Beverly Patricia Melone Campbell

Born on the 26th of March 1928, in “beautiful downtown Burbank” to Henry Oscar Melone and Harriett Lucile Doner Melone, she joined her brother Donald Lee Melone and sister Vivian Lucille Melone at home in Long Beach, California.

Bev began playing the violin at age four and eventually played with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. She graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School, where she participated in the theater department (she was the lead in Junior Miss) and performed as a majorette in her Coliseum for her Los Angeles Rams. She was associate editor of the school newspaper, The Loudspeaker, the year the paper won the coveted Pacemaker Award.

Bev attended the University of Redlands on scholarship and acted with the Redlands Theater and the Long Beach Community Playhouse, performing as a leading lady in numerous plays such as Kiss and Tell and I Remember Mama. Bev was the Editor of the award-winning Redlands Bulldog and a member of the Alpha Phi Gamma sorority.

Bev graduated with a degree in speech pathology and earned her Masters at San Francisco State University. She began her career as a teacher for physically challenged kids (many of them polio victims) at the Tucker School in Long Beach.

She met the love of her life, Joseph Leslie Campbell, Jr., at a Southern California Young Republicans meeting in the late 1950’s. Bev attended with her friend Louise Taylor for the sole purpose of meeting men and promptly picked Joe out for her own. Not much later, after enjoying an evening listening to Keely Smith and Louis Prima perform in Las Vegas and shutting down the bar at The Sands with Joe and her dear friend Arden Poulsen, Bev announced that she was kissing Joe goodnight, and that was that.

Bev and Joe married on September 10, 1960, and and spent their honeymoon traveling around the West. They ended their honeymoon at the Young Republicans State Board Meeting. They welcomed their first child Bronwyn Janice Campbell in 1961, followed by Gwyneth Anne Campbell and Gareth Evan Campbell. Bev left teaching to stay home with her children, but she volunteered at the Tichener Clinic, giving therapy for polio and speech problems.

Bev was active in the Houston Junior League, the Alexander Love Chapter of the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution, and Holy Spirit Episcopal Church, where she was a member of the Hoe and Hope Garden Club. She was a Girl Scout Leader for many years. As her children grew older, she resumed her teaching career, this time with mentally challenged children at Bendwood and Bunker Hill Elementary Schools. She and Joe traveled the world, enjoyed the Houston Symphony for more than 20 years, and participated in church life.

Bev is survived by her husband Joe, daughters Bronwyn and Gwyneth, son Gary and his wife Janice, and grandkids Trent, Kyla and Jordy and her husband Wes, and many nieces and nephews across the US. She will be remembered with love for her wit, feisty nature, beauty, devotion to family, and constant willingness to help others.

The family wishes to express their deep gratitude to the physicians and staff at Memorial Hermann Memorial City Hospital for their outstanding care and compassion.

A memorial service and celebration of her life is to be conducted at two o’clock in the afternoon on Saturday, the 3rd of December, at Holy Spirit Episcopal Church, 12535 Perthshire Road in Houston, where Fr. Josh Condon is to officiate.

In lieu of customary remembrances, the family requests with gratitude that memorial contributions in her name be directed to Holy Spirit Episcopal Church.

Bev’s best friend was God. She beat lung cancer in 2008, and her relationship with God and her family and her personal creed were her rock:

Rx for Recovery by Beverly Campbell

1. Never give up hope.

2. Hang on to your sense of humor – you’re really going to need it!

3. Take what you have and do the very best you can with it, and thank God you’ve got that much.

4. Handle your problems; don’t let your problems handle you.

5. Perhaps most important of all, remember the old adage: “A martini a day keeps the doctor away”.

6. By the way, it doesn’t hurt to have God as your best friend.