Preface- My Journey- Discovering Mary Anna Purvis

 

Mary Anna Purvis Campbell

It began with a letter- a small, folded, handwritten artifact written over 150 years ago. A personal message from a young lady of seventeen to the young gentleman whom she loved. At the crossroads of their existence was a small college named Bethany.

I sat in the Bethany College library, holding the fragile note- written by my own relative. When I was seventeen, and chose to attend Bethany College, I had no idea I had relatives who lived there in the past. When I returned to Bethany to teach, so many years later, and retired from the college, I still had no idea of these connections. But my relatives also loved this college as I did. They were an intricate part of it's history.

The archivist brought me more artifacts. Two journals, a scrapbook, pictures.... She took me to see the houses where my ancestor had lived and died- houses I had passed every day for years- unknowing. I visited "God's Acre" - the family cemetery where she and her family were buried. A cemetery I had visited and tombstones I had seen many times- unknowing.

This mystery had existed all this time, right in front of my eyes. We had walked the same walks,  sat in the same buildings, and loved this same small college and town- hundreds of years apart.

I wanted to learn much more about the young girl who had written the letter. It would take me many years of research and discovery to try and understand her life- to feel her moments of despair and exhilarate in her quiet but significant triumphs. I found out that I liked her, very much. I had not only found a relative whom I had not known before, I had found a friend.

Sources:

Photograph, Campbell Mansion, Bethany College