On weekends in the spring and summer months, you could almost count on seeing Jeff Campbell at Lake Lanier on his boat. While boating might be just something to do for some, it was like a necessity for Mr. Campbell.
"He'd been around it since he was a child, watching two older brothers go out, he had to do it too," said his mother, Mary Brooke Campbell, of Lakewood, Ohio. "We lived not far from the Rocky River Reservation, and he was down there with his brothers and the boats every afternoon and evening he could be."
Robbie Moore said he understood that a relationship with Mr. Campbell would certainly involve boating. And it was an activity Mr. Moore came to enjoy during the couple's eight years together.
"He brought boating to the relationship and I brought sports," Mr. Moore said. "In the fall on weekends we'd attend UGA football games, home and away, and then in the winter we did basketball too, and in the spring and summer we'd be on the lake. You could say we lived for the weekends," he added with a laugh.
Jeffrey Hunter Campbell, called Jeff by most, of Sugar Hill, died Tuesday at Emory University Hospital from complications of an immune deficiency he'd battled since he was 2-years-old. He was 42. A funeral was held Thursday at H.M. Patterson, Spring Hill, which was also in charge of arrangements. His body was buried in Avon, Ohio.
As a child, Mr. Campbell didn't participate in sports at his mother's instance, because she knew any infection could be deadly for her son. So he found other ways to occupy his time, she said.
"Of all of my children, Jeff was the most mischievous," she said with a laugh. "When he was really young, I couldn't do anything in the kitchen without sitting him up on the counter, where I could see him, and away from everything else."
Mr. Campbell's immune deficiency required frequent trips to the doctor's office for injections, but he managed nicely, she said. And though he still had to receive treatment as an adult, he managed to do pretty much everything he wanted, Mr. Moore said.
At the time of his death, Mr. Campbell was an account representative for ADP, a business solutions company. It was a job he enjoyed, and it allowed him to look forward to his weekends, Mr. Moore said. While their weekdays were often a routine, the weekends were always full of spontaneity and friends, whether they were following the Bulldogs or spending a couple of days at Lake Lanier.
"We enjoyed life," Mr. Moore said. "We found things we loved to do together, and that is exactly what we did."
Mr. Campbell is also survived by brothers, Bob Campbell of Olmstead Township, Ohio and Timothy Campbell of North Ridgeville, Ohio; and a sister, Luci Thomas of Grafton, Ohio.
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