Dell Bair, 94, of Bismarck, died Tuesday, September 2, 1997, in a Bismarck hospital.

Dell was born August 11, 1903, the daughter of Robert E. Lee and Annie May (Dance) Dralle. Her parents moved their young family from Missouri to North Dakota just after the turn of the century and Dell was first of their eight children to be born in North Dakota. Dell grew up in Britton and Menoken of Burleigh County, moving to Bismarck with one of her sisters to attend high school. Her marriage to Lawrence W. Bair took place in 1925 at St. Mary's Church. To their union were born four children. Lawrence died unexpectedly in 1938 and she went out of the home to work. She was employed at the First National Bank, where she became the person in charge of safety deposit boxes. She also cooked wonderful meals, especially on holidays, and whoever was too far from home and would be alone was brought into her family for the day. She was a talented seamstress, much to the delight and benefit of her three daughters. She enjoyed crocheting afghans for her children and grandchildren, traveling to visit them and her friends. Dell and a sister traveled by jet plane to visit the sister's daughter in Germany, and they likened the time it took to just a little longer and a whole lot more comfortable than the trip from home to Bismarck in the wagon when they were children. She shared a number of trips and retirement adventures with a childhood friend, Hazel Ludemann, of Bismarck.

For the last 25 years, after a stroke, she was increasingly homebound which she shared with and was cared for by her daughter, Kathleen. In the past six years she had a number of wnderful "grandma sitters," Mary Goetz and Ella Nordby Nayes, and her special prime caregiver and friend, Caroline Butler.

Survivors include one son and daughter-in-law, Gerald L. and Mitzi Bair of Santa Cruz, California; three daughters and one son-in-law, Joan and John Klemer and Kathleen M. Bair, all of Bismarck and Eileen R. Bisi of Alameda, California; five grandsons, Nicholas Bair, Larry Bair, Lawrence Klemer, Michael Marini, and Robert Bisi; one granddaughter, Michelle Alexander; three great-grandchildren, Casey and Semile Bair and Evan Webb, and one great-great-grandson, Andrew Christianson.

She was preceded in death by her husband, her parents, five sisters, Maggie Baker, Ethel Welch, Fay Ebeling, Clara Blensly Helgerson, and Edna Hamlin; two brothers, Chester Dralle and Albert Dralle and many nieces and nephews.

Funeral services were held Saturday, September 6, 1997, at Cathedral of the Holy Spirit in Bismarck with the Rev. Thomas E. Kramer officiating. Burial was in St. Mary's Cemetery in Bismarck under the direction of Boelter Funeral Home of Bismarck.