Ellis Campbell 1895-1914

CAMPBELL

Posted By: Sharon Elijah (email)
Date: 8/17/2018 at 09:23:54

12 November 1914 - West Branch Times

Ellyson Campbell, the second son of Mr. and Mrs. O. C. Campbell, committed suicide Sunday evening by hanging. The young man was highly thought of in this community and his sad end comes as a severe blow to a host of friends; as well as his bereaved parents. Ill health was probably the cause.

Mr. and Mrs. Campbell have the sincere sympathy of the entire community.

19 November 1914 - West Branch Times

Ellis Orlando Campbell was born June 25, 1895, in Denver, Colorado, and died on Sunday Nov. 8, 1914, at his home near West Branch, Iowa. He was the second son of Mr. and Mrs. Orlando Campbell, and is survived by both his parents and two brothers, Haden and Leslie. When he was four years of age his parents come from Colorado to their present home near West Branch, where he has lived until his untimely death.

He is well known to most of the young people of this community, having attended school at Honey Grove and at West Branch High school. He showed exceptional aptitude for reading and study, easily mastering that to which he applied himself. He had a keen and intelligent interest in current events. Because of a strongly imaginative nature, his reading from early boyhood had powerful hold upon him. He dreamed and lived again the characters that appealed to his boyish fancy. He admired most of all, the out-of-door type of hero and spent all the time he could in the open. He was most at home in garden, orchard or woods. We may never know the language which nature employed in communing with him, but we know that it lured him strongly.

He was always well and hearty until one year ago, when he sickened and seemed oppressed with a heavy melancholy. He wasted in strength until he kept his bed and in a written note bade his parents and brothers good-bye, saying that he could not get well. By careful and thorough treatment he was brought back to his accustomed physical vigor, as everyone supposed. It seems however, that the heavy cloud of melancholy had been driven back but temporarily, for it came again to overwhelm and to crush. How bravely, even desperately, the spirit of youth fought for life, we cannot know. He was not naturally communicative, made no confidant, and so maintained the unequal struggle solitary until the last.

The funeral service was conducted by Rev. Joseph Fort Newton of Cedar Rapids, who in a very clear and sympathetic manner presented a message richly comforting to the family and friends.