Margaret Campbell
March 3, 1926 – August 8, 2012
Canon Margaret Jane Campbell — longtime lay volunteer at St. Edmund’s Church, San Marino, and within the Diocese of Los Angeles – died August 8 at Huntington Hospital in Pasadena after a brief illness. She was 86 and a Pasadena resident.
A memorial service will be held at 2 p.m. on Saturday, August 18, at St. Edmund’s Church, 1175 San Gabriel Blvd., San Marino, with the Rev. Canon George F. Woodward III, rector, officiating. A reception will follow in the parish hall.
Campbell has been “one of this Diocese’s finest volunteer leaders and a beloved friend to Mary and me,” said Bishop J. Jon Bruno, who in 2003 named her an honorary canon of the Cathedral Center of St. Paul, Los Angeles.
Campbell’s efforts on behalf of the Cathedral Center included serving on committees related to its construction in 1993-94 and chairing the 1996 benefit dinner there in honor of Eileen and George Carey, then Archbishop of Canterbury, as part of the diocesan centennial celebration.
More recently, Campbell has served since 2009 as a board member of Holy Family Services Adoption and Foster Care, located at the Cathedral Center and an institution of the Diocese of Los Angeles. She served on Holy Family’s development committee and strategically assisted its outreach into the diocesan community, especially through the agency’s 200 Associates Guild and annual tea.
“Margaret cared deeply for the infants and foster-care children entrusted to our care, and the families that we help to create,” said Holy Family board chair Janis Rosebrook. “She and her sage advice will be sorely missed.”
To each of these efforts Campbell brought her 30 years’ experience of volunteer leadership serving Hillsides, a diocesan institution that next year will observe its centennial of providing, on its Pasadena campus, residential and related services to children and their families.
Campbell was a founding member and twice president of the Hillsides Guild, which each year arranges a major gala to benefit the agency. Campbell “led the way in setting the standard of excellence for this event, having great fun involving good friends Dr. Drew Pinsky, weatherman Fritz Coleman, and Pasadena florist Jacob Maarse and his family in the festivities,” Bishop Bruno noted.
Campbell served on Hillsides’ board of directors, including terms as its chairperson and as bishop’s liaison. She was also a hands-on volunteer with the children, regularly sponsoring birthday celebrations for many, “sharing her wonderful smile and warmth — and always with a practical eye toward each child’s well-being,” the bishop added.
Friends at Hillsides have provided these fitting words of tribute: “Margaret truly embodied the spirit of a Hillsides’ angel… She will live in our hearts, in the legacy she left at Hillsides, and in the thousands of lives in which she helped to create lasting change.”
Campbell was also a past president of the Los Angeles County Medical Auxiliary and served in other neighborhood roles ranging from PTA president to Brownie troop leader. At her parish, she was a vestry member and served in numerous other volunteer capacities.
“Margaret Campbell lived a full and vibrant life,” her daughters recalled in a family reflection earlier this week. “She was a BIG personality — an original. Her illness was short and her passing was peaceful, with family around her … Her family was the most important thing in her life…. Blessed with an irreverent sense of humor and quick wit, Margaret could always be counted on to make you laugh. She touched so many lives — she will be missed.”
Campbell – who was born March 13, 1926, in El Paso, Texas — was predeceased by her beloved husband, Dr. George W. Campbell, a general surgeon. The couple first met shortly after World War II when their paths crossed at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. They later settled in Los Angeles and moved their family to Pasadena in 1962.
Campbell is survived by her two daughters, Becky Garnett (Bill) and Connie Endter (David); her three grandchildren, Brett Endter (Danielle), Seth Endter and Cammy Garnett; and a recently born great granddaughter, Amelia Campbell Endter.
The family requests that, in lieu of flowers, memorial contributions be made to the Margaret Campbell Altar Guild Fund, St. Edmund’s Episcopal Church, P. O. Box 80038 1175 San Gabriel Blvd., San Marino, CA 91108; or the Margaret Campbell Fund of the Chaplain’s Program at Hillsides Home for Children, 940 Avenue 64, Pasadena, CA 91105.
Also receiving gifts in Campbell’s honor is Holy Family Services Adoption and Foster Care, 840 Echo Park Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90026.