Margaret Campbell, considered Arizona’s first African-American novelist, was born in North Carolina around 1900, one of 10 children.
She grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, married and started a family. Around 1942, and now a widow, she came to Tucson to alleviate the symptoms of arthritis and bought land on Santa Rita Avenue near what is now the Quincie Douglas Recreation Center.
Shortly after arriving, Campbell picked up a shovel and began digging a multi-level subterranean structure that would become her home for almost 30 years.
There were those who thought her venture more than a little odd but Campbell proffered her underground home would keep out worrisome weather that might be occurring on the surface such as dust and windstorms, not to mention the heat. She claimed it also deterred many of the insects that inhabit the desert and, of course, eased the pain of arthritis.
Furthermore, Campbell believed that the earth would eventually be frozen over and her solution was to go underground to save the populace.
“From childhood on,” she said, “I’ve dreamed that the earth was going to be overcome with another polar ice cap. In my dreams I see the sun disappear and the earth slowly cooling, covered with ice. I really believe this may happen in the next 200 years.”
She even wrote to then President Harry S. Truman advising him of the coming catastrophe.
“I believe, sir,” she wrote, “that if all the people prepared now, while there is yet time, they might save the earth’s civilization.” Truman never responded to her letter.
Curiosity soon got the best of her neighbors and before long she had a bevy of helpers willing to assist her in digging a giant hole in the ground.
After four years of excavating, Campbell moved into her modest 9-by-12-foot apartment about 20 feet below ground with a narrow stairway leading to her cave-like dwelling.
Sources say that with additional help, she added a second floor 15 feet below the first followed by a third at 45 feet and a fourth as deep as 60 feet.
She planned a 10-room house with a garden that would thrive on electric lights. But after 13 years of working in the hard caliche of the Arizona desert, as well as having plumbing and electricity installed in her home, she settled for her 4-room subterranean domicile.
Campbell enjoyed the constant temperature of her home and found it quite clean and comfortable. “. . . (M)y neighbors thought I was a little cracked when I started this digging,” she once said. “Now, they’re not so sure. Lately some have started about doing the same thing.”
She filled her home with books and taught herself to speak several languages including German, French, Spanish and Russian.
Maneuvering a small spinet piano down the almost 25-foot steep stairway of her house, she gave piano lessons to children. She studied Arabic and Hebrew, which led to her writing the novel “Iba: The Dawn,” published in 1963.
Over 300 pages long, “Iba: The Dawn” regales the reader with tales of passion and adventure as it details the fictional saga of Iba, the great-great-grandson of Noah, who along with other men, struggles to rebuild the world after the great flood.
Campbell counted on proceeds from the sale of the book to help pay her bills, but the book was not a best seller and she struggled financially.
Yet, although the book did not ease her economic woes, Campbell became a celebrity as newspapers nationally and internationally picked up the story of the woman who lived beneath the earth and wrote about the rebuilding of the world.
In July 1963, the Warren, Pennsylvania, Times Mirror ran a story about Campbell titled “’Deep Down Living’ Called Arthritis Cure,” and another article appeared in the London Daily Mirror.
Campbell never met a stranger. Her friendships lasted years with most people remembering her as a kindhearted woman who always remembered a birthday or anniversary.
Whether it was a deep discussion about politics, religion, or just everyday occurrences such as a game of dominoes, Campbell held her own with any group.
She was a regular caller of the radio talk show “Open Line,” which aired on station KCEE for many years.
Gloria Smith, local historian and former lecturer for the University of Arizona’s African-American Studies program, has completed extensive research on Campbell’s life and claims Campbell hosted her own radio program sometime in the 1960s.
Eventually, Campbell’s son moved next door to her, in a house above ground, and Campbell enjoyed watching over her grandchildren, although many children in the neighborhood also called her grandmother.
Campbell died February 14, 1971, and will be remembered as a woman determined to live life on her own terms and in her own way.
Her home at some point was demolished and filled in.
In 2010, mainly through the efforts of Gloria Smith, a grant was awarded by the Tucson Pima Arts Council to place a bronze sculpture of two women in the Quincie Douglas Branch Library. The bronze was created by artist Richard Quin Davis, the grandson of Quincie Douglas, the library’s namesake. The sculpture depicts Campbell giving a copy of her book to Douglas.
A copy of Campbell’s book can be found in Special Collections at the University of Arizona Library as well as at the Joel Valdez Main Library.
