It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Lifetime Member of LWVCC, Ann Campbell. Active for decades, she chaired the Social Policy committee and was Co-President of the League from 1990 – 1991 and was President from 1991 – 1993. She was devoted to LWVCC, to educating League members, and to coordinating social services in Collier County, particularly for the elderly. She was 90 years old and celebrated that birthday with several of her LWVCC friends.
In 2021, Ann was interviewed by the LWVCC Writers Hub for a Spotlight article in the Voter. We are reposting the interview in memory of Ann.
League of Women Voters Member: Ann Campbell
Close your eyes and think of the mantra by which you live. Some people might say “Just do it!” Others chant, “Do unto others as you do to yourself.” As we are making our way through this pandemic, I asked LWVCC member Ann Campbell what mantra had gotten her through decades of her rich and productive life. She said, “We adapt!”
And indeed, Ann has always adapted. She was born in the Bronx, the eldest daughter of two staunchly Catholic parents who stepped from the Emerald Isle onto Ellis Island. “We lived in a five-story apartment building in the Bronx. Neighbors were Jewish and Irish, with a Jewish dentist office on the first floor. Our family wasn’t well off, but looking back, I didn’t even know it!” she said, “We always had all that we needed”
Ann has had many exciting career opportunities. As a registered nurse and a BSN, she prepared for numerous staff and then supervisory roles in the medical field, finally settling on geriatrics. An adventurer and a patriot, Ann joined the Massachusetts Air National Guard at age 30. It is there that she met her husband, Charlie Campbell. They moved to Naples a few years later. When she retired from the Guard, she switched her nursing specialty to substance abuse treatment. Ann worked in both Falmouth, Massachusetts and southwest Florida in drug treatment centers.
“Because I didn’t play golf or tennis, I joined the League,” she said half-jokingly. Ann’s participation began in the Collier County League’s infancy. She quickly rose to leadership posts as League co-president and president then serving as a director on the LWVFL State Board for eight years, five of those years as Secretary. Her propensity for networking and encouraging others to share their expertise resulted in numerous community contacts which ultimately provided an all-hands-on-deck approach to the League’s goals.
In fact, one of her first contacts, the Chair of the Naples Alliance for Children, provided the necessary impetus for Ann to lead the Social Policy Committee. When Ann attempted to step down from directing that committee in order to focus on the presidency of the League, she was unable to find just the right replacement to explore the numerous opportunities for cooperation among agencies. (You can run, Ann, but you can’t hide!) Therefore, Ann ended up continuing in that position for years.
Ann’s latest involvement outside of the LWVCC is working with both the Leadership Coalition on Aging and the Citizen’s Foster Care Review Board.
Asked how she guides others now as compared to when she was in previous administrative positions she replied, “I’ve seen so many evolutions. It’s best to look at where we are in any moment in time and adapt to it.”
As an example of adapting to a “moment in time,” Ann recounted her first encounter with the League in 1987: “The League was still pretty young. I had the opportunity to work with the founders. I was given work right away and then membership on the board. The board decided on the topics for monthly meetings and for a year or so I had the job of setting them up and doing publicity.”
In order to get take a leadership role and see projects through, Ann says she has always been and still is “strict, but respectful. I provide people with an opportunity to grow.”
Ann sees the need for the LWV members to understand the issues and needs of the people in the community in order to know how candidates’ positions impact the people they represent.
Her advice for members in the League: “Learn about your community. Go to all the meetings you can and then dive in: education; environment; social policy. Mainly learn about how people live in our community. What are their issues? Housing? Healthcare? Drugs? Then pick a committee and stick with it!”
Ann retired from the Air National Guard at age 65; she counts it as one of the best experiences of her life. Charlie, now 98, was a WWII pilot and a Brigadier General. The pandemic has given them even more time to enjoy one another: “We finish each other’s sentences.”
After listening to stories from this fascinating woman’s life, many of us might consider making her mantra our own: “We adapt!”