Section 58:  Brother John Oliver Campbell

On the 29th day of October, 1889, all that was mortal of brother J. Oliver Campbell passed from earth and his body was laid in the old graveyard of the West Kishacoquillas congregation to sleep with his fathers and kindred until the "last trumpet" shall sound and the grave give up her dead. It is not fitting that I should write his eulogy. It would be ghoulish to recall his defects over his freshly made grave, and I can only remember the loved brother, the companion and playmate of my young days, the laborious and energetic man, the support and protector of his aged Mother, the consistent Christian who met the ills and bereavements of life (and he had his full share) with manly fortitude. I therefore leave his character to be judged of by his surviving neighbors and friends who knew him best, and his soul to his God.

At the time of his death John Oliver Campbell was seventy-eight years, one month and twenty-one days old, being born on the 8th of September, 1811, and died the 29th day of October, 1889. With the exception of ten or twelve years on his farm in Centre County, he lived his whole life in the valley and died within a mile of where he was born. His third wife, two children and four grandchildren survive him, but his old home at the stonevalley road is broken up and sold to strangers. It is associated in my memory with Mother, Brother and Sister, all of whom died upon it, that I never want to look upon it in the possession of strangers. I can hardly realize that the passing out of one quiet life should change one of the brightest spots in my memory into so dark a shadow and all in a few short months. I do not regret his death, for with his powerful constitution he struggled long and suffered much with an incurable disease, and when at last he succumbed, the pale messenger came as an angel of mercy and the worn body and wearied soul welcomed the release, and now he is at rest "after life's fitful fever he sleeps well." He was a daily reader of the Scriptures and a firm believer in the doctrine of the New Testament, an officer and active member of the Presbyterian Church. Without understanding a word of any language but his own, his life was an illustration of that grand old Latin text, "Ecce agnus die qui lottet peccatto mundi."