{"id":9362,"date":"2025-07-26T00:01:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-26T00:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/?p=9362"},"modified":"2025-07-25T16:21:50","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T16:21:50","slug":"arba-zeri-campbell-and-the-telephone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/arba-zeri-campbell-and-the-telephone\/","title":{"rendered":"Arba Zeri Campbell and the Telephone"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Brian<\/a>
A corner of my father-in-law’s workshop. (ca. 2005)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

One thing I like about families \u2014 the one(s) I’m in, at any rate \u2014 are the legacies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In my dialect of English a “legacy” is generally money or property handed down from one generation to another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Legacies of that sort matter. My wife and I are in the process of updating our will, I suppose it’ll be wills, and that’s another topic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the legacies I’m thinking of aren’t worth much, in terms of taxable assets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although each of us is a unique individual, we also inherit whatever’s in the genes of our biological parents: along with the experiences, attitudes, habits, values, and stories of the folks who raised us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I figure our oldest daughter suggested that I start sharing ‘family stories’ here because she sees some sort of value in them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyway, that gets me to an ancestor \u2014 my father’s mother’s father \u2014 Arba Zeri Campbell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was, apparently, a lot like me. He liked high-tech stuff. But, being born 99 years before I was \u2014 in 1852 \u2014 our high-tech options were a trifle different.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arba Zeri Campbell may have had, relatively speaking, more disposable income than this household ever did. Or maybe he and I shared interests that put getting new tech near the top of our non-essential priorities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Either way, he was the first person in his part of the world \u2014 northeastern Illinois \u2014 with a telephone connection. The first.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

That’s an accomplishment. But it also meant that he had to wait a long time before he got any calls on his telephone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>Families: Barker, Hulse, and Campbell<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I did a little checking before writing this, and found “Arba Zeri Campbell” mentioned twice in my first search results: as one of the children of Erixna Barker, who married David Samuel Campbell; and as the husband of Eliza Carlina Hulse.1<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

That may connect with my habit of referring to couples I know as “[woman’s name] and [man’s name]”. Then again, maybe not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I also learned that Erixna and David had at least six children, one of them dying young:<\/p>\n\n\n\n