Cahill, Matilda Christine Bell

OAKLEY, Idaho (KMVT/KSVT) —Matilda Christine Bell Cahill, 80, died Dec. 12, 2024, in Chicago, Illinois.
Matilda, who went by her middle name Christine, was born in Oakley, Idaho, on January 24, 1944. Her father, John Elmer (Tug) Bell, was killed in 1943 during an accident at the Triumph Mine, five months before her birth. A few months later her mother, Phyllis, got a job as a welder at a Vancouver, Washington, shipyard. For a brief time Christine and her older sister, Larraine, stayed in Oakley with their paternal grandparents, Matilda and Joseph Bell, and their son, Walter (Bud). Christine viewed the Bells as some of her favorite people.
In 1962 she graduated from Oakley High School, where she had a lot of fun and many friends. Then Christine moved to Hagerman with her aunt, Juanita Pinkston, and worked with her at the 1,000 Springs Resort Cafe.

After a few months Christine moved to Salt Lake City, where she did office work and telephone sales. About a year later she came back to Idaho, and went to the Hollywood Beauty College in Twin Falls. Christine’s Aunt Juanita, who encouraged her to go to beauty school, also loaned her money for tuition. For that Christine was very grateful.
Christine was a talented beauty school student. The same night she won a hairdressing contest, she met Frank Cahill at the Log Tavern, where he tended bar. They married five years later, in 1968.
In 1970 she gave birth to a daughter, Stephanie, and shortly afterward she and Frank bought a house, where they built a beauty shop in the basement. After Frank died of cancer in 1981 she continued to run Chris’s Beauty Shop, and did so until 2015, when she moved to Chicago to be closer to her daughter. Christine loved all dogs she met, and enjoyed cooking, reading, music, doing arts and crafts, organizing family get-togethers and spending time with friends.
Besides her husband, mother, father and paternal grandparents, Christine is preceded in death by her maternal grandparents, Agapito and Eulajia Salterian Corpion, her stepfather, George (Dunk) Clark, and her brothers, George (Dick) Clark and John (Kelly) Clark. She was also preceded in death by a sister-in-law, Mary Joe Cahill, and an aunt in law, Laura O’Toole, as well as many beloved dogs.
Christine is survived by her daughter, Stephanie (Torrick) Ward of Chicago, two grandsons, Franklin and Alan, two sisters, Larraine (Lloyd) Davis of Carey, and Julie (Jeff) Surry of Piney Flats, Tennessee, a sister-in-law, Claudia Clark of Mesa, Arizona, and many nieces and nephews.
A funeral Mass will be held Dec 20 at 2 pm, at St. John XXIII Parish in Evanston, Illinois. A burial service will be held at the Oakley Cemetery sometime in the spring.

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