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We were in Kelowna at my parents house recently and got to spend a lot of time with a lot of family. Although the primary reason for being there was due to a sad occasion (we were there due to the passing of my Grandmother, Isabel Phillips), sometimes sadness brings people together and we can celebrate the greatness around us. This was very literally true in this case as we had more of the Phillips clan together than we’ve had in a a long time. We were missing only my oldest brother Ian and his partner Edita who couldn’t make the trip from Germany.

We took advantage of the extended family all being together, and all being dressed up, to make some updated family portraits for the wall in Mom and Dad’s basement. They wanted an updated group shot of everybody and also a new one of Roger’s family. Click the thumbnail to see a few more pictures of everyone together.

It was really nice to hear some of the stories of Grandma’s life, including quite a few things that I never knew about her. Although it is quite long, I wanted to share some of those stories as written by my Dad. My sister Heidi read a modified version of this at the memorial service we had for Grandma. Dad actually asked both of us to share that honor, but I respectfully declined. I couldn’t even get through it the first couple of times I read it to myself, and listening to Heidi read it was really hard.

Thanks to everyone that extended their good thoughts and condolences, and especially to those who helped out in more significant ways. We are so lucky to have such great friends and family!

Goodbye Grandma (aka Great Grandma or one of the “White Grandma’s” to Melanie). We love you and we miss you.

Isabel Florence Phillips was born on February 5th, 1920 in St Boniface, Manitoba. She was the third child in a family that was eventually 7 children. She was raised in Winnipeg and then in her teens, in The Pas, Manitoba till about 1938 when she moved to Flin Flon because with the new mine there were jobs to be had. As Mom used to say she went to work “slinging Hash” in a local restaurant. It was there where she met this tall skinny young man who ate at the restaurant every day. Somehow it worked out that on one New Years Eve neither of them had a date and as things would have it they decided to go to a party together. That man of course was my father and the love of my Mother’s life for the next 62 years. By the time that Dad joined the Army and went overseas during WWII, I was already born and Mom thought it best if we moved back to Winnipeg to stay with her parents till the war was over. During that time she drove a Truck for the Cordite plant where they made bomb material for the war effort. Her cargo was Nitro Glycerin used in making dynamite and bombs. She was told when she volunteered to drive the trucks that the Nitro was quite unstable and if it was jarred badly it would explode and leave a crater in the middle of the road the size of an average house. She told me of carrying One ounce vials of Nitro Glycerin in the back of her truck from one plant to another and on one occasion mid winter in Winnipeg she was coming down a hill in an icy road and lost control having the truck going downhill doing a complete 360 degree turn through an intersection with cars going every which direction to get out of her way. She managed to straighten the truck out and without stopping at the other side of the intersection continued on her way. That didn’t faze her as she went right back to the plant for another load.

When Dad came home after the War we moved back to Flin Flon where we moved into a war time house and lived a pretty normal life with Mom going to work for the T. Eaton Company as a mail order counter clerk. She was eventually appointed the Assistant Manager of the Flin Flon Store. After working there for several years she went over and worked for Ferg and Ferg’s Law Firm as a secretary and subsequently received her appointment as a Notary Public. During the Flin Flon years Mom played softball at third base for the Rogue’s Taxi team. She always had a great batting average and used to say that she had to hit the ball a long way if she was ever to get onto base. Mom was a very good curler, wining several Club Championships at the Willow Park Curing club with her own team. As well at that time, she curled with Isabel Ketchin, Doris MacFarlane and Ruth McConnell in the Provincial Play downs where they won two Manitoba Curling Championships as well as what was then called the Eaton’s Diamond D play downs which was the equivalent by today’s game of the national championship or The Scotties. Mom was very proud in 1999 when she and her team were inducted into the Manitoba Curling Hall of Fame.

Mom moved with Dad to Regina and then to Rocanville when he went to work for Sylvite of Canada and then of course to Kelowna 30 or so years ago. While they lived in Rocanville Mom became the Worthy Matron of the Order of the Eastern Star in the Moosomin Chapter. And then later in Kelowna Mom was active with the Rebecca Lodge where she became Noble Grand of the Kelowna Lodge. She was made an Honorary Member of the Kelowna Ogopogo Radio Controllers Flying club for her service to the club by running their concession for many years when Dad was flying Model Airplanes. Mom was very active with what was then known as the Kelowna Shrine Ladies Auxiliary until Gizah Shrine Temple stomped on them. After that she became a member of Zarah Temple, Daughters of the Nile but was nowhere near as active with them as she had been with the Ladies Auxiliary.

Mom always wanted a daughter but then there was only me, a male, so it made her very happy when I got married and after a while, when she eventually realized that Donna was the great lady that she is, Mom came to think in terms of Donna actually being her daughter. And needless to say she was elated when we had a daughter and then her Grandsons had daughters.
Like so many people, Mom was known to all of us by a different name, from Isabel to Iz, to Mom to Grandma and then to one of the “White Grandmas”. That was a name given to her by Great Grand Daughter Melanie so that she could keep it straight in her mind and separate her two Grandmas from the Great Grandmas. Mom is gone from us in body now but she will always be with us in our hearts.

The Dash
I read of a man who stood to speak
At the funeral of a friend.
He referred to the dates on her tombstone,
From the beginning…to the end.

He noted that first came her date of birth
And spoke the following date with tears,
But he said what mattered most of all
Was the dash between those years.

For that dash represents all the time
That she spent alive on earth…
And now only those who loved her,
Know what that little line is worth.

For it matters not, how much we own;
The cars…the house…the cash,
What matters is how we live and love
And how we spend our dash.

So think about this long and hard…
Are there things you’d like to change?
For you never know how much time is left,
That can still be rearranged.

If we could just slow down enough
To consider what’s true and real,
And always try to understand
The way other people feel

And be less quick to anger,
And show appreciation more
And love the people in our lives
Like we’ve never loved before.

If we treat each other with respect,
And more often wear a smile,
Remembering that this special dash
Might only last a little while.

So, when your eulogy’s being read
With your life’s actions to rehash…
Would you be proud of the things they say
About how you spent your dash?

God Bless you Mom.

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