Polly Campbell

By Onell R. Soto, Staff Writer
San Diego Union Tribune

When everything was going well, the children's voices melding into perfect harmony and the hard work of constant choir rehearsals paying off, Polly Campbell was in heaven. You could see it on her face, recalled her son, Stuart Campbell, who as a child sang in a choir directed by his mother. "She was having the greatest time of her life and wanted you to feel the same way," he said.

That was the scene in May, when Mrs. Campbell directed the 350-member San Diego Children's Choir in its 10th anniversary concert at Copley Symphony Hall. It would be the last time she would conduct the choir she founded. A month later, she was diagnosed with untreatable cancer.

She died New Year's Eve at age 64, days after a series of private concerts in which members of the choir serenaded her from the courtyard outside the bedroom window of her Cardiff apartment.

Born Pauline Marie Millson in Oakhurst, N.J., on Aug. 9, 1936, to a short-order cook and a bookkeeper, she graduated from Douglass College and received her master's degree in musicology from the University of Illinois.

While in the graduate school's music library one day, she met James Campbell, a fellow music lover. The two soon married and moved to California, where he was one of the founding members of the University of California San Diego music department. Mrs. Campbell's love of choral music led her to found church choirs and lead choral ensembles in the schools her children attended. She presented workshops on children's singing for the American Guild of Organists, San Diego County schools, the Episcopal Diocese of San Diego and the San Diego County Choristers Guild.

In 1980, she joined the faculty of The Bishop's School in La Jolla, where she ran the music program. But her proudest accomplishment was founding the San Diego Children's Choir for children ages 8 to 18. She started the choir in 1990 after lamenting cutbacks in school music programs. "With all the cuts in the school programs, the choir is supplementing or, in some cases, even taking the place of music classes," she told a San Diego Union-Tribune music critic in 1993. "For some children, this may be their only opportunity to sing." The choir -- in reality several choirs under one umbrella organization -- would tour Europe and the United States. "She really excelled in appreciating what children could do," said her husband.

Mrs. Campbell was no pushover in the practice hall. "The kids sometimes didn't like her [discipline] because she really believed in getting the best quality music," said Sandra Timmons, whose 13-year-old daughter, Jennifer, has been in the choir for five years. Mrs. Campbell's interest in the choir never faltered. Until mid-December, she was sending letters to choir members reminding them of upcoming performances, said Diana Sonderegger, whose three sons sing with the choir. "Everybody knew that Polly expected perfection of them and she would get it," Sonderegger said. "They would be on their best behavior." Not only did Mrs. Campbell inspire her students, "she also taught my children how someone can die with dignity," Sonderegger said. And she made it clear at a board meeting last month that the choir had to keep singing, said her husband, who is the choir's interim manager. "She said to the board, 'The choir must proceed without me. It's had enough experience now and you've had enough experience that you know what to do.' "

Mrs. Campbell is survived by her husband and three sons, Stuart Campbell of Julian, Andrew Campbell of Tempe, Ariz., and Jamie Campbell of Amherst, Mass.; and her sister, Elizabeth Peacock of Fair Haven, N.J., and brother, retired Air Force Col. Chris Millson Jr. of Highland Ranch, Colo. A memorial service will be at 1 p.m. Thursday at St. James Episcopal Church in La Jolla.

The family has established a memorial fund in her name at the San Diego Children's Choir. P.O. Box 910411, San Diego 92191-0411.