Memory's Storehouse Unlocked, True Stories: Pioneer Days In Wetmore and Northeast Kansas
John Locke · en
His mother, Florence Campbell, did not marry again. She went to work.
And by the irony of Fate she became a teacher of art in the college
founded by her divorced husband, along about 1895. Later, years later,
when I saw her last she seemed merely to be waiting, in emptiness and
dead memories, for the end. She died in Pomona, California, about 1920.
Elwood Thomas was administrator for the Campbell estate—in Nevada. After
spending thirty-eight years on the desert and in the mines, without
receiving so much as a damaging scratch, Elwood was fatally injured in
a horse and buggy accident while back Here on a visit to his daughter,
Mrs. Maude Ralston, at Holton, in 1915. He died three days after the
accident. He was buried in the Wetmore cemetery. Elwood Thomas lived
apart from his family from the time he he went West in 1873. Family
ties, it seems, were not strong enough to bridge the distance between
them. Maybe it was the desert again.
Turning momentarily aside from the path that leads toward the rainbow’s
elusive end, let me here interpose a brief paragraph about John
Campbell, the brother whom Green had said could remain on the farm and
keep up the fight against odds if he wanted to. John did remain on the
farm; and kept up the fight—and won. He even elected to remain on the
farm after pressing invitations to join his brother in the land of gold.
He lived on the original homestead in Wetmore township until he died, in
1894. As the years became more seasonable for the production of grain,
John Campbell made a good living—and more—from his acres and his herds.
And, best of all, he found contentment and happiness with his wife and
three children on the farm. I think that in all my life I have never
known a more kindly, considerate, and contented person than was this
tall, slim, fine man.
Luck was a bit fickle with Green Campbell. It both smiled and frowned
on him in a few fleeting years. Alert, with a keen mind, he made good at
first on everything he touched — save, of course, that first water-hole.
Then, abruptly, as if a great cloud had obscured his vision, he lost his
charm. Two outstanding reverses followed in quick succession.
Irreparable damage is often done in the name of friendship. With
millions of dollars to the good, Green Campbell was picked by his
friends to turn the tide of politics in Utah, to break Mormon rule. He
was on the minority side, to be sure, but what did that matter? Clean
and ambitious, with bulging pockets, he would be a formidable figure in
bringing about the change so much desired—by the outs of course.