Campbell, Henry A. who died February 28, 2021 in St. Paul, was born on March 14, 1928, in Omaha, Nebraska to Henry A. and Katherine E. (Shutts) Campbell. Son of high school teachers, Henry absorbed the standard Republican fare of post-frontier Nebraska and promoted it through high school forensics, even debating future JFK assistant, Ted Sorensen, in state competitions, and frequently losing to him. His political transformation to life-long liberal Democrat started in the 1948 election when he embraced Henry A. Wallace's anti-Cold War efforts. His progressive beliefs firmed up in opposition to McCarthy's Red baiting in the 1950's. Henry supported many Democrats, including Eugene McCarthy, Mo Udall, Barack Obama and Joe Biden; he happily voted against Trump a second time last fall. He supported many liberal causes over the decades, including the anti-war, Civil Rights, environmental, women's, and Native justice movements. He remained a committed liberal to the end. Graduating from the University of Nebraska at Omaha in 1948 and then Chicago Theological Seminary of the University of Chicago in 1951, Henry served, with a heart both pastoral and prophetic, as a Congregational-U.C.C. minister for nearly 40 years. Starting with his first church in Toulon, Illinois, he served pulpits in Moorhead, MN, Ames, IA, White Bear Lake, MN, and, Latimer, IA. (interim), retiring in 1990 to Ames. While in seminary he interned at a predominantly Czech Congregational Church, Millard, where he met his first and only wife, Ruth Ellen Jusko, whom he married in 1952. Together they carved out a diverse life of travel (Europe, New York, New Mexico), concert, movie-going, gardening, bike-riding, among many other enriching pursuits. An inveterate reader of literature, Henry often infused his sermons and liberal Protestant theology with insights from a range of ostensibly secular writers, such as Thoreau, Updike, Cather, Buechner, and Lawrence. He published articles on the Darwin and creationism controversy, Josephine Herbst, and Floyd Dell. Upon retirement, Henry began a second career as a canny rare book dealer. Specializing initially in literature, Henry branched out, as the accumulating piles of books warranted, into the peddling of mysteries, science fiction, children's, and Americana, regularly selling his wares at the annual Twin Cities Antiquarian Book Fair, among other venues. His irreverent sense of humor served him well in the good-natured haggling he did with other bookmen over the condition, importance, and monetary value of any particular volume. Henry and Ruth moved from Ames to Minneapolis in 2009 to be closer to family and their rustic no indoor plumbing!cabin on Leech Lake. Collecting, in 1960, insurance money presumably ear-marked for a new family car, Henry and Ruth opted instead for the more adventuresome, if uncertain, path of building a simple structure in the woods. This cabin became their special retreat, and the arena of Henry's many endearing mishaps with tools, boats, and fishing tackle; he continued to visit it into his 90s, but without his chain saw or maul axe. In addition to Ruth, he leaves the last of his many beloved Boston Terriers, Maxwell the Second, three children (Hank [Eileen], John [Colette], Sarah[Mark]), six grandchildren (Hannah [Craig], Tim, Brian, Hope, Colin, Raizl), one great-grandchild (Leona), a nephew (Greg Fritz) and a niece (Molly Fritz Miller). He was preceded in death by his sister Beth (Campbell) Fritz. Please send memorials to: Leech Lake Tribal College at lltc.edu/give/ or Leech Lake Headstart, 190 Sailharbor Drive, Cass Lake, MN 56633.

Published on March 7, 2021