A Death in the Family
A true friend of the College, with a name familiar to generations of Dartmouth men and women, is gone from the Hanover scene.
James W. Campion III, co-owner of James Campion, Inc., died April 7 in Grove City, Pennsylvania. He and his wife Dorothy were nearing the end of the long drive home from a skiing holiday with their sons in Colorado when he suffered a heart attack. He was 52.
Jim Campion's grandfather founded the family clothing business in Amherst, Massachusetts, and moved it to Hanover shortly after the turn of the century. His father, James Campion Jr. '2B, carried on the business until his sons, Jim and E. Ronan '55, took it over when "Big Jim" died in 1969.
An untiring civic worker, Jim Campion had been the chairman or a member of just about every community board organized for the common good of the people of Hanover or the state of New Hampshire. The Governor's Commission on Child and Youth Services, Mary Hitchcock Hospital, New Hampshire/Vermont Blue Cross/ Blue Shield, the Hanover Red Cross and its Blood Program are a few of the very many. He had been on the Hanover Board of Selectmen since 1974, as its chairman since 1975.
Most town businesses closed on Easter Monday for a requiem mass said at St. Denis Church by the parish priest and Monsignor William Nolan, chaplain of Aquinas House. Governor Hugh Gallen was among the mourners, who overflowed the church; flags lined Main Street; and 30 town trucks followed the procession to Pine Knoll Cemetery.
Among Jim and Dottie Campion's six children is a son, Edmund Ronan, a Harvard graduate who was awarded his M.D. from Dartmouth last June. Another son, Jay, carries on the family tradition at the store with his uncle.
