Day 24

Name: Melva Garrett-Campbell

Profession: Owner of Creative Designs by Melva, Team Leader for Mary Kay Cosmetics

Location: Her home in Scottsdale, Arizona

Question: What brought you there?

Answer: My ability to adapt

As I expand my phone book to include the contacts of contacts, I’ve been able to branch out geographically and allow people the luxury of allotting me time, creating a pool of subjects that can expand on their stories and ideas in the luxury of their own homes. Though I miss the face-to-face time and can’t observe my interviewee’s gestures and environment, I have been able to have richer conversations with strangers who aren’t wary of giving personal information out to a girl on the street.

Tonight’s interview really exemplified this. Melva Garrett-Campbell, a woman who spends half of her year in Texas and the remaining in Arizona, talked to me mostly about her experiences growing up on the move and her experiences resulting from that lifestyle.

Garrett-Campbell’s father, a WWII veteran and land surveyor, was responsible for finding oil in the years after his service. Travelling from city to city with his team, he placed his daughter into twenty one different schools before she was able to snatch her diploma.

“In the learning curve was where the actual problem would lie, because you would go to one school and they would already have something that you need in your learning and you would go to the next school and they hadn’t had it yet,” she said. “To give you an example, telling time. You would go to one school and they hadn’t had it yet. You would go to the other school and they’d already had it. So there was a time of very much embarrassment because in the days that I was going to school, they would ask you to go out and tell them what time it was. So I would have to go out in the hall, stand there waiting, hoping somebody would walk by and tell me what time it was. Finally, the teacher realized because I stood out there so long, she came out there and asked me what was wrong and I was crying and telling her, ‘I don’t know how to tell time!’ So anyway, they realized it.”

Making and losing friends both presented the schoolgirl with a challenge and surprising advantage.

“You make friends and then you move away and you lose that friend because you lose contact. Especially when you’re real young, you can’t keep up with them, and there was no cell phones, none of that type of thing, to keep you in communication. It was strictly letters or phone calls. So those are two of the hard things,” she said. “But really the coolest thing is you get to see so many beautiful locations in the United States and you get to meet some very interesting people along the way… Someone who moves around all the time has the tendency to make a friend wherever they go.”

Garrett-Campbell did eventually settle down in her junior year of high school when she got married.

“I got married on a Friday night, went back to school on a Monday morning,” she said. “I did have to ask permission from the school board to go back to school. I also had to have permission to go receive my diploma with my classmates because married students weren’t even allowed in school at that time.”

The marriage lasted thirteen years and provided her with her three children, all of whom live in Texas.

Though her husband didn’t allow her to work, she quickly got into the job market when the relationship dissolved. Beginning with employment at J.C. Penny’s, she found her way into insurance and now owns her own business, Creative Designs by Melva. She sells jewelry and women’s accessories from her home, in addition to the sales she makes as a consultant for Mary Kay Cosmetics.

Right now, however, all of these ventures are on hold. The entrepreneur tore a tendon in her foot, limiting her to a scooter until she recovers from her surgery scheduled for February 24^th.

Describing herself as a “born-again believer,” Garrett-Campbell finds the most joy in God, country dancing, painting, photography, and her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.