Irene E. Boyne Campbell Stoianovsky

What can I say about my mother’s cousin Irene Boyne Campbell Stoianovsky? She, along with my family’s friend, Graham Cranston, are the two people in my life other than my wife and parents, and children, who has had the most impact on who I am.

Cousin Irene was not only a cosmopolitan woman, but also a bohemian. She was comfortable and open in any situation in any place in the world with whom ever she met.

She is like a dish in a gourmet meal with many layers of taste and substance. The first is that she was a Christian Scientist, and grounded in the gift of acceptance, reconciliation and redemption. The second is that she had a complete commitment to her family and friends. She laterally reached out to ingather the members of her family and her friends through her letters and phone calls, and conversations. She truly loved her family and those around her. Thirdly, she had an insatiable curiosity about people and ideas, and a thirst for learning. Lastly, she was a self-contained person. Through virtually all of her life she moved without much support and love from her parents, other family, and friends. Her inspiration and motivation came from a gift that she held within herself.

Irene grew up in a family of dysfunction and hardship. Her mother divorced her father at an early age and remarried. She had to move frequently, and live with her grandparents much of the time, and, in other times, board with friends.

She suffered two life-threatening illnesses as a child.

1She not only suffered hardship, but she imposed hardship on her children by requiring them to live with family friends when Irene couldn’t directly support them. She married a man who she served as an undying faithful wife, even though most of their marriage, he live and worked abroad. She always referred to him in a formal way as John Campbell, as opposed to “my husband, John.”

She struggled to maintain continuity as she moved through elementary and high school, although she was required to move frequently. After high school graduation in Bakersfield, she secured a job as a teacher in the San Joaquin Valley. and, subsequently, attended U.C. Berkley for two years before she had to withdraw from illness. Later, while teaching in the L.A. School District, she attended and graduated from U.S.C. in 1933. Doing all of this while her husband was in South America and her children were boarding outside of her home.

Here is Irene celebrating her 99th birthday in Canoga Park in 1998.

Irene and “the Admiral” who was the son of a sailing friend of Irene’s first husband, John Campbell, on Irene’s 99th birthday.