Marcia Camp

Time flies, and my time is up.  It all started August 19, 1931, at the Old Saint Vincent Infirmary when I, this child of Carl Samuel Cloud and Clara Morgan Cloud, replaced the bright wonderful child who died.  Junior was a few days shy of six years of age.

I grew up in McGehee, Arkansas, determined never to marry, but I was a June bride at seventeen when I became Mrs. Ray Camp.  The 35-year marriage, ten of the happiest years of my life, resulted in four beautiful children:  Valerie, Drew, Angela, and Shawn.  The marriage also provide me with an avocation – forestry.  For 25 years, I was the Executive Secretary of the State Board of Registration for Foresters.

Shawn’s eighteenth birthday freed me to end the marriage and pursue other opportunities.  I became, among other things, a poet and writer.  Both prose and poetry have appeared in newspapers, magazines, books and literary journals.  Friends would probably add letters.

Books include You Can’t Leave Till You Do the Paperwork: Matters of Life and Death (1999); The Charity Letters of JoAnn Cayce (2008), Birth of a Poet: The Prison Letters of Justin Booth (2015), and Still Driving on the Sidewalk (2015); (maybe more).  However, my most important achievement was the seven-year Odyssey shepherding publication of Poems by Poets of the Roundtable: The Eightieth Anniversary Anthology of Poets’ Roundtable of Arkansas (2013), and my name isn’t even among the credits.  The Soul of Bernie Babcock is a work in progress.

The chore of listing names of my offspring I leave to others because the list continues to grow and change (and I adore each and every one of you). I am survived by my children, Dr. “Drew” Camp (Dr. Diane O’Rourke), Vallerie Wisniewski (Nick), Angela Camp, and Shawn Camp (Tina); and a host of other family and friends.

A funeral is unnecessary, so the family will hold a private gathering.  Memorials:  something designed to serve as a remembrance of a person - I would suggest that you read one of my poems or essays.  You’ll find them at any Central Arkansas Library System location.