Nancy Ann Campbell

Nancy Ann Cornforth Campbell died on January 7, 2019. While she did not wish to leave this world or her family, in her final months she often exclaimed how lucky she had been. One of the last things she said was that she had lived a wonderful life. By an accident of her father’s traveling job, Nancy was born in Centerville, Iowa, on a date she relished reciting, 7/28/29. But she was a Coloradan to the core, as were her mother, grandmother, and great-grandparents (who had arrived by 1873). By the time she was five, she was settled where she mostly stayed, in Denver. Nancy graduated from East High, then attended Grinnell College for three semesters. Soon after the end of the war, she met and (in December 1948) married Laird S. Campbell, then moved with him to Lawrence, Kansas, so he could complete his law degree and she could continue classes. When he finished, they returned to Denver to live first in Park Hill, then Virginia Vale, then near Yale and Holly. During those years, in addition to raising four children, Nancy finished college at DU and began teaching as a substitute, then as a fifth grade teacher at Greenwood Elementary, a job she loved. In 2012, she and Laird moved to Fort Collins to be closer to their daughter; he died three months later, and so she spent her final six years a widow. Many of the themes set in her childhood continued throughout Nancy’s life. What tied them together was her interest in and love for other people. When her father died suddenly in 1935, leaving a young widow with three children in the middle of the Depression, six-year-old Nancy promised to look after the family—then spent the next eight decades tending a large circle of care. With patience, creativity, good humor, and heart, she raised four children and one grandchild, and for some months at a time took in two adult sons and their families. She cooked, sewed, decorated, made repairs, and grew flowers. She nursed her own mother through her final illness and looked after her two grandmothers in Denver and (long-distance) Laird’s mother and aunts. She read to a blind bed-ridden client of Laird’s. She befriended, housed, and cared for two young French teachers who taught at the resident grandchild’s school. In her final years, she cared as best she could for her many wonderful caretakers, listening to their stories and sometimes their problems and sharing bits of her own. When she was about seven, Nancy began taking piano lessons. By high school, she was collecting popular song sheet music and playing for her friends. Later she accompanied the chorus at Greenwood and the state historical society’s fashion shows, where she matched the music to the vintage of clothing. She played for Laird and for her children, grandchildren, and caretakers—right up to her last week. Both she and Laird loved classical music, and it filled the air of all her homes. By junior high, she had begun her long career of volunteer civic engagement. With the characteristic slogan “Don’t be fancy, vote for Nancy,” she was elected 8th grade class president at Morey. She joined the Rainbow Girls and after a few years, as president or “Worthy Advisor,” she was leading this organization of some 500 girls. She was a Cub Scout den mother and active in the PTA. At her life-long church, First Plymouth Congregational (United Church of Christ), she taught Sunday School, joined the education board, led the effort to start its first nursery school, and became the first woman to chair that board. She raised lots of money for the United Way, including from businesses near Stapleton Airport and along the Platte River valley near downtown. She joined the Denver branch of the national Reading for the Blind, then became chair of its Board of Directors. She volunteered with the Colorado Historical Society’s education department, where she developed an “Early Denver” class around the museum’s large 1860 model of the city. She became president of the volunteers of that society, a job that included organizing the Christmas tours of the Governor’s Mansion. One result of this association was her “study group,” a dozen or so friends who met monthly for an expedition followed by lunch: after decades of these events, Nancy had toured nearly every major civic building and every museum, and had eaten lunch seemingly everywhere. According to her mother, her father’s work meant that Nancy went to every one of the then 48 states during her first year. Perhaps these early wanderings helped set her fondness for exploring, travel, and the outdoors. In part through the active youth program at First Plymouth, she took frequent weekend expeditions out of the city (this didn’t have to be far: Colorado Boulevard was not yet paved) and attended summer camp as camper and counselor. At La Foret (in Colorado’s Black Forest), and briefly later at Skyland (near Crested Butte), she rode horses, hiked, and made lifelong friends; she met Laird at La Foret, and they spent their first year of marriage helping to open Skyland. (With lasting impact, they later sent all their children and grandchildren to Skyland and similar later camps.) As their finances and schedules opened up, she traveled (mostly with Laird) all over Colorado, to many parts of the U.S., and to Canada, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Peru, Chile, England, Scotland, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, and France. And she relished the travels and adventures of her children and grandchildren. Preceded in death by her husband Laird and son David, Nancy is survived by her brother Keith Cornforth and his wife Martha, by her sister Susan Thran (all of Minden, NV), and by their children; by her daughter SueEllen and husband John Calderazzo (Bellvue, CO); by son David’s widow Nzali Mbewe Campbell (Denver) and grandchildren Lea Campbell Pickering (the granddaughter Nancy and Laird largely raised, Cheyenne), Joy (Boston), Ian (Cortez), and Amy (Boulder); by son Douglas and his wife Viviana (San Bartolo, Peru) and grandchildren Carey (Peru), Elizabeth (Puerto Rico), Clayton (Washington, DC), and Teresa (Peru); by son Bruce (Rolling Meadows, IL), grandchildren Alexandra, Elaine, and Lucia (all in the Chicago area), and former daughter-in-law Helen Jacobsen (Evanston, IL); and by four great-grandchildren. Nancy used to joke that her epitaph should be “She tried hard,” and to her last days she felt that she had not yet done enough for others. She certainly did always try hard. But what her friends and family will remember is her kindness, her lively interest in everyone she met and in the larger world, her sweet cheerfulness, the way she made friends everywhere, her unending care for those around her. She left this world afloat on a sea of love. There will be a memorial service at First Plymouth Congregational Church in Denver, 3501 South Colorado Blvd., on Saturday February 2 at 2:00 pm.

Tributes

Nancy Ann Campbell

July 28, 1929 - January 7, 2019