A Heavenly Reunion
Twenty years ago, eight friends, whom I had first met in elementary school in Phillips TX, gathered at my house in Arlington VA. Some of us had kept up, but not the whole group we had during our school years. Carolyn Plumlee Kidd was the one who had reassembled us the previous year in Destin FL. That’s when we christened ourselves “Ya Ya’s” after characters in Rebecca Wells’ novel, The Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood. The definition is on a pillow in my guest room.
Marjo drove from Bellbrook, Ohio; the rest arrived by air on Thursday, April 6. After a quick supper, we carpooled to a concert at the German Embassy, where we met my son David, who then lived in DC. It was my only chance to show him off to my friends. On Friday we splurged on a limousine to see the Washington landmarks with ease. That night we dined at our country club (Steve was playing golf in Bermuda). On Saturday we shared hobbies and culinary skills. On Sunday we worshipped together at my church.
After they all departed, I wrote down what I imagined our mothers and our teachers might have said about us, had they had their own get-together in Heaven. I happened to find this long-forgotten “Heavenly Reunion” piece just yesterday as the Great Pandemic, which keeps us all sequestered, drove me to dig deep in my files. Sadly, in 2019, one of us, Carolyn Plumlee Kidd, had joined our forbears in Heaven. I’m sure they gave her a warm welcome. In her memory and for Mother’s Day, here is my tale, freshly illustrated.
A Heavenly View
The town of Phillips, Texas has died and gone to heaven, but that special place exerts a strong pull beyond the grave. In April 2000 a host of angels who once lived in Phillips met at the celestial Nu-Way Café to discuss the activities they had just observed among their descendants.
First Layma Lister exulted that nine women had remembered her first grade assignment to figure out how old they would be in the year 2000 and had decided to get together to celebrate 50 years of friendship since first grade. Louise actually moved to Phillips in second grade, but the notion of having her wear a big number “2” around her neck during the reunion was discarded. In fact, we dubbed her “Queen Louise.”
Eulyn Dynes and Ione Thompson, the home economics teachers, were quite excited. “These girls certainly can cook! Did you taste those scones Marjo Hettick Van Patten made? And Johnnie Morgan’s shrimp cocktail exotique, Carolyn Moore Rhea’s lemon asparagus, Louise Hill Chester’s fabulous chicken tandoori, and those great pies of Deanna Flanders Hein! The Cut-Rate grocery store in Phillips never had such ingredients!”
“Eulyn, I know you’re proud, but you can’t top those incredible fancy clothes hangers and smocked garments that Deanna brought to show. Such fine craftsmanship belongs up here in Heaven!”
“Sakes alive,” chimed in Hila Cochran. “There they had that beautiful Gulf Branch Nature Area behind Martha Kirkpatrick Smith’s house and they didn’t even hike down it to the Potomac River to collect bugs or butterflies, like they did with me in the canyons of Phillips!”
“Acht!” coughed Mary Lee Franklin from the Colorado mountains below. “They went to a concert at the German Embassy and never once spoke German.”
“That’s because they were so busy visiting and getting along so well. They learned their third grade lessons admirably,” observed Opal Flanders pleasantly. “Why, five of them were in my class of 1953.”
“After the beautiful singing at the embassy,” chirped Evelyn Hubbard, “I heard them singing ‘60’s songs around Martha’s piano.”
“Which of us gets bragging rights about Marjo’s recorder playing?” Ada Creel asked band director Ray Robbins. “She and Martha even played the offertory at Martha’s church.”
“I liked the Capitol tour Carolyn Plumlee Kidd arranged,” Principal J. Irving Kimmins declared. “That topped the Senior Class trip I organized to Colorado in 1962! An aide to Carolyn’s Florida Representative escorted them to the floor of the House, where the President gives the State of the Union each January. Five Blackhawks seated themselves on the Democratic side of the aisle and four on the Republican side.”
“Did you see them at the Vietnam War Memorial?” inquired Cecil George. “Louise found Edward L. Pennington’s name carved on the Wall. Glad they are still studying history,” he mused. “We barely got to World War II in their junior year.”
“They visited the National Cathedral and the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington!” said a former Phillips Methodist minister to a former Phillips Baptist minister. “Our churches were never that grand!”
“I’m just glad they have roomier places to live than those tiny company houses we coped with,” said Patti Kirkpatrick Cooper wistfully. “And Martha finally got her bedrooms fixed up. The last time I saw them, her kids had banged them up pretty badly. I was pleased to see that she gave up her own bed and slept on the couch.”
“That Blackhawk wine Carolyn Kidd brought had a bouquet as enticing as the flowers Riley grew,” observed Lilburn Hettick. “In lovely Arlington, Virginia those Blackhawks had a hard time remembering the fumes from the refinery!”
“And they had such comfortable cars,” Ellen Hill told Helen Moore. “Do you think that limousine used Phillips 66 Flight Fuel?”
“I don’t know about gasoline, but I could tell that they enjoyed their lunch at Cactus Cantina, which was very much in the spirit of my Aunt Grace’s establishment in Borger,” replied Helen.
“Did you check out those cameras Carol Cochran Groom had?” Mike Moore asked Harry Kirkpatrick.
“Groovy,” Harry replied, “and I love the work Carol is doing with the Sierra Club. She’s right that those concentrated feeding lots are a menace to the environment!”
“The girls looked good,” said Jean Roscoe with a smile from earth below (she outlived the rest). “They use makeup and hair coloring to good advantage. I remember showing Martha how to apply lipstick.”
“I’m just glad to see them all in such good health,” observed Dr. Hamra. “They seem to be beating the odds on most diseases and none have had face lifts”
“Yes, but they could use a little more time at the gym,” commented Gladys George to Freda Shuttlesworth. “Johnnie’s the only one that still plays tennis.”
“My guidance counseling obviously yielded good results,” added Lellah B. Adkins. “Louise practically runs the Provost’s Office at the University of Texas-Dallas when she’s not helping her husband do business in London. And Marjo is a research librarian.”
“Can you believe how Internet-savvy these Blackhawks are?” asked Coach Dewayne Cleveland. “The email correspondence that Carolyn Kidd and Louise started, thanks to addresses provided by classmate Ray L. Robbins, was directly responsible for making this reunion happen.”
“Well, Carolyn Moore Rhea not only teaches English, but is a published poet, and Sandra Roscoe Stiles is an office whiz. I guess my teaching held up well,” stated Louise Boyd.
“And Martha, besides teaching piano like her mother, still enjoys creative writing,” noted Susie Hudson. “Her senior year she placed second in Ready Writing among all Texas AAA schools.”
“Wasn’t Sandra sweet to bring the lovely book about friendships and give all the women special tokens to keep their travels safe?” Evelyn Morgan inquired of Mrs. Plumlee. “I’m so glad all these Phillips friends have renewed their friendships. Why they have even brought all of us together here in Heaven!”
And so ends my tale of a Phillips Reunion in Heaven. But here on earth since 2000 we have continued to enjoy many happy times together. Thank you, Phillips Texas, for preparing us Ya Ya’s for truly “glorious journeys in life!”
- 2002 – Red River NM; and on to Borger for our 40th Reunion
- 2004 – San Antonio
- 2006 – Austin
- 2007 – Borger, for 45th Reunion
- 2008 – Fort Worth
- 2010 – Asheville NC
- 2012 – Borger, for 50th High School Reunion
- 2013 – Fredericksburg
- 2015 – Bastrop
- 2018 – Lewisville
When the Blue Angels flew over the US as a salute to health care workers in May, I felt they represented our Phillips angels cheering for us as we confront the Corona virus. Louise saw them fly over Northpark Mall in Dallas. “Beautiful and moving,” she said. Elizabeth Foss captured them above Cherrydale United Methodist Church in Arlington. David and Steve saw them over South Florida.
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