Edith Margaret Campbell

Campbell, Edith Margaret (EM) died peacefully after a brief illness at the Halifax Infirmary on September 19, 2013 in her 92nd year. Her father was Lt. Col. C.R.E. Willets was a career officer in the military who served in the Transvaal region of South Africa following the Boer War and in World War I. During the Great War he earned a DSO and holds the distinction of being the second longest-serving Canadian officer to fight in that conflict. EM’s mother Jean Willets (MacMechan) was the daughter of Archibald MacMechan former Dean of English at Dalhousie Universty and a well-known literary critic, essayist, and public intellectual of the early 20th Century. Mrs. Willets was the Social Secretary to the Lieutenant-Governor of Nova Scotia from the late 1940s until her retirement in 1963.

EM was born in Halifax on October 12, 1921. She went to school in Rothsay New Brunswick, Toronto, and Kingston before returning to Halifax where she married Lt. Cmdr. J.G.S. (Rocky) Campbell, RCN in 1950. During her married years she lived in Ottawa and Washington D.C. before returning to Halifax in 1969. Edith and Rocky had two children, sons Archie and Gregor. Her husband died in 1996 and in 2010 her beloved sister Grace passed away. In addition to her sons, she is survived by her daughter-in-law Judith Thompson, and grandchildren Arianne, Eli, Grace, Felicity, and Sophia. An Anglican funeral service will take place in Halifax on Saturday, October 5 in JA Snow Funeral Home, 339 Lacewood Drive, at 2:00 pm. There will be a visitation between 12:00 and 2:00 pm followed by a reception after the service.