IN MEMORY OF MARION LOWRY PHILLIPS
and IRVIN EDWARD (ED)BOOHER

THIS PAGE IS DEDICATED to the memory of MARION LOWRY PHILLIPS, my grandfather, who spent 30 years of his life chasing down the family stories, tracing the ancestory, and making sure that the younger generation remembered the families that overcame all sorts of hardships to get a "baby" country on its feet.

M.L. Phillips was born in Lilydale, TN January 18, 1903. He was the son of William T. Phillips and Lulu Ethel Phillips. He lost one arm in machinery while working in a tire factory and lost a little more when infection set in the stump, yet he never let that stop him from doing the things he loved. He hunted, he fished (using his own mind to develop means of baiting a hook, skinning and fileting a fish, or holding a rifle). You felt more love in the power of his one-handed hug than most people feel in the two-handed variety. And even in his last weeks, his love of genealogy and history was given freely to any that would listen to the stories of his family and childhood. My last memory of him was his request for a kiss goodbye in the hospital a week or so before he passed away of cancer on May 14, 1975.

I ALSO DEDICATE MY PAGE AND MY LOVE TO MY FATHER,
IRVIN EDWARD BOOHER

Papa was 5 years old when his mother died of measles encephalitis. His older sister, Dorothy (Dot) became like a mother to him and his brothers Arthur (called Jack) and Harry. His father, Arthur, turned to heavy drinking for consolation.

When he was about eight years old, Nellie Booher, his father's new wife, could no longer stand the situation in their home. She forced Dot to move out, which the girl did willingly and she left to go live with a family named Hahn as a housekeeper/babysitter. (She was to later marry their nephew, whom she divorced after the birth of six children. She later remarried.) Jack moved into a local hotel until he joined the Marine Corps (he later married Edna Johnson and had two children) and "Snooky" as Papa was called by his family moved in with Herman Mann.

Herman Mann was an "adopted" member of the Booher family. He did not marry until he was 76 years old. In the 1920's he owned a house in Paris, KY which he had inherited from his mother. The railroad had transferred (Arthur, Sr.)Grandpa Booher to Paris from his hometown of Knoxville, TN and he and Grandma Bessie rented the house from Herman "dirt cheap" in exchange for her taking care of the house and cooking for him. Bessie was only 16 or 17 at the time and while living with Herman, the middle two Booher boys were born.

Things were getting bad in this country. The Great Depression had not hit in the cities yet, but had hit the rural areas and many in Kentucky were leaving to go the larger cities in search of work. So it was with the transplanted East Tennesseeans named Booher.

Grandpa Booher got a job with Boaz Construction Company building things in Connersville, IN and was receiving training as a carpenter. It was quite a change from his job as a conductor for L&N Railroad. He moved his family into a "double," what we now call a duplex. Next door lived Nellie and her husband. (There is a story about Nellie getting into a fight with another neighbor and Bessie trying to break it up. When she did, Nellie pulled a knife and tried to kill her. The family was greatly upset that Arthur years later decided to marry this woman.)

Within a few months, Herman Mann arrived in Connersville. He had sold his house in Paris, KY and moved in with the Boohers to help take care of the house and was living with them when Bessie died. Herman stayed from about 1927 or 1928 until Nellie Booher forced him to move out in about 1936 or '37. She is reported to have told Grandpa Booher, "I don't want to have to take care of some old man that's not even part of the family!" (Nellie apparently also quit caring for her three sons by "Blue Bird" Leitch, a professional wrestler, and in 1950 gave up for adoption her two sons, Jerry and Danny by Arthur Booher without giving their adult siblings the opportunity to care for them or even say goodbye to them. The search for the two "boys" continues to this day.)

When the changes started around the Booher home with the arrival of Nellie Sherrill ___?___ ___?___ ___?___ Leitch Booher (she was married 8 times, 3 times to Grandpa Booher), Herman was heard to tell Grandpa that Snookey (Papa) was his and he was taking the child with him. And he did.

Papa stayed with Herman until he was 15. I believe it was during this time that Herman may have died, since Papa then moved to Indianapolis to live with his Aunt Grace and Uncle Elisha Williams (his mother, Bessie's sister). He went to school briefly at Tech High School in Indianapolis, then moved to Macon, GA where he worked as a car hop at a burger joint.

Papa was a good worker and the owner of the restaurant took a liking to him. When he was 16, his appendix burst spilling infected contents into his abdomin. He was in great pain, vomiting, and ran a very high fever. He spent three days in a coma in the hospital there. Upon his recovery, he returned to work to discover that his employer had paid his entire hospital bill. Papa was touched, though he never told us the man's name.

The Second World War had been in full swing for several years and the War in the South Pacific was coming to a climax. Papa went down to the local Army recruiter and lied about his age, telling him he was 18 so that he would not have to try to locate his father for a signature. He went to Texas for "Boot Camp" and by August 1946, he was on a troop ship headed for Japan. He spent three years there as an occupation troop there. It was to be the first of four tours in Japan and one tour in Okinawa as well as tours of duty in Germany, Morroco and various state-side tours.

When Papa came home from that tour of duty in Japan, he returned to Connersville and started to work as a carpenter with his father. He would visit Aunt Grace and Uncle Elisha in Indianapolis on his weekends. While there, he went to church with his cousin and met his future wife, Doris. They were to be married 47 years.

In 1949 he and two other men from Connersville, close friends of his, moved to Texas to go to the Baptist Seminary there. Papa chose not to continue his studies, thinking it too difficult to work full-time and study (reading had always been difficult for him.) He re-enlisted in the Air Force (Army Air Corps) and was sent to Lackland Air Force Base. He had already had Basic Training (Boot Camp), so he was put to work as a Drill Sargeant. (For those that knew Papa well, that position was an hilarious joke! Mild mannered, even tempered, easy-to-get-along-with Papa as a drill sargeant? Ha!)

Papa spent the next 20 years (for a total of 21 years 9 mos and 28 days) in the Air Force in Communications Construction. He helped build the Loran sattelite tracking stations in Europe, helped with communications in Japan during Vietnam and helped with training in Rantoul, IL. He was proud of his military service and was extremely patriotic.

He retired from the military in 1968, the same year that his father died at the VA Hospital in Indianapolis and Doris' mother, Anna, was diagnosed with brain cancer. He took a job at Bell Telephone in Kentucky and the family moved in with Anna and M.L. Phillips in Cumberland County, Kentucky. Anna died in 1969 and the family moved to Southern California, where he eventually got a job with the U.S. Postal Service. He and Doris bought their first house on Keegan Way in Santa Ana and their kids, Dean, Kent and Lian went to school in Orange.

By now Dean was a junior in high school and Kent was a sophomore. Lian was in 7th grade. The boys graduated high school and went in to the military. Dean chose the Navy, but was released after about a year and Kent joined the Coast Guard, serving for a time aboard the USCGC Mellon, before landing in the recruiting office in Honolulu. Dean was later to go to work for the telephone company and Kent got out of the Coast Guard, went to college and law school and made a career in the US Coast Guard as an officer.

Just before Lian's senior year, Doris and Ed (as Papa was called) sold their house and moved to Kentucky where Doris' sister, Ruby was living with her husband, Homer. They purchased a modular home and placed it on a lot in White Plains, KY. Lian went to school and graduated from a nearby high school.

That year, Doris' father, Marion Lowry Phillips, died. Papa had only worked a few months of the year that they had been in Kentucky, having been laid off from Huebsch (Speed Queen) and not finding work. They felt the financial squeeze. With the few thousand dollars that Doris received from the estate, they returned with Lian to California. Papa took a job a St. Joseph's hospital while he waited to be called back to the Post Office in Orange. It took about a year, but he was called back.

Their kids married and had children (one each) when in 1981, Mimi and Papa, as they were now called, went to Kentucky on vacation. While there and on a lark, Papa went in to the Paducah Post Office to see if they would be interested in transferring him. They were, and a quick trip home and to pack was made.

Mimi and Papa first rented a house on Clay Street in Paducah, then moved to nearby Ledbetter, KY living in three different places there until Papa retired from the Postal Service. In about 1992, they moved their mobile home to a lot behind their daughter and son-in-law's house and lived there until Papa passed away from a heart attack on May 22, 1998 leaving his wife and three children and eleven grandchildren.

Papa, Irvin Edward Booher, was laid to rest at the peaceful Military Cemetery near Lebanon, Kentucky. The minister at his funeral stated, "Ed Booher was a Christian man. He never doubted where he was going or what he needed to do to get there. He knew. He didn't have to tell you about it. He lived it. He was a Christian in the purest sense of the word. It was a part of him, and all those that met him knew it. "

The greatest and best thing I can remember about my father was his willingness to help anyone at any time without question, without complaint, and without making them feel bad. I can remember when at 17, we went on vacation and driving through the desert 100 miles from anywhere we came across a biker, who was broken down at the side of the road. The man was a stereotypical chopper driver, complete with black leather and long dirty hair. Without saying a word, Papa pulled over and picked the man up and gave him a ride the 100 miles to the next town for help. My mother and I sat in concerned silence for the entire trip while Papa chatted happily with the man. I figured when we got to the town my mother would give him "what for."

He dropped the man off, returned to the car and before Mom could open her mouth, said in his quiet, gentle way, "He needed help."
Mother didn't say a word.

Email me at internet@wko.com

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