First Daughter

Violet Catherine Campbell was born on December 23 in 1893 in Syracuse, N.Y.  "Aunt Catherine" later told of growing up in the magical surroundings of Thornden with greater color and clarity than her younger brothers could manage. She also remembered, sadly, that as they were growing up, her brothers were given more meat at dinner than was she. As the oldest of the children, she was then first to go off to college. It was David Campbell's goal that his children have the advantage of higher education.  She was enrolled in Boston at The Sargent School and majored in Physical Education which she later taught. After college, she returned to Syracuse to act as the "lady" of the house as her mother had died in 1911. Subsequently her father remarried and Catherine moved in else where with some friends.  Then, as know, two women can not share the same house.

Sometime subsequent to leaving her home in Syracuse, she moved to Auburn, N.Y., a small industrial city some 30 miles west of Syracuse and abutting the north end of Owasco Lake, one of the several Finger Lakes in Central New York.  She married widower Harry Tidd who was an organist and piano teacher. The Tidds were a long time family in Auburn. Harry had two grown sons at the time of their marriage and there are still Tidds living today in Auburn. They had a home on a hill over-looking Owasco Lake from the west side of the lake.  They were always interested in young people and had erected, behind their house, a one story building that they rented out to hikers and bicyclists for a stopping place as they made their ways across the state in the summer months.  And Catherine was a devoted lover of cats, always with three or four in or around the house.

It was during the Second World War that Catherine became a social worker and operated The Family Service Agency which provided counsel to disadvantaged persons in the Auburn area, In 1946 Harry Tidd passed away. Catherine stayed in their home until her retirement in 1955. For as much and as long as Catherine has lived in the Auburn area, she was happy to leave the area, moving first to Saluda, S. Carolina, located in the western portion of the that state and ending up, for the remainder of her time in the eastern part of the country, in Tryon, N. Carolina which is very close to the city of Hendersonville. That area is in the eastern side of the Blue Ridge Mountains and appealed to Catherine because of the beautiful hills and trees. It was also an excellent and quiet place for here to pursue the thought-provoking books and articles on public affairs and religion.

Catherine always seemed in good spirits and loved to have her family visit. Often the whole family would gather at their home on summer Sundays for swimming and barbecuing. In 1982 failing health made it necessary that she live with her nephew, David G. Campbell, II.  Thus she relinquished her southern life for family in Portland, Oregon and then Seattle, Washington where David and his family lived.  She died in 1984 at the age of 91.

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