Person:Elizabeth Brooks (45)

Obituary

It is with great sadness that the children of Elizabeth (Betty) Brooks Campbell, age 92, announce her death on January 31, 2011 due to CHF. Mother was surrounded by love in her final moments, and we know she was at peace.

Her life was full of adventure. Being the daughter of LTG (USA Ret.) Edward Hale Brooks and Beatrice Leavitt Brooks, of Concord and Melvin Village, NH, she had rare opportunities to travel and amass colorful stories to tell family and friends for years to come.

One of her parents' assignments took them to Fort Knox, Kentucky where she met Dad, Raymond Potter Campbell, Jr., who was then a 2nd Lt. in the US Army and a recent West Point graduate. It was a fateful meeting because Mom had already pointed out his picture in the West Point yearbook and decided he had a "good face". Imagine her surprise when he showed up at Fort Knox, too. Another surprise was that they shared the same birth day, month and year. Their marriage on Valentine's Day in 1942 was the beginning of a new life as an Army wife with more travel and new adventures. Several years after Dad's passing, Mom began dividing her time between her beloved hilltop home in Melvin Village, NH and her apartment in Lakeland, Florida. The three daughters in Florida became the recipients of her adventurous spirit. She planned several cruises "for the girls". We went swimming with the dolphins, headed to the Bahamas to "kiss" the sea lions, went to a wildlife refuge to feed some huge, baby tigers, and to top it all off....she took us hang gliding. She had one item on her list she just couldn't accomplish and that was to go sky diving on her 92nd birthday.

She will be deeply missed by her children: Nancy Harris and Bea Kempster of Lakeland, FL, Kitty Allen of Plant City, FL, and Brooks Campbell of Keene, NH; as well as by her eleven grandchildren and eleven great-grandchildren.

Mom's friends and family were always most important to her, and she asked us to let each and every one of you know what a special place you had in her life. To the West Point friends, her bridge group, the Red Hat ladies, the bingo groups, the thoughtful residents of Melvin Village, the members of Bald Peak Colony Club, the welcoming friends in Florida, and the shoreline "family" of Merrymount, she sends her love and tells you, "Good Bye".

A private interment was held May 6th, 2011, at Arlington National Cemetery.