Marjorie Jane Phillips

Marjorie Jane Phillips, known as “Janie” to her family, died on September 25, 2017 at Oak Park Nursing Home in Auburn, Alabama. The cause was complications from Alzheimer’s Disease. She was 83 years old. Born Marjorie Jane Kleiner in Sheridan Township, Michigan on the wintry evening of March, 1, 1934 to Violet Jeannette Carr and Ernest Conrad Kleiner, Mrs. Phillips was raised on her family’s 280-acre farm in a close-knit community and family that, despite subsequent moves that took her all over the country, remained the bedrock of her faith and values. In 1957, she married Morgan L. Phillips in Findlay, Ohio, divorcing in 1978. They had one son, Matthew Scott Phillips, born in 1961. She never remarried. Mrs. Phillips was educated in the one-room school house at Eagle Corners in Sheridan Township, and later graduated from Clare High School in 1951. Although she considered applying to the University of Michigan, she ultimately chose to study nursing at St. Mary’s School of Nursing in Saginaw, Michigan, graduating in 1954. Her 40 year-long nursing career would take her to hospitals in New Haven, Connecticut, New York City, Parsipanny, New Jersey, Marion, Ohio and Delaware, Ohio. She retired from Riverside Methodist Hospital (Columbus, Ohio) in 1996. She was a caring, compassionate caregiver, a fierce advocate for her patients and a champion of best practices in her field. In the 1970s, she took a respite from her nursing career to develop and teach in a program devoted to health occupations at the Delaware County Joint Vocational School in Delaware, Ohio, and produced many successful students who went on to careers as nursing and dental assistants as well as other support positions in the medical field. Mrs. Phillips was a very spiritual woman, whose roots at Eagle Church of God ran deep. Although she belonged to several different Protestant denominations during her lifetime, her compassion, generosity and empathy for others was the outward manifestation of the core of her faith. She was a devoted mother, who supported her son in all of his endeavors, tolerated his flaws and foibles, always returning adolescent filial insensitivity with unconditional love. She was a doting grandmother who taught both of her grandsons to read at the age of four, inspired one to become a pianist by introducing him to her upright piano, and spent many hours planning activities for them when son and daughter-in-law were at work and graduate school. Predeceased by her parents and her brothers, Stanley, Gordon and Walter Kleiner, Mrs. Phillips was the last surviving member of her immediate family. In addition to her son, Matthew (Scott) Phillips and daughter-in-law Margaret (Maggie) Phillips (whom she loved and cherished as dearly as much as she did her son) of Auburn, Alabama, she is survived by grandsons Samuel Morgan Phillips of San Francisco, California, and Maxwell Conrad Phillips of Tuscaloosa, Alabama; four nieces, Diana Liedtke of Benton Harbor, Michigan, Loretta Hoffer and Valerie Larson of Indianapolis, and Melissa Kleiner of Findlay, Ohio; three nephews, Kurt Kleiner of Toronto, Karl Kleiner of Cincinnati, and Michael Kleiner of Poquoson, Virginia. She is also survived by a large number of great and great-great nieces and nephews. Funeral Services will be held at 2pm, Saturday October 21 at Eagle Church of God in Clare, Michigan, with burial to follow at Cherry Grove Cemetery in Clare, Michigan, the Reverend Gary Vander Veen officiating. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to The Alzheimer’s Association https://alz.org/. Arrangements were handled by the Clare Chapel of Stephenson-Wyman Funeral Home. Online guestbook at www.stephenson-wyman.com

Marjorie Jane Phillips

March 1, 1934 - September 25, 2017