Ben J Campanella

It is with sadness we share the passing of Benjamin Campanella April 23, 2020 at Mercy Medical Center in Redding, CA. He was born August 15, 1937 in Chicago, Illinois to Benjamin J. Campanella, Sr and Mary Margaret Malmquist.

Ben attended St. Cornelius Grammar School, Chicago, Illinois, graduated Class of 1956 from William Howard Taft High, Chicago, Illinois, and went on to attend Wright Junior College in Chicago, IL and Florida Southern College, Lakeland, Florida. He began learning about his family’s fruit and vegetable business - Campanella & Co. which was located at 1582 Northwest Highway in Chicago at the young age of six (just three years after his father’s passing). Between his devoted mother, his father’s brothers, and close family friends, Ben grew developing a keen interest and successful career as a wholesale produce broker.

In 1960, Ben was inducted (enlisted) in the U.S. Army, attended Quartermaster School for General Supply Specialist and, received Rank as Specialist SP-4 in 1962. He was stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Honorably discharged September 1966, he went back to work at Campanella & Co. In 1969, he married Nancy Strohm (deceased in 1979). In 1997, Ben re-married and semi-retired in Hendersonville, North Carolina where he worked part time and actively played golf with his neighborhood buddies in the golf course community of Cummings Cove. In 2010, a cross-country move to the Silicon Valley of California and later in 2020, a transition to Redding, California offered a full, comfortable retirement in spite of his internal battle with COPD and in-time acute complications.

He is survived by his wife, Linda Palmer Platz Campanella of Redding; son Craig Campanella of Chicago; his sisters Mary Ann Bender of Skokie, Illinois and Margaret Jean Peterson of Bonita Springs, Florida; beloved nieces and nephew ~ Jean Katherine Donath, Matt Donath & family, Peggy Kolber & family, Nancy Mazman & family, Karen McDonough & family, Kirsten Coakley & family; Carol Platz; memorably Jeffrey W. Platz (deceased 2000); Gary (& Dena) Platz; grandchildren Jeffrey M. Platz, Peyton Platz, Robert Platz, Audrey (great-grandchild Charlie) Seppich, and life-long friends Dick Teuscher, Jerry Sadek, memorably ~ Joe Pagani (deceased 2019), Bud Weeks.

Interment Northern California VA Cemetery, Igo, California. In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to the American Lung Association.