Campbell, Cogswell
From Lane Co Oregon
Cogswell's parents were Ira Campbell and Idaho and he was born February 19, 1898. As a child he lived in the Ira Campbell House with his siblings Celeste, Jackson and Eva in Eugene.
His schooling was begun at the St. Mary's Catholic School at 11th and Willamette Sts. After this, he attended public school. In September 1912, he went to Indiana to the Interlaken Boy's School of Rolling Prairie. In the fall of 1913, he entered the Eugene High School, receiving football letters, and graduating in 1917. Sept. 13, 1917, he enlisted in the Submarine Branch of the U. S. Navy. During World War 1, he was stationed around Panama and Central America.
While in the Navy, he played on the Navy football team. He received an honorable discharge March 13, 1919. When he returned home, he entered the spring term at the University of Oregon and became a member of the Sigma Nu Fraternity. During the next three years, he switched back and forth between the University of Oregon and the Oregon Agricultural College, to take the subjects he thought would be most beneficial to him, and also playing football on both teams (on a Rose Bowl team), receiving letters from both schools.
Before school was out, on March 5, 1921, he married Mary Ruth Moore who was born in Los Angeles, California, the second of nine children born to Edwin Leonard and Thressa Gill Spangler Moore, March 11, 1900. Her family had moved to Medford, Oregon, then on to Eugene, where Ruth attended the Eugene High School and the Borroughs Business College. She worked in the office of the Eugene Fruit Growers Association, until her marriage.
She has been a great help to her husband in his business. They both share a deep appreciation and enjoyment of nature. She likes flowers and has been a member of the Eugene Garden Club, often attending State and National Garden Club Meetings. She has also found time in her busy life to belong to the Eugene Fortnightly Club, The Mu Phi Epsilon Patroness Group, the Delta Gamma Mothers and others.
Cogswell Campbell was a self made man. His first venture was a drag saw, earning money to buy a gravel truck, in which he hauled gravel and rock for new highways, working from sun up to sun down. Next, he started the first auto wrecking and new parts company in this part of the State, with a branch in Albany. This was begun while he was going to college. Selling the Wrecking company, he built an ice plant, which was successful from the first. He gradually added to this, cold storage, a cider plant and an ice cream factory, finally buying out the Eugene Fruit Growers retail and wholesale ice and ice cream business. He branched out into the coast country with a creamery and an ice plant.
About 1948, he started a plywood plant in Eugene, later branching out into a veneer plant at Gold Beach, where Mrs. Campbell says: "the ocean sings through the doors of the mill, only a few hundred feet away and the smell of the fir being peeled is delightful." Mr. Campbell was an early flier and owned planes for over 20 years.
He always liked the water and anything that floats interests him. Finally he bought a yacht.
Reading was his past-time. Following are some of his mottos: "Don't do a job unless you can do it the right way because there is only the one way." "All that we are is the result of what we have thought." "We know no other moment than the present. It is always dying, always becoming past more rapidly than imagination can conceive, yet at the same time it is always being born, always new." Mr. and Mrs. Cogswell Frazer Campbell had two daughters: Patricia Ruth born April 3, 1924 in Eugene married September 13, 1947 in Eugene to James Jordan Marjorie Thressa born February 22, 1922 in Eugene married April 9, 1948 to John Kiser Pratt. They had 3 children born in Eugene: Catherine Dian June 27, 1950 Mary Monica March 31, 1952 Steven September 3, 1954.
