From the recollections of John Maxwell Campbell, descendant, and public records:
Colin was of Scottish ancestry via London. Rumor passed along in the family lore is that Colin came to America at the behest of his family to avoid the scandal of his bastard child on the way.
Colin was imprisoned at Leavenworth KS 1888-1891 by the Army for various repeated infractions, beginning with a stolen blanket. He had enlisted Sep 5, 1888, and was already at Leavenworth Sep 15, 1888. His enlistment record states he was 21 years old, but that was a lie. His family in London wrote to the warden in hopes of getting his sentence reduced due to his youth, apparently to no avail.
Little is known about the union of Colin and Almira, other than what is shown on census records. It appears that he and Almira met in Leavenworth, KS, and then moved around with their growing family from KS to Elkart, IN, and on to NYC by 1910.
Colin married the much younger Lillian Condron in 1913, and listed himself as a widower on the marriage certificate. However, Almira and her son John are listed on the 1920 census in NJ, where she names herself a widow as well. It may be they both wished the other were dead, so decided to claim the fact.
Family history relates an unknown relative at the funeral for Colin in 1937, which could have been a child of Almira.
He was a real estate agent in Manhattan by 1910, and later in Babylon, NY, and was Episcopal, a fact much lamented by his wife's Roman Catholic family. Per the memories written by his daughter Grace, Colin loved to travel to horse racing tracks all over the country. She claimed he had several extramarital affairs, leaving her mother to manage the household. Mother Lillian met her future husband while viewing a piece of property in Huntington, Long Island with her fiance at the time. Colin was the real estate agent showing the property. They were married six weeks later.
The photo attached to the family F1295 was taken in Bellmore, NY, about 1931. The children from left to right are: Dick, Cherry, Albert, Grace, Don, Peg, Lill, John and Melvin.
Calvary Cemetery is located at 49-02 Laurel Hill Blvd, Long Island Xway & Brooklyn-Queens Xway, Woodside, Queens Co, NY. GPS Coordinates: 40.7328, -73.9322
This Roman Catholic Cemetery is the largest cemetery in the United States with some 3 million burials. The cemetery is 365 acres in size. The first 71 acres of land for the cemetery was purchased on 29 October 1845 with the cemetery consecration occurring in August 1848. The first burial occurred on 31 July 1848.
