Nancy Duff Campbell

Nancy Duff Campbell November 1, 2006; December 1, 2006; December 21, 2006; July 11, 2007; December 7, 2007; January 4, 2008; April 4, 2008; April 25, 2008; October 31, 2008; July 10, 2009; July 31, 2009 Recommended Transcript of Interview with Nancy Duff Campbell (Nov. 1, 2006; Dec. 1, Citation 2006; Dec. 21, 2006; July 11, 2007; Dec. 7, 2007; Jan. 4, 2008; Apr. 4, 2008; Apr. 25, 2008; Oct. 31, 2008; July 10, 2009; July 31, 2009), https://abawtp.law.stanford.edu/exhibits/show/nancy-duff-campbell. Attribution The American Bar Association is the copyright owner or licensee for this collection. Citations, quotations, and use of materials in this collection made under fair use must acknowledge their source as the American Bar Association. Terms of Use This oral history is part of the American Bar Association Women Trailblazers in the Law Project, a project initiated by the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession and sponsored by the ABA Senior Lawyers Division. This is a collaborative research project between the American Bar Association and the American Bar Foundation. Reprinted with permission from the American Bar Association. All rights reserved. Contact Please contact the Robert Crown Law Library at Information [email protected] with questions about the ABA Women Trailblazers Project. Questions regarding copyright use and permissions should be directed to the American Bar Association Office of General Counsel, 321 N Clark St., Chicago, IL 60654-7598; 312-988-5214. ... ASA Senior Lawyers Division Women Trailblazers in the Law ORAL HISTORY of NANCY DUFF CAMPBELL Interviewer: Janet R. Studley Dates of Interviews: November 1, 2006 December 1, 2006 December 21, 2006 July 11, 2007 December 7, 2007 · January 4, 2008 April 4, 2008 April 25, 2008 October 31, 2008 July 10, 2009 July 31, 2009 I ORAL HISTORY OF NANCY DUFF CAMPBELL FIRST INTERVIEW November 1, 2006 This is the firstinterview of Nancy DuffCampbell by Janet Studley forthe Women Trailblazers Program, a Project of the American Bar Association's Commission on Women in the Profession,conducted on November 1, 2006, in Duffy's officeat the National Women's Law Center in Washington, D.C. Studley: Let's start offtalking about your familybackground. Tell me about your grandparents. What was their background? Campbell: I only knew one ofmy grandparents, my grandmotheron my mother's side. My father'sfamily was fromScotland and my father's grandfatherwas bornin Scotland. So my grandfatherwas first generation in this country. My great grandfathercame to this country fromScotland to sell horses-mainly horses to work on the farmsin the Midwest. His familytransported the horses from Scotland to the St. Lawrence Seaway and down into the Midwest; they made their home in northernIllinois. My grandfatherwas the first in his familyto go to college. That was unusual then, especially for someone reared on a farm. He received an undergraduate and graduate degree from the University of Michigan and became a chemist. He worked fora while, maybe formost of his career, forProcter and Gamble, eventually becoming a vice president. He helped develop a method of making soap dry so it so it could be easily powdered into laundry soap--IvoryFlakes. As a result he lived most of his lifein Cincinnati, Ohio, where Procter and Gamble was based. As I said, I never knew my grandfather,although I have both video photographs and still photographsof him. From what I know frommy father,he was an imposing person but also very funny. My father,too, has an incredible sense of humor. He attributes that to growingup in a familywith a fatherwho was accomplished, but also liked to have a good time. One of the stories my fathertells about his fatherexemplifies this forme. This story also exemplifiesmy grandfather's"true Scottish heritage," by .which my fathermeant you never spend more than you have to on anything. You don't waste any money and, again, that's a trait ofmy father's-turningoff the lights at home all the time, for example. My fatherwent on a familytrip to Scotland with my grandfatherand the rest of the familywhen he was in his early teens. They were in a small town in northern Scotland on a double-decker bus. My fatherand his siblings were sitting up top and their parents down below. They discovered when they got offthe bus that my fatherhad lefthis raincoat on the seat next to him. It was a fold-up raincoat worth about $2. But forthe entire rest of the trip, my grandfatherkept up a steady pace of commentary about what a total waste of money it was that my father lefthis raincoat on the bus. It became a family joke from that point on about the raincoat and my father-how could he have left it on the bus, how could he have wasted this money? My brother and sister and I use to refer to it jokingly whenever my father was trying to instill in us the value of a dollar. So these were the sorts of stories I heard as a child about my grandfather. I actually know less about my father's mother because she was less of a dominant figure in my father's life. He describes her as a woman with good manners who didn't like it that he was somewhat of a rough neck as a child-he wanted to play and joke and she wanted him to be more proper. I have video of her as well as of my grandfather, but unfortunately most of that video was at the end of her life when she was ill, when they were filming her while she was in bed and people were coming to visit her-to remember her. Both my grandparents died at fairly young ages, and before I was born. So I don't have much of a sense of them other than my father's stories during various times of his life. My father-John Alexander Campbell, known as Jack-was born in Cincinnati in 1914, and grew up and went to school there. He was one of three children. He was the youngest of three-seven years behind his brother Charlie and eleven years behind his sister Margaret. I always liked my Uncle Charlie a great deal because he, too, was quite funny. Especially when he was with my father. I always liked my Aunt Margaret, too, and saw her a lot more than I saw my Uncle Charlie. She had been damaged mentally at birth by the use of forceps. So she was a very constant figure in our lives because my father and his brother always looked out for her. My grandfather left money to take care of her so there was never any financial strain in our family because of this. She lived independently but usually with other relatives, in Cincinnati. She came to visit us a lot, or we went to visit her. So we children knew her well and were very close to her. My father's brother Charlie became a physician, as did my father, and married and had children. He went to school in Michigan and stayed there to practice and raise his family. But my Aunt Margaret never married and was never really able to work. My mother, Willie Grace Campbell, was born in 1915 in Louisville, Kentucky, right across the river from Cincinnati. Her family was English and they had been in this country longer than my father's family. Somewhere in her lineage she was related to Lord John Russell, who was one of the Prime Ministers of England. She moved to Cincinnati at a young age and grew up there. I never knew my mother's father, so I only know of him, again, through stories. In fact, I am not even sure I have a photograph of him. He died when my mother was a teenager. My grandmother-my mother's mother-I knew quite well. She died in her mid-nineties. She was a very strong figure. When my grandfather died at a relatively young age, he didn't leave any money for her and she had not worked at that point. She had to support herself and my mother, who was in high school. I think my mother's older sister and her baby were also living with them. My mother's sister Blanche was ten years older than my mother, but was married and divorced by then. So my grandmother had to find work to support her family. What she could do was sew, so she became a seamstress. My mother, as a result, struggled economically in high school and then in college. She used to talk about 2 eating candy bars for lunch to conserve her resources because her family didn't have very much money. I don't know that much about my mother's father but he was a dry goods salesman. What I remember hearing about him was that he, too, was a jovial guy. In his case, unlike my grandfather on my father's side, however, he was a jovial but not very successful guy. One of the stories I remember is that he played minor league baseball-how minor, I'm not exactly sure. We are a family of baseball fans, so I especially remember this about him. My mother used to keep score at his minor league baseball games, making her a baseball fan at a fairly young age. As I said, my grandmother was incredibly strong. She was also very strong willed. She and my father have wonderful stories from when she visited us and when she later lived with our family, which was for several years.

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