Guide to the Campbell Family Papers

Dr. Edgar Omer Campbell was born in Illinois on September 12, 1867; he grew up and received his education in California, earning a medical degree from the Cooper Medical College of San Francisco in 1895. Frances Louisa Kellogg was born in California on May 25, 1879, and received her degree from Woodbury Business College in 1899. Between April 1900 and March 1901 they were married; references in the journals indicate that they had four children, all born in Alaska.

Dr. Campbell had applied to the Board of Foreign Missions (PCUSA) in 1897, requesting assignment to the Orient; he was turned down, but reapplied in 1900 and was accepted (Louisa Campbell applied in March of 1901). The BFM intended to send the Campbells to Laos, but received an urgent request for a missionary doctor from Sheldon Jackson in Alaska. Jackson contacted Dr. Campbell, who accepted the offer. The Campbells spent ten years on the island of St. Lawrence: he served as doctor on a reindeer station which he started, in addition to teaching the Eskimos, translating, and running the station, while she taught women and children, both in the classroom and in practical matters of homemaking. Dr. Campbell published a primer in the Eskimo language.

The Campbells retired from missionary service in 1911 and returned to California. Dr. Campbell eventually became an assemblyman in that state.