Helen K. McPhillips

Helen K. McPhillips, 98, of Fountain Hills, passed away at her home on July 6, 2018 following a short bout with cancer.

Helen was born in Grand Rapids, Mich., the youngest of five children. Helen’s parents and her older sister had emigrated from Poland prior to 1915, coming through Ellis Island. A lifelong dream was realized when Helen was able to retrace those footsteps by visiting Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty.

Helen’s mother would often encourage her as she grew up by saying, “This is America; you can be anything you want to be.”

The parents had entered into an arranged marriage, having never seen each other until the wedding. Helen’s mother was staunch in her belief that America offered her daughter value, education and opportunities never afforded her in “the old country.”

After graduating from high school, Helen first became a licensed practical nurse, later returning for training as a registered nurse. While still in her 20s she was supervisor of a small hospital in Cadillac, Mich. She recalled that her nursing career began before sulfa and penicillin were available. Her specialty was in labor and delivery and she enjoyed participating in the miracle of each new birth. On one occasion she asked the doctor to come in early even though the patient was not ready to deliver. When an unexpected snowstorm hit and roads were impassable, she had a doctor in the house for all the patients under her care.

Helen was married to Willard McPhillips, a pharmacist. Their first pharmacy was in Vermontville, Mich., and during the annual maple syrup festival, theirs was the only place to buy soft drinks for the 5000 plus visitors to their small village.

As a cadet nurse, Helen had first passed through Arizona in the early 40s when Phoenix was just a small town. She vowed that she would someday return, and in the 50s she and Willard returned with their small son and opened a pharmacy in downtown Phoenix at 7th Avenue and McKinley.

Helen worked as an R.N. at several Valley hospitals, including the original Crippled Children’s Hospital, Good Samaritan and John C. Lincoln. In her last working years she was an offset operator at Phoenix College.

She was preceded in death by her parents, four siblings, her husband, and in 1994 by the death of her only child, Robert, killed by a drunk, wrong-way driver on I-17. She is survived by a niece, Pat Styburski, of Grand Rapids, Mich.; Bertha Flood, who had moved in temporarily with the family in 1961 and who remained with Helen through the tough and fun times to the present, several pastors and their wives that she “adopted” as her kids (they all had known her son) and a host of friends of all ages who will miss her wit and wisdom and all the games she loved to play.

There will be a memorial/celebration of life at Fountain Hills Christian Center, 16239 East Ironwood Drive; Fountain Hills, 85268, on July 21 at 2 p.m. In lieu of flowers, her loved ones are suggesting contributions to the church missions fund which will be directed to programs Helen loved to support.