CAMPBELL, Kenneth 1961-1974

CAMPBELL, SMITH, PICKERD, COOK

Posted By: S. Bell
Date: 1/16/2014 at 01:36:37

[Waterloo Courier, Monday, November 4, 1974]

Joint funeral services for the five members of the Melvin Campbell family, of Belle Plaine, and formerly of the Waterloo area, will be at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday at Dahl-VanHove-Schoof Funeral Home in Cedar Falls. Burial will be in Washington Chapel Cemetery north of Cedar Falls.

The family was drowned Friday night when their pickup truck went off a bridge and landed upside down in a creek in Tama County.

Services will be for Melvin Knox Campbell, 34; his wife, Barbara Smith Campbell, 27; Kenneth Campbell, 13; Robert Campbell; 11, and Brian Smith, 5.

Mr. Campbell was born Jan. 31, 1940, in Lubbock, Tex., the son of Conley M. and Bernice Griffin Campbell. He married Erlene Pickerd, who later died in a drowning accident along with the couple's first son. He later married Barbara Smith Aug. 31, 1974, in Belle Plaine. They made their home in Belle Plaine after the marriage.

Barbara Smith Campbell was born Feb. 17, 1947, in Cedar Falls, the daughter of Raymond and Marion Eichinger Cook of 2905 Willow Lane, Cedar Falls. She married LaVeme Smith April 19, 1968. He is now at Parkview Gardens Care Center.

Kenneth Campbell was born May 20, 1961, in Clovis, N.M.

Robert was born Oct. 9, 1963, in Clovis, and Brian was born March 6, 1969, in Waterloo, the son of La Verne and Barbara Cook Smith.

Mr. Campbell is survived by his mother, Bernice Campbell of Borger, Tex.; two brothers, C.M. of Richmond, Calif., and Garland of San Bernardino, Calif.; two sisters, Mrs. Glenda Patterson of Borger and Mrs. LaNell Bird of New Orleans, La.

Mrs. Campbell is survived by her parents; a brother, James R. of. 747 Hall St., and two sisters, Nancy and Susan Cook, both at home.

Brian Smith is survived by his father, LaVerne Smith of Parkview Gardens Care Center

Friends may call at the funeral home until service time.

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[Waterloo Courier, Sunday, November 3, 1974]

BELLE PLAINE- All five members of a former Waterloo family drowned Friday night when the pickup truck in
which they were riding smashed through the railing of a wooden bridge near Belle Plaine and dropped into six feet of water.

The victims were Melvin Campbell, 33; his wife, Barbara Smith Campbell, 27; and their three children, Kenneth Campbell, 12, Bobby Campbell, 10, and Brian Smith, 5.

Authorities said the Campbell truck crashed into a backwater of Salt Creek, a mile west of Belle Plaine, about 8 p.m. Friday. However, the truck was not discovered until 4 a.m. yesterday when it was spotted by patrolling Belle Plaine policeman Dick Spading. Spading called a wrecker from the East Side Body Shop at Belle Plaine. When the tow truck raised the truck, the five bodies were discovered inside.

The doors and windows of the 1966 truck were shut. According to Belle Plaine police, the Campbell family had been visiting a rural Belle Plaine family and left to return home about 8 p.m. As the Campbell truck drove east on a Tama County gravel road, it came to a narrow, one-lane wooden bridge over the backwater of Salt Creek. The crashed through the railing of the bridge and landed upside down in water five to six feet deep.

At 4 a.m.. Spading drove to the bridge to check a report that the railing had been broken. He spotted the tires of the truck, and called for the wrecker. Tarma County Medical Examinwe Dr . C. W. Maplethorpe, of Toledo, said all five members of the family died of drowning after being trapped in the submerged truck.

The accident was investigated by the Iowa Highway Patrol, Tama County sheriff's office and Belle Plaine police.

The Campbells had moved to Belle Plaine from Waterloo after Mr. and Mrs. Campbell married on Aug. 21.