Out 'N About - Jean Archer Campbell

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n keeping with the Christmas spirit, Jean Archer Campbell has given the families of Washington County’s Fairview community a precious, heirloom gift.

A lifetime spent collecting stories, photographs and clippings has resulted in Dream, a historical narrative and photographic scrapbook which Campbell published through CopyNet/ Overmountain Press in Johnson City.

“I wanted to do it for several years. I wanted to remember those people, and to make sure they were remembered by the community they helped create,” Campbell said. A retired teacher, Campbell is also historian of Fairview United Methodist Church, and her publication was donated to the church as a centennial project.

“That is why the book contains 100 pages, though they are front-and-back, so there was some method there.” Campbell designed the wrap-around cover and CopyNet Manager Ed Freyling created the archival look of the cover photograph.

Campbell painstakingly cut and pasted every clipping and photograph by hand.

“That is the look I wanted it to have. I thought it was very important, and gave the book the look and feel that it should have.”

In her dedication, the author wrote: “I did not know all the people who lived in the Fairview area, but I knew many of them. They were special people… spending time with them has blessed my life.”

A native of Ohio, Campbell’s parents were from Tennessee and met in the Buckeye State

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where her father had traveled north to work in the booming tire and automotive industries at the time.

It took three trips coming back home to Tennessee, each about two years apart, but the Archers finally returned to Fairview to stay in 1946.

The community’s origins can be traced to the 1700s. The cemetery was established and a Quaker and a Methodist church, a store and a school were built at the intersection of two roads – the cemetery and the churches on the corner of the sprawling farm belonging to J.W. Smith, the grandfather of Campbell’s late husband, Carroll.

The Campbells were married on an Easter and celebrated 48 Resurrection Sundays together until his death in 1997. She still lives in the house they built together, adjacent to the cemetery.

“The land was always here – Jean Archer Campbell with her book, ‘Dream.’ The Fairview Methodist Church and cemetery is in the background. green and lush and expectant – waiting for its purpose, its destiny – waiting for a man with a dream,” Campbell wrote. And Smith was one of the dreamers whose determination and dedication built a family and helped create a community.

Smith’s great-grandfather had come to the New World from Ireland in 1797, settling first in Pennsylvania and ultimately in Tennessee. Over time, the family accumulated land and the original Quaker log church was established on a plot obtained from Smith’s cousin, Seth, in 1884. By 1908, the community worked together to construct a new Methodist/Episcopal church on an adjacent plot.

“They set goals. Here they were building churches, maintaining them. One would donate nails, another boards. But there were also many skilled people, carpenters and stone masons, and they all contributed what they could.

“You can say, ‘Well, they didn’t have anything else,’ but that’s not really true. They had good lives. They had a strong devotion to God. Everyone in the church was involved with each other.

It was truly a family,” Campbell said.

The other important community structure was a large school.

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“You might think they were uneducated, but far from it. Some of the students would go through the sixth or seventh grade, at that time, and then begin teaching themselves. I believe their education would compare favorably to college people of today,” Campbell said.

“They loved to read. Many of them could read before they got to school. And there’s no question that the more you read, the better you can read.”

Just as education was central to Fairview, teaching has been a Campbell family affair, which has drawn the author’s daughter, Judith, who teaches first grade in Nashville; her son, David, who taught at Jonesborough and Sulphur Springs; and her granddaughter, Sarah, who is teaching in South Korea, along with several grandmothers and aunts.

Campbell had already raised her family before she decided to become a teacher and started college at age 32. She taught at Lamar for three years and then moved to David Crockett High School when it opened in 1971, and remained there until she retired.

Campbell said she remains grateful for being allowed to teach her way.

“I always loved freshmen. I treated them like people, not babies, and they responded. Even if it took a little Jean Archer Campbell’s collection of history and memorawhile.” bilia on Washington County’s Fairview community.

And Campbell’s way emphasized reading. “I don’t believe there’s any such thing as starting children too early. Expose them to reading and to words. Read to them as early as three months old, and expose them to books.

They’ll learn to value books, and to value the vocabulary they will learn from the books.”

She believes there are “some positive points” in new educational directives such as No Child Left Behind. “School systems were forced to place teachers in the courses where they were certified to teach. Before that, you might have someone certified in social studies teaching biology.

So I think that was an improvement. That is what it was meant to be.

“And I think it has also made the public have an interest in trying to make schools better. And, of course, that is a good thing.”

Campbell spent most of her pre-teen years in Ohio schools. “Northern school systems seem more developed, more sophisticated, and have continued to have an advantage. I’m very proud of being from Tennessee, but I think we need to value education more.”

Looking back, Campbell says she sees a significant advantage held by the dreamers her book

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“In those days, you were taught respect. That makes a great deal of difference.”

“Today our minds have become so fragmented. There are so many things to think about, things that take up our time, places to go. We have gone to frivolous things. We have become accustomed to instantaneous entertainment.

“But I can remember the devotion of the dreamers. And I remember their spirit, the spirit of caring. It’s worth remembering, and honoring. They were inclusive and they had sweet, sweet spirits,” Campbell said.

“They had very little in the way of possessions but they had pride, and especially pride in wanting to be better people.”

(Jean Archer Campbell’s Dream is available at the Historic Jonesborough Visitors Center; by contacting her at jactn@hotmail.com or 753-6461; or through CopyNet in Johnson City, 9266299).