Occupation: In 1955, Bob graduated from RPI [Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute] in aeronautical engineering and met Marje, who was a student nurse. They married and traveled to Florida, Texas, and California while Bob was a naval aviator. When Bob was flying on a Far East tour of duty, Marje stayed home in California with their growing family.

How Long In Newtown: Since Bob grew up in Bridgewater and Marje had come from Troy, N.Y., and she still had family in the area, the couple decided to move east. They came to Newtown in April 1959 when Bob accepted a job at Sikorsky Aircraft. “I could just cry when I think about the prices of houses then. We bought our first house on Buttonball Road for $17,000. Herb Rosenthal was in Newtown High School delivering the newspaper and his father, Jack Rosenthal, lived just around the corner from us. We had a lot of young people in the neighborhood,” recalls Bob.

Big Changes Over Nearly 50 Years: Moving over to the Grand Place neighborhood in 1968 was a huge change for us. We were one of the first families to go in there when it was a new development. Lionel Sirois was the builder. We bought the lot and then argued a lot –– about what we wanted to build. But we eventually persuaded him to do what we wanted. It’s a perfect neighborhood for children. The kids could walk to town, to the movies, to the Pizza Palace, everywhere. You could go up and down Church Hill Road and not worry about traffic. We lived here before I-84 came in [1965-66]. Once the highway was built, there was much more traffic and many more houses being built.

Marje remembers, “Newtown was like town and country at the same time. We shopped at the Grand Union or the A&P next to Edmond Town Hall where Herbie the butcher would tell me how to cook the meat. I shopped at Hawley Warner’s general store in Sandy Hook to buy everything else. He was a wonderful man. I was very active in the Head O’ Meadow PTA, and now I’ve got grandchildren going there.

Family: Our oldest daughter, Deborah Garthwait, lives in Woodbury. Her children are Melissa Hibler, who lives now on Castle Hill Road, and Andy Garthwait, who rents on Currituck Road. Our second daughter, Sheryl Lynn O’Marra, was a longtime teacher at the Newtown Montessori and Fraser Woods schools. Her two sons, Colin and Bryan, live with their Dad in Bethel. She died January 4, 2005, of breast cancer after a four-year battle with the disease. Our son, Robert B. Campbell, has three children, Bradley, Kristen, and Matthew, and they live on Stonewall Ridge Road in Newtown. Our youngest daughter, Meg Reilly, lives on Possum Ridge and has Sean and Katie. Our nine grandchildren are the joys of our lives. We are so lucky that they live nearby.

Hobbies: Marje is into needlecrafts, and Bob has an alarm franchise (really more of a full-time business), loves to read, and he says he “gets upset watching Cable TV news.”

Pets: We have adopted a feral cat that we’ve finally managed to catch and spay after she had had three litters. We’ve taken in some of the kittens including Hoover, who lives in the cellar because he and his brother Hampton don’t get along –– also Wilbur and Barnaby. We love the wild birds and animals; there are 11 deer who come into the yard, and three or four coyotes that are regular visitors.

Organizations: Over the years we’ve supported a lot of Newtown organizations like the scouts, the Borough Board of Burgesses and the Borough Zoning Commission. Most recently, we’ve been involved in Spay And Neuter Association of Newtown, and Bob is a 40-year member of the Masons.

Vivid Memories: All sorts of town organizational meetings were held either at the Yankee Drover or at Hawley Manor in their basement rooms. And Newtown town meetings were always at Edmond Town Hall. Then there were the Fourth of July fireworks we used to have at the Town Park that we could watch from the golf course.

Favorite Vacation Spot: Taking a cruise is what we love best next to being with our children and grandchildren. We’ve been on 28 cruises, and have spent a total of 249 days at sea going to Africa, Turkey, the Suez Canal, Egypt and the Valley of the Kings, and most recently to Europe.

Personal Philosophy: Marje: Though I stayed home to raise our family, I always encouraged my girls to out and get jobs so they would have a skill they could fall back on if they needed it. Also, I wanted them to work for their own satisfaction.

Bob: I remember life before credit cards when we had only one car. Then we got the second car –– a junker for Marje to get around town. I was very thrifty and saved for our retirement so now we can do what we want. I wonder what’s going to happen to kids in the future. They don’t save today, and they don’t deny themselves things as we used to do.

Marje: But you can’t tell kids that. You know we never liked to hear our parents tell us what we ought to do. Nothing changes. They’ll figure it out.

Snapshot: Marje and Bob Campbell