Luther Horace Campbell was a son of Andrew Lee (1862-1930) and Sarah J. Campbell (1866-1939). He had two brothers, Clarence and William, and three sisters, Louella, Nora and Jess. Luther was born on July 9, 1888. He married Blanche Edwards, born February 9, 1892, a daughter of Martin Luther and Malinda Louise Bridges Edwards.
Carolyn Greene Waters, niece of Luther and Blanche, contributed this story and these pictures of the Campbells.
All of the pictures were in a cigar box left with Aunt Blanche’s possessions when she died. She and Uncle Luther had no children. Uncle Luther worked in Mills Drug Store before he went to work at Ballenger Jackson’s Department Store where he worked for a long time.
Blanche and Luther in Early Cliffside
People always tell me they remember as he handed them their packages he always said ‘Now, will there be anything else?’ He was probably the kindest man in the world. What a lot of people did not know is that he was the one who left packages of jeans, shirts and shoes on their porches that were just the right sizes to fit their children. From working at the only store in town that sold children’s clothes he was the one who knew who needed clothes and what size they wore. The only reason I knew this was when he needed help, he had me to go with him and put the package on the porch and run back to the car so he could drive away fast so we wouldn’t be seen. To me it was fun; I didn’t know who lived there or what was in the package until many years later. He didn’t make much money working at the store but they were frugal.
Blanche Edwards Campbell at age 80
Aunt Blanche was the oldest of the Edwards children. My mother, Mary Sue, was the youngest (15 years Blanche’s junior). Mother married Merrill Greene from Mooresboro who worked in the bank in Shelby. When the banks closed and there was no work here, they went to Washington D. C. They found work and stayed. Every summer when school was out I came down to Cliffside and stayed with Aunt Blanche and Uncle Luther. They spoiled me rotten and I adored them. The summer my Daddy died, my mother, my little sister, Linda, and I moved to Cliffside and lived with Aunt Blanche and Uncle Luther. Then a few years later Uncle Luther died so we stayed with her and we helped each other. Robert [Waters] and I got married not long before mother died. When he got out of the Army we moved out and Linda, of course, went with us. When Aunt Blanche’s job ran out (she was Librarian at the Cliffside Public Library in the Memorial Building for many years), Robert and I bought a mobile home and put it beside our house for her. She was 82 when she died in 1973.
My mother and Aunt Blanche had another sister,Virginia, who married John G. Roach. (He was a brother of Broadus Roach who played the organ at the church and a lot of other social functions.) Uncle John used to run the Company Store at Cliffside and at Avondale. He is mentioned on Remember Cliffside as being the Sunday School Superintendent at Cliffside Methodist Church. He was in the army as a medic in World War I and it was written in a history book he was a hero because of the way he went out on the battlefield to tend the wounded.”
Luther died on June 11, 1951; Blanche passed on May 12, 1973. Both are buried in the Campbell plot in Cliffside Cemetery, along with Luther’s parents, brother Clarence and his wife Mattie, and sister Louella.
See the Campbell Family Album [Pictures tab, above] with just some of the pictures found in Blanche Campbell’s cigar box. Larger versions of these photos, and other Campbell pictures, can be found in several of the Remember Cliffside Photo Galleries.
