Interior secretary’s mother, a longtime civil servant, dies
U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland’s mother, Mary Toya, a longtime civil servant and U.S. Navy veteran, has died.
Officials with the Interior Department confirmed Toya’s passing Saturday but didn’t immediately release her age or cause of death.
”We celebrate Mary Toya’s long life and are grateful for her 25 years of service to Native students as a member of the Interior team within Indian Affairs,” department spokeswoman Melissa Schwartz said in a statement.
Haaland testified during her confirmation hearing earlier this year that her mother served in the Navy, worked at the Bureau of Indian Education and raised four children as a military wife. Haaland’s father, who is also deceased, was a career Marine who served in Vietnam and received the Silver Star.
”Mary spoke Keres, raised her children in a Pueblo household and passed traditional wisdom down to her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren,” Schwartz said. “Her legacy will live on in Secretary Haaland, all of her relatives and the countless Native people she inspired.”
Haaland became the first Native American to serve as a Cabinet secretary when she took office in March. She is a member of the Pueblo of Laguna and a 35th generation New Mexican. She attended 13 public schools as a military child before graduating from Highland High School in Albuquerque.
Haaland, a Democrat, served as chair of the New Mexico Democratic Party from 2015 to 2017 and as U.S. representative for New Mexico’s 1st congressional district from 2019 to 2021 before becoming Interior secretary.
Ronnie Tutt, drummer for Elvis and other stars, dies at 83
NASHVILLE, Tenn. | Ronnie Tutt, a legendary drummer who spent years playing alongside Elvis Presley and teamed up with other superstars ranging from Johnny Cash to Stevie Nicks, has died. He was 83.
In a Facebook post early Sunday, Terie Tutt wrote that her father died at home surrounded by his family.
“It’s with deep sadness that my family and I share the loss of our beloved dad,” Terie Tutt wrote. “The Legendary Drummer, Ronnie Tutt, ‘has left the building.’”
Elvis Presley Enterprises noted Tutt’s death in a statement Saturday. The group that runs Graceland recalled how Tutt drummed for Elvis with the TCB Band from 1969 until 1977, joining the band put together by James Burton for Elvis’ 1969 Las Vegas opening and staying with Elvis until his death in 1977.
”In addition to being a legendary drummer, he was a good friend to many of us here at Graceland,” the group said in a statement. “We enjoyed each time he joined us here to celebrate Elvis Week, Elvis’ Birthday and many other special occasions. Ronnie was an amazing ambassador to Elvis’ legacy – sharing his memories of working with Elvis with fans – as well as bringing Elvis’ music to arenas around the globe through later Elvis in Concert shows and performances.”
In 2018, Tutt in an interview from The Sessions musician discussion series recalled the high level of preparation it took to play with Elvis.
”It was spectacular,” Tutt said. “He kept us on our toes because he would just turn around and say, ‘Give me an E chord’ or ‘Give me a B flat’ or whatever, and he’d just start singing. He sang hundreds of songs and we had to know them.”
Beyond Elvis, Tutt played with some of the biggest names in music, touring with Neil Diamond’s band and recording and playing with Cash, Nicks, Glen Campbell, Kenny Rogers, Elvis Costello, Michael McDonald and more, Elvis Presley Enterprises wrote.
”It’s been my privilege to share the stage with Ronnie for more than 40 years,” Diamond tweeted on Sunday. “He was truly one of the all-time greats in Rock and Roll. God bless you, Ronnie. Give my regards to Elvis. We love you, Ronnie.”
In Tutt’s view, it was about understanding that “you’re doing something that is almost more important than you are — and that is, you are contributing to people’s having a good time, being happy,” he said in the 2018 interview.
”I think it’s important to realize that for a very short period of time in a person’s life, whether it be a day or a two-hour concert or whatever it is, the music that you’ve played and contributed to and been involved with means a lot more to somebody than you can get an inkling of,” he said in The Sessions interview. “I think that’s what keeps me going.”
Nun imprisoned over peace activism, Megan Rice, dies at 91
ROSEMONT, Penn. | Megan Rice, a nun and Catholic peace activist who spent two years in federal prison while in her 80s after breaking into a government security complex to protest nuclear weapons, has died. She was 91.
Rice died of congestive heart failure Oct. 10 at Holy Child Center in Rosemont, Pennsylvania, according to her order, the Society of the Holy Child Jesus.
”Sister Megan lived her life with love full of action and zeal,” said Carroll Juliano, American Province Leader for the order. “Her commitment to build a peaceful and just world was unwavering and selfless.”
Rice was born in New York to activist parents who would meet with well-known Catholic writer Dorothy Day during the Great Depression to craft solutions for societal problems, she said in a 2013 interview with the Catholic Agitator.
Her activism was also heavily influenced by her uncle, who spent four months in Nagasaki, Japan, after it and Hiroshima had been leveled by atomic bombs to hasten the end of World War II, bombings that Rice would later call the “greatest shame in history.”
While still a teenager, she entered the Society of the Holy Child of Jesus to become a nun. She made her final vows in 1955 and took on the religious name Mother Frederick Mary. Rice later earned degrees from Villanova and Boston University, where she earned a Master of Science.
She taught at elementary schools in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts for more than a decade before being assigned to work in Nigeria.
Rice spent 23 years in West Africa working as a teacher and pastoral guide. It was there that she started hearing about the plowshares movement, a reference to a Bible passage that refers to the end of all war: “They will beat their swords into ploughshares.”
When she returned to the U.S., Rice began her involvement in anti-nuclear activism.
”I felt drawn to the peace movement,” she said in the Catholic Agitator interview. “I felt very inspired by direct action on nuclear issues. My uncle was such a strong influence and he was still alive at that time.”
Court records show she already had been convicted four times for protest activities when she and two fellow Catholic peace activists, Michael Walli and Greg Boertje-Obed, broke into the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, in July 2012.
The trio cut through several fences and and spent two hours outside a bunker storing much of the nation’s bomb-grade uranium, where they hung banners, prayed, hammered on the outside of the bunker and spray-painted peace slogans.
They were arrested and charged with felony sabotage. Federal prosecutors described Rice and her codefendants as “recidivists and habitual offenders” who would break the law again “as soon as they are physically capable of doing so,” according to court records
Rice’s attorneys sought leniency from U.S. District Judge Amul Thapar, arguing the nun’s devotion to Christian nonviolence posed little threat to the public. Rice wrote a letter to the judge asking him to follow his conscience.
But the judge was unmoved, telling the defendants their moral beliefs were “not a get out jail free card.” Rice was sentenced to three years in prison and Walli and Oertje-Obed each received more than five years.
The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals threw out the sabotage charge and the three were freed in May 2015 after serving two years. They were later resentenced to time already served on a lesser charge of injuring government property.
While testifying during her jury trial, Rice defended her decision to break into the Oak Ridge uranium facility as an attempt to stop “manufacturing that...can only cause death,” according to a trial transcript.
”I had to do it,” she said of her decision to break the law. “My guilt is that I waited 70 years to be able to speak what I knew in my conscience.”
Betty Lynn, Thelma Lou on ‘The Andy Griffith Show,’ has died
MOUNT AIRY, N.C. | Betty Lynn, the film and television actor who was best known for her role as Barney Fife’s sweetheart Thelma Lou on “The Andy Griffith Show,” has died. She was 95.
Lynn died peacefully Saturday after a brief illness, The Andy Griffith Museum in Mount Airy, North Carolina, announced in a statement.
Lynn appeared as Thelma Lou on the show from 1961 until 1966. She reprised her role in the made-for-TV movie “Return to Mayberry,” in which Thelma Lou and Barney got married.
Born Elizabeth Ann Theresa Lynn on August 29, 1926 in Kansas City, Missouri, Lynn began studying dance and acting at a young age. In 1944, she started performing as a part of USO Camp Shows.
Lynn took her talents overseas, performing in the USO for servicemembers during World War II. She was “thought to be the only American woman to have traveled the dangerous Burma Road during the war,” according to the museum’s statement.
She moved to New York in the late 1940s and began acting in film, and later, television. Her career spanned decades, but fans came to know her best for her role in “The Andy Griffith Show.”
In her later years, Lynn participated in reunions with fellow cast members and various Mayberry-themed festivals.
Director and actor Ron Howard, who played Sheriff Andy Taylor’s son, Opie, paid tribute to Lynn in a tweet Sunday saying she “brightened every scene she was in & every shooting day she was on set.”
Lynn moved from Hollywood to Mount Airy in 2007 following a series of break-ins at her home. She expressed her love for the city to The Associated Press in 2015.
”I think God’s blessed me,” Lynn said at the time. “He brought me to a sweet town, wonderful people, and just said, ‘Now, that’s for you Betty.’”
Lynn had been working on an autobiography before her death, which is now expected to be released posthumously, the museum stated.
Lynn is survived by several cousins. A memorial service will take place in Culver City, California. Details are to be released at a later date.
Activist Shawn Lang, former leader at AIDS Connecticut, dies
HARTFORD, Conn. | Shawn Lang, a longtime Connecticut activist for people living with HIV and AIDS, as well as those impacted by opioid addiction and domestic abuse, has died. She was 65.
Lang’s unexpected death on Sunday, confirmed to the Hartford Courant by her 24-year-old son Corbett Lang, was met with both shock and sadness by friends, associates and Connecticut politicians on Monday. A cause of death has not yet been released.
“Shawn Lang’s passion and courage were boundless, and her impact endless, as a leader and advocate for fundamental human rights,” U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said in a statement. “I am proud to have called her my friend, and like so many other public officials, I valued her sage advice.”
Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont credited Lang with “giving a voice for the underrepresented and those in marginalized communities.”
A resident of Hartford and the former deputy director of AIDS Connecticut, a group she first joined in 1991, Lang worked on state and federal AIDS policy as well as oversaw the group’s care, treatment and prevention programs. At just over 5 feet tall with short cropped hair, Lang was well-known at the state Capitol for her passionate advocacy as well as her sense of humor.
She worked for decades on numerous issues affecting the LGBT community and others, such as advancing expanded hate crimes and anti-discrimination laws; meeting the housing and medical needs of people living with HIV and AIDS in Connecticut; and increasing the availability of naloxone or Narcan to prevent opioid overdoses.
Corbett Lang told the Courant that his mother “would always stick up for the weakest person, no matter what the situation was.”
In 2016, nominated by former Democratic Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, Lang was chosen as one of 10 White House Champions of Change for Advancing Prevention, Treatment and Recovery from a field of 900 nominees across the U.S.
A native of Norfolk, Massachusetts, Lang was a graduate of the University of Lowell, a steadfast Boston Red Sox fan and a frequent visitor to Provincetown.
Colin Powell dies, trailblazing general stained by Iraq
WASHINGTON | Colin Powell, the trailblazing soldier and diplomat whose sterling reputation of service to Republican and Democratic presidents was stained by his faulty claims to justify the 2003 U.S. war in Iraq, died Monday of COVID-19 complications. He was 84.
A veteran of the Vietnam War, Powell spent 35 years in the Army and rose to the rank of four-star general before becoming the first Black chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. His oversight of the U.S. invasion of Kuwait to oust the Iraqi army in 1991 made him a household name, prompting speculation for nearly a decade that he might run for president, a course he ultimately decided against.
He instead joined President George W. Bush’s administration in 2001 as secretary of state, the first Black person to represent the U.S. government on the world stage. Powell’s tenure, however, was marred by his 2003 address to the United Nations Security Council in which he cited faulty information to claim that Saddam Hussein had secretly stashed weapons of mass destruction. Such weapons never materialized, and though the Iraqi leader was removed, the war devolved into years of military and humanitarian losses.
Powell was fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, his family said. But he faced several ailments, telling Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward over the summer that he had Parkinson’s disease. Powell’s longtime aide, Peggy Cifrino, said Monday that he was also treated over the past few years for multiple myeloma, a blood cancer that impairs the body’s ability to fight infection.
In a Washington where partisan divisions run deep, Democrats and Republicans recalled Powell fondly. Flags were ordered lowered at government buildings, including the White House, Pentagon and State Department.
President Joe Biden said Powell “embodied the highest ideals of both warrior and diplomat.”
Noting Powell’s rise from a childhood in a fraying New York City neighborhood, Biden said: “He believed in the promise of America because he lived it. And he devoted much of his life to making that promise a reality for so many others.”
Powell’s time as secretary of state was largely defined by the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. He was the first American official to publicly blame Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida network. He made a lightning trip to Pakistan to demand that then-Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf cooperate with the United States in going after the Afghanistan-based group, which also had a presence in Pakistan, where bin Laden was later killed.
But as the push for war in Iraq deepened, Powell sometimes found himself at odds with other key figures in the Bush administration, including Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld also died this year.
Powell’s State Department was dubious of the military and intelligence communities’ conviction that Saddam possessed or was developing weapons of mass destruction. But he presented the administration’s case that Saddam posed a major regional and global threat in a strong speech to the U.N. Security Council in February 2003. The following month, Bush gave the go-ahead for the invasion.
The U.N. speech, complete with Powell’s display of a vial of what he said could have been a biological weapon, was seen as a low point in his career, although he had removed some elements from the remarks that he deemed to have been based on poor intelligence assessments.
The U.S. overthrow of Saddam ended the rule of a brutal dictator. But the power vacuum and lawlessness that followed unleashed years of sectarian fighting and chaos that killed countless Iraqi civilians, sparked a lengthy insurgency, and unintentionally tilted the balance of power in the Middle East toward a U.S. rival, Iran. No Iraqi weapons of mass destruction were ever found.
Still, Powell maintained in a 2012 interview with The Associated Press that on balance, the U.S. succeeded in Iraq.
”I think we had a lot of successes,” he said. “Iraq’s terrible dictator is gone.”
Saddam was captured by U.S. forces while hiding out in northern Iraq in December 2003 and was later executed by the Iraqi government. But the war dragged on. President Barack Obama pulled U.S. troops out of Iraq in 2011, but he sent advisers back in 2014 after the Islamic State group swept into the country from Syria and captured large swaths of territory.
Bush said Monday that he and former first lady Laura Bush were “deeply saddened” by Powell’s death.
”He was a great public servant” and “widely respected at home and abroad,” Bush said. “And most important, Colin was a family man and a friend. Laura and I send Alma and their children our sincere condolences as they remember the life of a great man.”
Condoleezza Rice, Powell’s successor at State and the department’s first Black female secretary, praised him as “a trusted colleague and a dear friend through some very challenging times.”
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, a retired Army general and the first Black Pentagon chief, said the news of Powell’s death left “a hole in my heart.”
”The world lost one of the greatest leaders that we have ever witnessed,” Austin said while traveling in Europe.
Vice President Kamala Harris, the highest ranking Black woman in U.S. history, also noted Powell’s racial firsts.
”Every step of the way, when he filled those roles, he was by everything that he did and the way he did it, inspiring so many people,” she said. “Young servicemembers and others not only within the military, but in our nation and around the globe, took notice of what his accomplishments meant as a reflection of who we are as a nation.”
No child of privilege, Powell often framed his biography as an American success story.
”Mine is the story of a black kid of no early promise from an immigrant family of limited means who was raised in the South Bronx,” he wrote in his 1995 autobiography “My American Journey.”
It’s an experience he was fond of recalling later in his life. When he appeared at the United Nations, even during his Iraq speech, he often reminisced about his childhood in New York City, where he grew up the child of Jamaican immigrants and got one of his first jobs at the Pepsi-Cola bottling plant directly across the East River from the U.N. headquarters.
Powell’s path toward the military began at City College, where discovered the ROTC. When he put on his first uniform, he wrote, “I liked what I saw.”
He joined the Army and in 1962 he was one of more than 16,000 military advisers sent to South Vietnam by President John F. Kennedy. A series of promotions led to the Pentagon and assignment as a military assistant to Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, who became his unofficial sponsor. He later became commander of the Army’s 5th Corps in Germany and later was national security assistant to President Ronald Reagan.
During his term as Joint Chiefs chairman, his approach to war became known as the Powell Doctrine, which held that the United States should only commit forces in a conflict if it has clear and achievable objectives with public support, sufficient firepower and a strategy for ending the war.
Though he gained national prominence under Republican presidents, Powell ultimately moved away from the party.
He endorsed Democrats in the past four presidential elections, starting with Obama. He emerged as a vocal Donald Trump critic in recent years, describing Trump as “a national disgrace” who should have been removed from office through impeachment.
Retired Rep. Bill Zeliff, who probed Waco siege, dies at 85
Former U.S. Rep. Bill Zeliff, a three-term Republican best known for helping lead the congressional investigation of the government’s disastrous siege of the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas, has died. He was 85.
Zeliff, who represented southern and eastern New Hampshire in the U.S. House from 1991 to 1997, died Monday, according to Farley Funeral Homes and Crematory in Venice, Florida, where he had retired. He died after declining health, his wife told WMUR-TV in New Hampshire.
“Congressman Bill Zeliff was a dear friend,” Gov. Chris Sununu, a fellow Republican, said in a statement. “My entire family joins the people of New Hampshire in mourning his passing. He was a true public servant, always had a smile, and was a tireless advocate for the Granite State and our Live Free or Die Spirit.”
Democratic Rep. Chris Pappas, who represents the district Zeliff once did, said he was a “champion to many people and causes across our state.”
”Bill’s kindness and can-do spirit underpinned a successful career in politics and business, and I join Granite Staters in mourning his loss,” he said in a statement.
While in the U.S. House, Zeliff chaired the Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security, International Affairs and Criminal Justice and was a deputy Republican whip. He was known as a fiscal conservative and advocate of budget reform.
In 1995, Zeliff was a leader of hearings investigating the 1993 Branch Davidian siege. Cult leader David Koresh and nearly 80 followers died, some from bullet wounds, after their compound burned down. FBI agents had used tanks to inject tear gas into the wooden building, which caught fire.
Zeliff at one point suggested that then-President Bill Clinton, not Attorney General Janet Reno, had made the decision to mount the tear gas attack. Reno unwaveringly defended her decision to use the gas to end the Waco siege and rebuffed Republicans’ persistent attempts to blame Clinton, a Democrat.
But Zeliff wasn’t convinced. “I find it disturbing that it is the attorney general, and not the president, who steps forward to state, ‘The buck stops with me,”’ he said.
At the time he was Republican co-chair of the House Waco hearings, Zeliff was fined $30,000 by the Federal Election Commission for campaign finance violations.
He was accused of improperly using money from his business for his 1990 congressional race, failing to properly report loans he made to his campaign, and neglecting to quickly repay his business for services it provided in his House race.
Zeliff insisted that although he had done no wrong, the FEC case had become too costly to fight.
Zeliff was born in East Orange, New Jersey, and went to school at Milford High School in Milford, Connecticut, and the University of Connecticut. He had a career in sales and marketing and also served in the U.S. Army Reserve.
In 1976, he and his wife, Synda Zeliff, bought and ran the Christmas Farm Inn in Jackson, New Hampshire. They sold it in 2000.
Zeliff became involved in New Hampshire Republican politics in the 1980s, running unsuccessfully for the New Hampshire state Senate in 1984 and then serving as a delegate to the 1988 Republican National Convention, which nominated then-Vice President George H.W. Bush for president.
He represented New Hampshire’s 1st Congressional District, which includes Manchester, the state’s largest city. He did not run for a fourth term, but instead ran for governor. Zeliff was defeated in the Republican primary by attorney Ovide LaMontagne, who went on to lose to Democrat Jeanne Shaheen in the general election.
Bond and ‘Willy Wonka’ songwriter Leslie Bricusse dies at 90
LONDON | Oscar-winning British songwriter Leslie Bricusse, whose work includes James Bond themes and Willy Wonka’s signature tune, has died. He was 90.
Son Adam Bricusse said on Facebook that his father “passed away peacefully” on Tuesday. No cause of death was given. His death was also confirmed by actress Joan Collins, a friend, who said on Instagram that Bricusse “was one of the giant songwriters of our time.”
Born in the London suburb of Pinner in 1931, Bricusse studied at Cambridge University, where he was president of the Footlights performance club, a springboard for musical and comic talent.
He began writing music for stage and screen in the 1950s, and enjoyed success over more than five decades.
Bricusse wrote both music and lyrics, working alone and with collaborators. He wrote lyrics for the Bond theme songs “Goldfinger” and “You Only Live Twice,” with music by John Barry.
With frequent collaborator Anthony Newley, Bricusse wrote the Academy Award-nominated score for 1971 film “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,” including the song “Pure Imagination,” sung by Gene Wilder and now considered a classic. Another song from the movie, “The Candy Man,” became a huge hit for Sammy Davis Jr.
Bricusse and Newley also wrote 1960s stage musicals, including “Stop the World — I want to Get Off” — which included the Grammy Award-winning song “What Kind of Fool Am I?” and “The Roar of the Greasepaint — The Smell of the Crowd.” That show featured the song “Feeling Good,” which became a signature tune for Nina Simone.
Bricusse’s other film work included the music for “Doctor Doolittle,” which won a best-song Oscar in 1968 for “Talk to the Animals.”
He worked as a lyricist with composers including Henry Mancini on “Victor/Victoria” — which won him a second Academy Award, for best score, in 1983 — and John Williams, on “Superman,” “Home Alone” and “Hook.”
Bricusse is survived by his wife, Yvonne Romain, and their son.
Missouri lawmaker Tom Hannegan
dies of stroke
COLUMBIA, Mo. | Missouri Republican state Rep. Tom Hannegan died Wednesday of a stroke at age 51, his campaign treasurer said.
“The community has suffered a great loss,” said Hannegan’s campaign treasurer, Scott Mell.
Voters elected Hannegan, of St. Charles, to the state House in 2016. He was one of few openly gay Missouri lawmakers.
Hannegan advocated for criminal justice reform and human rights, and he proposed a ban on discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.
Hannegan was also an associate real estate broker and and publisher and editor in chief of a local magazine called StreetScape Magazine.
Republican House leaders in a joint statement described him as “a strong person of conviction in these chambers, a truly wonderful person and a dedicated public servant who will be greatly missed.”
”Tom will forever be remembered for his determination to serve those in need, as well as his great love for all people,” House leaders said.
Democratic House Minority Leader Crystal Quade in a statement called Hannegan “a kind and thoughtful person who cared about others and always put people before politics.”
“His sudden passing is a great loss, but he leaves a legacy as a champion for equality under the law for all Missourians,” she said.
Lorli von Trapp Campbell, of ‘Sound of Music’ family, dies
STOWE, Vt. | The second daughter of Maria von Trapp, whose Austrian family was famous for being depicted in the musical and beloved movie “The Sound of Music,” has died. She was 90.
Eleonore “Lorli” von Trapp Campbell died Sunday in Northfield, Vermont. The death was confirmed by The Day Funeral Home in Randolph, Vermont.
Campbell was born in Salzburg, Austria, the second daughter of Georg and Maria von Trapp and a younger stepsibling to the older von Trapp children who went on to be depicted in stage and film.
The family escaped from Nazi-occupied Austria in 1938 and performed concert tours throughout Europe and America. The family settled in Vermont in the early 1940s and opened a ski lodge in Stowe.
The Austrian traditions her mother brought to Vermont from Europe played a big part in the family life, daughter Hope McAndrew, of East Hardwick, Vermont, said Thursday.
While McAndrew said they all knew every word from “The Sound of Music,” they also knew the songs the family sang while touring North America, long before the musicals.
”They did amazing Christmas concerts that she would describe to us. And they were really touching, they were,” McAndrew said. “She had very fond memories of those Christmas concerts.”
”The Sound of Music,” was a musical play and movie based loosely on a 1949 book by Maria von Trapp, who died in 1987. It tells the story of an Austrian woman who married a widower with seven children and teaches them music.
Campbell’s father, Austrian naval Capt. Georg von Trapp and his first wife, Agathe Whitehead von Trapp, had seven children who were the basis for the singing family in the musical and film. Maria married the captain after Whitehead von Trapp died and taught her new stepchildren music. They are all now deceased.
Georg von Trapp and Maria von Trapp went on to have three more children, who were not depicted in the movie; Campbell was the second. Campbell’s siblings, Rosmarie von Trapp and Johannes von Trapp, live in Stowe.
Campbell’s first career was singing soprano as a member of the Trapp Family Singers, which traveled internationally and to all of the United States, except South Dakota and Hawaii, until she married Hugh David Campbell in 1954, the obituary said.
”The life of singing on tour is one that involves an extraordinary amount of discipline and hard work, and my mother lived as a teenager singing lead soprano, night after night after night, and toured much of the year, and it really shaped who she was,” Campbell’s daughter Elizabeth Peters, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, said Thursday.
”She was a very disciplined, woman, and yet she missed out on many of the things that the rest of us enjoyed in high school and college years and yet she was very grateful for all the travel and the experience she had,” Peters said.
After Campbell married in 1954, she supported her husband, a coach and teacher, in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island, while raising seven daughters. In 1975, the family moved to Waitsfield, Vermont. She taught her girls to cook, bake, garden, sew, knit, darn, and make butter and ice cream from scratch.
In addition to her two remaining siblings, survivors include seven daughters, 18 grandchildren and six great-grandsons. A service is scheduled for Nov. 6 in Waitsfield.
—From AP reports
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