Narrative Summary
Interview with Lori Campbell by Ashley Diaz
After dining on Ozark’s finest Chinese food, my eyes have a hard time meeting Lori
Campbell’s. I know the interview needs to take place, but I’m nervous. I can tell Lori is nervous
as well. I asked her to participate in this interview, but each time we met she would say, “but I’m
not even that religious anymore!” I would encourage her by saying we still need her story for our
project, reminding her that even the less religious have experiences to share. So after I help clear
the table, I get the recording device out and say to myself, Let’s just do this! Lori’s eldest
daughter sticks around the kitchen table, eager to hear her mother’s story. And so I finally press
record and calm my nerves.
We started out the conversation talking about Lori’s parents. They have lived in the
Kansas City area their whole lives (her father up until his death last year). Her mother is a devout
Catholic and attends church frequently. Her father didn’t encourage participation in the Catholic
Church the way her mother would have liked, but she didn’t object to his way of showing his
family religion. In lieu of attending solely Catholic services, Lori’s father had her attend different
denominations when she was young, “just to give [her] a taste of what is was like.” Later in her
life, Lori would revisit this type of exploration with her sorority once monthly.
Lori cites her mother as the most positive religious influence in her life. Her mother had
always been constant in her beliefs. Lori admits her father was a more negative influence on her
religious life because he was the exact opposite her mother. However, this disagreement didn’t
lead to any tension in the house—it was an agree to disagree situation.
Today, Lori considers herself to be more of a spiritual person. She thinks religion is a
“belief system on how you should treat people and how you should behave.” At first, she tried to
get her Methodist-raised husband to attend Mass with her. There were some odd occurrences in
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which she was able to get him to attend a few times, but there came a point where attending
church didn’t fit their routine anymore. She rarely attends church today.
Lori doesn’t doubt God, but she does have a lot of questions for “religious zealots.” She
is confused by “tunnel-visioned” religious people who try to recruit you to their church, yet
damn you to hell if you abstain. She doesn’t agree with the religious trend to not accept science.
She accepts science as facts and evidence, and she questions the church because they do not do
the same. She attributes her education and her experiences with different denominations to not
taking one sole religion with no questions asked. She has a lot of questions, and the Catholic
Church can’t answer them for her.
As far as women in Catholicism, she is not bothered by their inability to become priests.
She is thankful for how far women have come in the church. She agrees that tradition dictates the
role of women in the church, but she doesn’t have a problem with it. At the same time, she
believes that religion should evolve to reflect more modern values. She believes being a religious
or spiritual person tells you how to treat other people and gives you expectations on how you
should be treated. She acknowledges that when other people don’t treat her the way she expects,
she knows she can’t control it and must move on with her life.
Lori encourages her daughters and other young people to make their own decisions about
their religious involvement. She was able to make her own, so she extends that opportunity to her
own family. Lori spoke about putting her children through religious preschool, but because of the
quality of education and not necessarily the religious aspect of it.
Although Lori is not a particularly active religious woman of the Ozarks, her view of
religion and her experience is still important. She represents a portion of the population that is
stuck as being not-that-religious-but-still-kind-of-religious. I think she actually represents a great
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deal of the population, considering the times we live in.
Missouri State University
Spring 2011
Religious Lives of Ozarks Women