howard. Other family records connect Torquil and Bell to Charlotte Margaret MacLean, later wife of East Lighthouse keeper Archie MacDonald. Annabell’s 1916 marriage, delayed birth application and 1972 death registration independently name Isabel/Isabell as her mother and Torquil as her father. Charlotte Margaret’s full delayed birth application gives Isabell MacLean in the mother’s maiden-name field. These records support the existing Torquil–Bell family links; they do not supply Isabella’s parents or securely connect her to a wider natal branch. These family accounts do not establish a single household in the 1901 or 1911 census. Isabella’s maiden family remains uncertain. Daniel Theodore McLean’s 1929 death registration independently names Isabella as his mother. John Hector’s original marriage to Margaret Ann McCallum on 20 April 1922 names Torquil McLean and Isabelle McLean as his parents, supplying an independent connection to the John H. and Margaret Ann household later recorded in the 1931 Island census. The marriage describes John Hector as an Island-born farmer; his son Gerald’s contemporary birth later that year describes him as a fisherman. These occupations refer to John Hector, not to his parents.