Monday, March 05, 2007

Friday, March 5, 1926

I'm continuing with excerpts from the family history that Grandma wrote, since she has a gap of several days in her diary. This excerpt is about her paternal grandparents, Issac M. Campbell and his wife, Lydia Ann Hoar, who were married on June 28, 1849. They had four children, Harriet Theressa, Rolla Wilbur (Grandma's father), Jesse Elijah and Mary Hannah (who died before she was two years old). And I've added several pictures of them on the picture blog, you can link there from their names.

"The doctor (Issac M. Campbell) was a large, heavy set man for his day, while his wife, known as 'Little Grandma' weighed 80 pounds most of her life. She was so small and young looking that folks would come to their house to get the doctor, and would often mistake her for his daughter, and ask her if her father was in. But I was told by those who knew them as neighbors, as well as relatives that what she lacked in stature, she made up in disposition and ability to help anyone in a time of crisis. She was the one of the neighborhood that folks would want to help nurse them when they were ill, and she never turned down a call for help. Her kindness and gentle nature were traditional to the family in the whole town, and they used to say that the hobos had her house marked as a place where they could always expect a handout. She was a 'sainted grandmother', as one chronicler put it."

Lydia sounds like a lovely person, though I'm not sure how young she looks in the picture we have of her. But I don't think anyone looked all that great in the pictures taken in the 1800's.

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