Section 25:  Brothers & Sisters

At this time my brother, Robert Campbell, was living on the old farm, had a hired a housekeeper and was raising his children without anyone but himself to look after them. After the death of father, Mother had moved up to Oliver's and with Sister Rachel Jane was taking care of Oliver's children. His second wife, Ellen, had died before he left Center County and they took charge of his children over there on the death of their mother. When he quit farming and bought where he is now, they lived with him till he got his third wife, then Mother and Rachel Jane moved into a little house down in his orchard and lived there and both died in that house. Rachel Jane died in 1868 and Gran McIlvaine took care of Mother till she died in 1871.

When Oliver took the Center County farm he was a heavy-boned, muscular man and a great worker. His land was good and he had plenty of it and he put a great deal of work on. He cleared land, built a large barn and paid a thousand dollars a year till he had all the purchase money paid. He told me he raised one year twenty-two hundred bushels of wheat and sold it for 90 cts. a bushel. He first married his Cousin, Margaret Campbell, but she died in about a year giving birth to her first child, and mother and babe lie in one grave in Pinegrove. Some three or four years afterwards he married Ellen Jackson of Shavers Creek. She became the mother of his two children, Anna and James D. She too took sick and died suddenly over in the valley when her two children were quite young. By this time his farm was paid for and he had bought sixty acres more land off the Everhart farm and was making money, but even his iron constitution could not stand such continued hard work, and the loss of the mother of his young children he felt as a very severe stroke. At all events, he got chronic diarrhea and dyspepsia and broke down. If he had quit work he might have got well, but this he seemed unable to do. Finally his family physician, Dr. Montgomery, told him he must quit the farm or die. He then sold off all his stock and farming utensils and came over to the valley and bought the house and lot where he now lives. At first he did little or no work and gradually improved in health, but he never seemed like the same go-ahead man or was so cheerful and manly as he had been in his younger days. One fall or beginning of winter he had a severe attack of fever while living in Center County. I think Mother and Sister were there at that time. For a week or two his friends were alarmed about him, but he took a turn for the better and got well.

He had a large savage dog that he thought a great deal of. The friends noticed while Oliver was confined to bed that the dog got stupid and moped about and noticed nothing. He never went into the house and it occurred to them in the house that the dog was mourning for his master, and they coaxed him into the house and when Oliver called to him he raised his ears and rushed to the door of his bedroom and the moment he saw his master he gave a howl of delight and rushed forward and laid his head on the bed and seemed overjoyed to be with him once more. After that he came into the bed every day and was all right again. I never liked the brute and he was always surly with me, but wherever Oliver was over the farm, the dog was not far away. I recollect one time Oliver was like to get into trouble with his neighbor. The dog had caught one of Musser's hogs and before they could get him off had killed it. But after showing so much affection for him, Oliver would not part with him for a horse. I think the dog died of old age before Oliver came to the valley.

I think it was fully ten years before Oliver fully regained his health. He had to quit using tobacco and has never chewed or smoked since, and now at the age of seventy-five he is a pretty stout, healthy old man, but like myself don't hurt himself with hard work but travels around among his friends. His two children are both married and living in Rock County, Minnesota. For many years he has been a member and an elder in the Presbyterian Church, and I know of few whose profession is more conscientiously carried out in his life and daily practice and he has the happy talent of believing everything taught in that church. Others may have more intelligence, and he makes no pretensions to learning, but let anyone undertake to convince him that his church is wrong and they will find him as solid and as hard to move as a rock, and he will be a hardy man who will try it a second time.

He was of a kindly nature and when we were boys together on the farm I recollect of experiencing a degree of inferiority because he was more of a favorite among young people visiting our house than I was. He had a streak of drollery in his composition and sometimes absolutely witty, but rarely sarcastic. That made him a genial companion. Though he was not brilliant and had rustic manners, he was a good deal of a man morally and physically and pretty stubborn in his own opinion, and he generally managed to be pretty nearly right; and generally lived an upright life and had few enemies, and among the poor in the neighborhood he was just and charitable and they were his friends. Fine or handsome clothes were no use to him. Dress him up in his best and set him down in church and nobody would shoot at him for a good looking man, but when he was thirty years of age, in his shirt sleeves pitching hay and the ease with which he heaved up big forkfuls and the manly vigor of his motions made him seem graceful and a fine looking man. There were a few stronger men at that time along the back mountain but I knew of none who could do more work in a day or do it with more ease and his judgment about farming was excelled by no man in the neighborhood. He is five feet ten or eleven inches tall and weighed then a hundred and eighty pounds. Robert and I are both taller but not so heavy boned or so strong in the arms. Well, he has always been a good brother to me and I value him as the playmate of my boyhood and the trusted companion of my riper years.

My sister Margaret (we always called her Peggy) was quite as strongly marked a character as any of the family. She was a large, strong woman of good mind and even temper, and she was good and kind to all the family and a favorite with her father. My earliest recollection of her was in taking care of me and trying to keep me out of mischief, and when quite young I think she was wise and good beyond her years. At any rate my recollection is that in all disputes and quarrels between us brothers she was a peacemaker and on the right side and she patiently exhorted, coaxed and scolded me out of many a mischievious [sic] trick but rarely if ever undertook to control me by harsh measures. She was of a cheerful, happy disposition, and like Oliver was an early riser and great worker. Mother was subject to spells of sick headache and when quite young, after Rachel Haggerty went away, milked the cows, washed, scrubbed and cooked for the family. She grew up to be a strong, healthy woman. In haying time I recollect of her after dinner coming out to the field and raking hay till time to go in and get the evening peace, and after we boys came in and were resting, she was often busy till bed time.

In thinking over her character, her strong sense, her conscientious discharge of duty, her kindness to every member of the family, her veneration and goodness to her parents and her truthful Christian character -- if she was not mentally and morally the strongest member of the family, she was certainly the best and freest from faults. From early in life she was a consistent member of the Presbyterian Church. She has gone to her reward, but I know of no children have greater reason than hers to revere and honor their Mother's memory. She married James Oliver, raised four children and died October 6th, 1880, aged seventy years, nine months and eleven days -- mourned by husband, children and friends. Her husband is still living at the age of about eighty, but for a number of years has been totally blind.