Harriet Elizabeth Campbell
Traveller, career woman, researcher, mother. Born on Jan. 27, 1926, in Montreal; died on Nov. 13, 2015, in Ottawa, of natural causes, aged 89.
Harriet wore shoes indoors. She was sharp and on top of things, expecting that from others in political and other discussions of the day. Woe betide a twentysomething visitor who stumbled to the breakfast table ill-prepared to present and defend an informed opinion on current events. Harriet read the newspaper cover-to-cover every day, including her last.
Her inquisitive mind served her well at McGill University, where she studied physics, math and chemistry in the 1940s. Throughout her life, she delved into topics that piqued her interest. When her research increasingly related to economics, she returned to university at 55 to get her MBA from Concordia. She took an activist stance on matters of particular importance to her: the North American free trade agreement, Quebec separation, assisted dying legislation (no, no, and yes, respectively). She was keen to vote in the 2015 federal election and was pleased with the gender parity in Justin Trudeau's cabinet.
In 1949 she married her university sweetheart, Barrie Campbell; together they raised four children (Wendy, Roy, Mary and Barbara). She maintained her career throughout, from the 1960s through 1990; first in museums, later at Canadian Pacific Railway, where she combined her love of trains and economics.
While her brood was young, she organized a day-care circle whereby each of five neighbourhood mothers took in all the kids one day a week, leaving the women four days untethered to their suburban homes. Once of school age, Harriet's children walked themselves to school, while she and Barrie walked to work downtown.
"Above All, There's Westmount" – so stated a newspaper clipping that topped her bulletin board of editorial cartoons, headlines, and fortune-cookie pronouncements. She loved Montreal, where she spent most of her life. After a family move to Vancouver for a few years, she was happy to leave the sprawling gardens and return to the brick, ivy – and fast pace – of Montreal's urban core. In the 1970s, she replaced the small front lawn with natural ground cover. She wasn't aiming to be an environmental trailblazer, but was simply pragmatic about her priorities.
The family took camping trips across the country, from Louisbourg, N.S., to Tofino, B.C., from Parry Sound to Moosonee, Ont. Historic sites and art exhibits were a big part of the itinerary. Harriet enjoyed nomadic vacations; she was always game to rough it, and cooked good meals over an open fire. When her youngest complained of ash drifting onto her food, Harriet replied, "That's nature's pepper."
She and Barrie were the same age and were each other's best friend and travelling companion. After he died, too soon, at 59, she joined scholarly group tours to areas such as Eastern Europe and Turkey (where she returned several times). Her 1989 Christmas letter proclaimed that, in that year, she "swam in the Red Sea, the Dead Sea and my favourite Atlantic." For years, she and Barrie had enjoyed the beach in Biddeford, Maine, where she loved to fly kites and play croquet.
Later she moved to Ottawa, to be closer to three of her children. Her obituary read: "She lived well and strongly, and died peacefully in her sleep. Bravo, Harriet." Despite encroaching Alzheimer's, earlier that week she had trounced daughter Mary in a game of Trivial Pursuit. Bravo, indeed.
Barbara Campbell is Harriet's daughter.