WILLARD CAMPBELL
ADA-Services for Willard H. Campbell, 96, Ada, are 2:00 p.m. Friday at the Criswell Funeral Home Chapel, Rev. Jared Newby will officiate. Burial will follow at Rosedale Cemetery. The Chickasaw Honor Guard will conduct military honors at the cemetery.
Mr. Campbell died Tuesday, June 21, 2011 at a Wichita, Kansas hospital. He was born March 17, 1915 in Love County, Oklahoma to William Glen and Alice Josephine Butler Campbell. Until age ten, Willard lived in a log farm house near Marietta, Oklahoma, and attended Keltner school. After a storm blew the house off its foundation, the family moved to a farm near Wilson in Carter County. Willard attended Zaneis School, from which he received his high school graduation diploma.
Willard's first job was leading a mule around the sorghum molasses press. He was six years old and earned fifty cents a day. As a child, he also shelled corn, roped cattle, and picked cotton. As a teenager and young man during the Great Depression, Willard worked for the WPA and the CCC. He taught himself to play the guitar and played in a country band.
Willard and his brother Lorne started a broom business in the early 1930's. Willard purchased his first car for $28.00, and travelled to grocery and hardware stores in Oklahoma, selling the brooms Lorne had made.
He married Jewell France on June 22, 1935 in Ponca City, Oklahoma. She preceded him in death on August 26, 1988 in Ada. They settled in Seminole, and Willard worked on the delivery truck for Collier Brothers' Furniture. He also worked nights for a funeral home as an ambulance driver. Willard moved up to salesman, and soon became sales manager for Collier Brothers.
Willard enlisted in the United States Navy in 1942. He was a Seabee and spent three years in the Pacific Theater, mostly in the Solomon Islands. In 1945, at the end of WWII, he was honorably discharged at the rank of Chief Petty Officer First Class.
Willard moved to Ada in 1950, and soon after founded Campbell's Furniture. He owned and operated his furniture business in its original location for over sixty years. He was a graduate of both the New York School of Interior Decorating and the Chicago Institute of Interior Design. In 2009, he was featured in an Oklahoma City television station special as the oldest businessman in the state. He was a member of the First Baptist Church of Ada, a member of the Sunrise Rotary Club, the Ada Elks Lodge #1640, and a member of Pi Kappa Alpha Fraternity.
Survivors include a sister, Grace Culver of Berthoud, CO; his wife, Wanda Campbell, of the home; his daughter, Dr. Linda Campbell Mitchusson of Wichita, KS; a grandson, Eric Mitchusson of Kansas City; great grandsons, Wesley and Cody Mitchusson of Hutchinson, KS; a sister-in-law, Ann Campbell, Tulsa; and numerous nieces and nephews.
He was preceded in death by his parents, Glen and "Josie" Campbell; five brothers, Clovis, Cleburn, Crockett, Lorne and Logan Campbell; two sisters, Dessie Blankenship and Dorothy Phillip; and his wife of 53 years, Jewell Campbell.
Bearers will be his nephew, Mike France, Doug Haney, Brian Hart, Danny Matthews, Charles Mayhue and George Veli. Honorary bearer will be Leland Newton.
Obituaries may be viewed and online condolences sent to criswellfh.com.