| Wilfred
Campbell was born in Berlin Ontario on June the
1st., 1861. His father, the Reverend Thomas Swainston
Campbell, was an English Church clergyman in that
parish. As a boy he was brought up in Wiarton
a little town on an arm of Georgian Bay. Mr. Sykes
in his memoir in my father’s "Collected Poems"
says:—
"Here
in the heart of the lake district, with the
gentle expanse of Colpoys Bay in front, and
seven miles across the peninsula, the mighty
waters of Lake Huron with rugged headlands along
the shore, and small placid lakes inland, the
poet’s youth passed."
Wilfred
was very sensitive to his surroundings, and absorbed
all this atmosphere of sky line and water both
in its rugged and more peaceful moods. All this
is expressed in his early book of poems. "Lake
Lyrics":—such poems as "Snow,"
"To The Lakes in June," "Vapour
and Blue" etc. While the poet was still a
boy, through some unfortunate circumstances the
family fortunes were greatly reduced, and as there
were five sons to educate, it was quite a difficult
matter to send them all to good schools. As he
was only the second son, and all the family efforts
were concentrated in educating the elder brother,
he decided to put himself through college. When
another man might have stayed at home and settled
down in the small country town, my father mostly
due to his own efforts, if not entirely, attended
the university. After he left the high school,
he taught in some country school for a time to
help put himself through college. It was then
that he met my mother who was a fellow teacher.
She was a lovely young girl who was fully qualified
to teach school at the age of seventeen. It was
said that her father was one of the handsomest
men in his part of the country. He was a doctor
in Woodstock, and died shortly after he was married.
Though he was not through college, or ready to
get married, my father must have been afraid of
losing my mother, for he persuaded her to marry
him before he went for his final year to Cambridge,
Mass. It was then that he made such interesting
friends as Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Whitcombe
Riley and Richard Harding Davis.—He entered Wycliffe
College Toronto to study for the church, and while
he was there attended lectures at Toronto University
also. His father and his grandfather were both
English Church clergyman, and his grandfather
Thomas Campbell, a Scotchman living in Ireland,
had left his own church to join the Anglican Church
before he came to this country. He was first a
curate at the Cathedral in Quebec, and then the
first rector in Belleville at St. Thomas’ Church.
In 1884 Wilfred Campbell married my mother Mary
Dibble, but they did not live together until the
following year. In 1885 he was ordained to the
priesthood by the Bishop of New Hampshire, and
his first living was the parish of West Claremount[,]
Mass. with its interesting old church built before
the revolution. It was here that the poet settled
down so happily to build those dreams that grew
as the years went on, and in building he had such
a marvellous helpmate in my mother. No truer,
braver, or more unselfish woman ever lived. She
was the backbone and ballast of the family, and
spent her entire life in the interests of her
husband and children, with never a thought of
herself. It was here their first child Margery
was born. During there three years in West Claremount
he contributed poetry to "Harper’s,"
"The Atlantic Monthly" and other magazines,
and it must have been during his year at Cambridge,
and the time spent here, that he absorbed so much
of American literature. He was a great admirer
or Mark Twain and of Joel Chandler Harris who
as Uncle Remus, wrote those entertaining tales
of Brer Rabbit, that were read to us as children.
As
my father wished to remain a Canadian citizen
he was finally persuaded to leave the States in
1888 and returned to Canada. He settled in St.
Stephen’s, New Brunswick, where he held a living
for two years, and were the next two children
Faith and Basil were born. After that he was in
Southampton on the shores of Lake Huron for a
time, before finally coming to Ottawa. In this
same year he published his first book of verse
"Sunshine and Snowflakes," which was
followed by "Lake Lyrics" in 1889, and
"The Dread Voyage" in 1893.
In
the year 1891 Sir John A. Macdonald read aloud
in the House of Commons a poem entitled "The
Mother," written by a young Canadian poet,
Wilfred Campbell. By this time my father had decided
to leave the church, for he felt that he would
have more time and freedom away from it to devote
to literature. He was trying to get a position
in the civil service at Ottawa, and on the merits
of this poem Sir John gave him the appointment.
Thus the poet and his family came to Ottawa, where
Dorothy their last child was born. |
