Thank you for coming to celebrate in the life that was Katharine Kaiper Phillips. Most of you knew of her commitment to family, friends and community and her love of education and travel.
She was born to Raymond L. and Mary G Kaiper on October 12, 1917 in Covington , Kentucky. Her youthful summers were spent with her parents at Lake Chitawqua in New York. Her father graduated as an architect from Cornell University and designed the family home in Fort Mitchell, Kentucky where she grew up. Education was stressed from early in life as her great, great, great grandfather was Nathanial Lord, the first president of Dartmouth College. Katharine had a genius level IQ and graduated high school at 16 and went on to receive her degree in English from Smith College graduating Phi Beta Kappa.
She married Allen Sultzer and moved to the Phillipines returning to give birth to her first daughter, Barbara, in Santa Barbara, California on October 6, 1942. After divorcing Allen she married my father, Donald Vincent Phillips and gave birth to me on January 1, 1947 and gave birth to my brother Donald Vincent Phillips JR on March 28, 1948 both in Reno, Nevada. My father was a career air force Captain and my brother Andy was born in Japan during the Korean War on June 2, 1954.
My parents divorced and my mother, her children and her parents moved to Phoenix in January of 1958.
While her children attended Madison Meadows and Central High School, Katharine became active in advertizing and created the ads and artwork which still run today for China Doll Restaurant. She became friends with attorney, Sid Rosen, and for the year and ½ that he traveled around the world wrote a weekly column for the newspaper called Pedestrian With Passport. She also contributed time to the Phoenix Art Museum. My mother's name is etched in bronze on the exterior wall of the Phoenix Art Museum as vice president of the Docents in 1964.
She met her best friend there, Zoe Levy, and they were respectfully the first and second president of FOMA (Friends of Mexican Art). I remember during my high school years her having gatherings in our home to entertain the visiting Mexican artists. My personal favorite, Arnold Belkin, hers, RufinoTamayo.
Her love of the Mexican culture grew as Barbara studied in Mexico City. Mom traveled to Mexico frequently and at times took the younger children. We all went for holidays in 1964 and I celebrated my 16th birthday in Alcapulco.
When I was 19 Mom took Andy and I to Guadalajara for the summer. There we all gained an appreciation for Pre-Columbian art and Mexican culture and history.
Her love of travel took her around the world and she shared her special travels one on one with her children. Barbara and she went on the Orient Express and traveled by train from Paris through Russia and Siberia to Mongolia and returned home by way of China. On a separate trip she and Donald did an in depth trip of China and she and I cruised the Mediterranean with riding camels in Egypt one highlight but my favorite memory was when we were on a bus trip to Salzburg, Austria and the bus driver got lost my mom opening her map of the area and giving correct directions and the tour guide throwing up his arms and proclaiming, we are saved. She was the darling of the trip after that and everyone would go to her with their questions of the history of the area.
She loved learning and went on to earn her Masters in Spanish. One of her favorite memories was when she taught Spanish Literature for Dr Lewis Tambs at ASU one week when he was out of town and at the end of the week the students brought her flowers and candy, What a wonderful display of affection and respect! While working as a research assistant for Dr. David Foster, at ASU, she herself was published in Spanish in a South American research journal. She loved both these professors and their wives as dear friends and appreciated each of their personal libraries. On one occasion she was visiting at Dr Tamb's house when water started flooding the downstairs library. My mother's immediate outcry, "Save the books, save the books" and began taking them off the lower shelves and placing them safely at a higher level.
Her passion for learning and travel also extended to dancing and one year when representing Fred Astaire dance studio, she won first place in the Tango and was awarded a gold watch with the name Fred Astaire on it. She gave it to me and I had Petty's jeweler change the name to Katharine. I have a Katharine watch!
With love of dancing came love of music and she was so proud that both her sons had musical talent both in singing and playing musical instruments. She loved to brag that her son, Donald, played at President Reagan's inauguration.
She was intrigued by many things and in her last 10 years she was most consistent in her passion for big rigs. Every time we past one on the road she would state, "That's the biggest one yet!" One of my clients bought a home on an acre in Queen Creek where he could park his big rig and I took mom for the final walkthrough so she could see the big truck. The owners happily let her climb in the cab and get the feel of being the wheel. The picture of this is priceless and in the foyer!
She read every night going though 3-5 books a week and lamenting once, the loss to others of all she knew when she passed. She knew so much and I had the opportunity to join her and a small group of friends every month for over10 years as they shared ideas about different books, articles, current events and philosophies. There is an African saying that states a library is lost with every human passing. But I believe you get to take what you know with you and she will be able to share her knowledge and wisdom on the other side of the veil.
We children were blest to have her as our mother. She instilled in us a desire to excel - to be all we could be and to respect family history, and to respect the history and culture of other peoples and other countries. She loved sharing her love of history and geography with her grandchildren as well. My daughter, Jamie and I joined her on a trip which included England, Scotland and France and to this day Jamie talks of how much she learned at her grandmother's side. Jamie also appreciates how her grandmother would correct her English when she was young and how she taught her etiquette. Jamie stated grandma was always on her game.
My daughter, Kari, was equally blessed with special time with her grandmother. As a teenager she lived with her grandmother for awhile and so appreciated how she would make her special meals and be sure she was safe and comfortable. Kari was able to show the same compassion to her grandmother in her older years as Kari was one Katharine's care givers.
My Mom was specially blest because she was able to spend significant time with her great grandchildren, Kaliegh Powell, Rylee Powell & Shane Powell, who had fun having her read to them books, play games and share stories of her past.
I believe one of the highlights of her later years was going on a cruise to Mexico with her grandchild, Kari, and her great grandchild, Rylee, and special friend Sondra Pavlovic and family friends Savannah Dilettoso, Shirley and Angelo Yakis. She was able to feel independent and grand once more on her last big trip. And the highlight of that trip for her was to swim with the dolphins. I doubt many 90 year old women would have the adventurous soul to do that, but dolphins have always been one of her favorites and I have a wonderful picture of her smiling as she held on to a dolphin in the water. The thought of it puts a smile on my face.
A glow comes to my heart when I think of how wonderful her friends have been to her over the year and how the sisters of the relief society were always so kind to her when she came for enrichment and the different special and holiday events over the last several years. I want to thank the Relief Society for helping with the funeral and for the lovely flower arrangement they made for her. Thank you for the genuine love you showed for her over the years.
I so miss my mom but I know I will be with her again someday and perhaps she will greet me with her warm reply when asked: How are you? Better, now that you're here! I have a testimony of a Living God and that Jesus is the Christ and that we can share eternity with them as family. I know that one day I will be rejoined with my mother, Grandparents and my brother Andy.
I was playing music for my Mom while she was in the hospital and what a blessing that just at the time of her passing, Bocelli began to sing the Lord's Prayer with The Mormon Tabernacle Choir. That will be played for you now.
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