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May Phillips is listed at Lawrence, Douglas, Kansas in the 1900 census, with
both of her children, and boarders including Ernest K. Dewey, her brother;
in the 1910 census, employed as a stenographer at the University, living with
her daughter Helen T.; and in the 1930 census as a widow, employed as an
office secretary at the Y.M.C.A., living alone. Her son is listed in the
1910 census as F. D. Phillips, a lodger in Schenectady, New York, employed as
an electrical engineer. In the 1920 census he is listed in Schenectady, New
York as Frank D. Phillips (aged 33), employed as an electrical engineer (at
the main plant of the General Electric Company), living with his wife Norma
(aged 30) and their first two children: Eleanor (aged 4 years, 10 months) and
Frank D. Jr. (aged 2 years, 6 months). In the 1930 census he is listed at
1232 Parkwood Boulevard, Schenectady, New York, as Frank B. (sic) Phillips
(aged 43), employed as a “Designing Engineer, Instruction Motor Department,”
living with his wife Norma (aged 40) and all three of their children: Eleanor
L. (aged 15), Frank D. (aged 12), and Robert A. (aged 6). The children were:
Eleanor Louise Phillips (born 27 February 1915, died 12 June 2002, married
Philip Hutt); Frank Dewey Phillips Jr. (born 6 June 1917, died 7 September
1993, married Pamela Seidl); and Robert Arthur Phillips (born 24 March 1924,
died 1 January 2006, married (1) Shirley Jane Sharrock and (2) Donna E.
Dahlquist). Robert was my father, and Shirley was my mother.
May Dewey Phillips retired in 1934, moved to Wichita, and lived with her
daughter Helen Padfield. I am in possession of numerous letters written by
“Grandmother Phillips,” mostly to my Aunt Eleanor, but also to my grandfather,
Frank Dewey Phillips Sr., and my grandmother, Norma Celia Heter. The first
letter is dated 10 January 1934, just before May’s retirement. May often
visited the home of Maude Long, her niece, the daughter of Alvin Long and
Pearl Dewey, in Lyons, Kansas. Maude was a schoolteacher. Her subjects were
plane geometry, algebra, biology and physics. She would become the family
genealogist, and is directly responsible for my interest in the subject.
It appears that May Dewey retired due to illness, as she speaks of this in
almost every letter to Eleanor, beginning 25 February 1934. She wrote: “I had
an operation 17 days ago, which gave temporary relief, but I probably went back
to work too soon and am still not well.” She was working in the Alumni Office
at the University of Kansas at Lawrence, which was “terribly short of funds.”
By 1949 she was in and out of the infirmary, and unable to travel by car; to
visit family in Kansas City and Paola she took her first ride on an airplane.
Her last letter is dated 5 May 1953. Six days earlier she had sent to Eleanor
“by insured mail a package of photos of different members of the family that I
thought some of the family would like to have, as the family enlarges with each
generation and there are not enough of the old pictures to go around. I am not
likely to have many more years and my ‘havings’ would be only trash to be
gotten out of the way. Now I just love every one of those pictures and did not
want to part with them but have no place to put them but packed away in a box
in the back of my closet. ... I would turn over in my grave if those pictures
were mistreated. Am sure some of you will care for them. ... Not everyone
loves old things as I do, especially family mementoes.”
May Dewey Phillips died 10 December 1953 in Wichita, Sedgwick, Kansas. I was
two years old. I never knew her, not in person. But now, I am the one who
loves old things, and will care for them. And in the age of photographic
scanners and the internet, one copy of an old picture is enough to go around.
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