Howard B. Phillips

From "Lexington" by Mary Wilson and Sharon Y. Asher, published sometime after 1975.

HOWARD B. PHILLIPS
MISSIONARY FROM LEXINGTON

Howard B. Phillips was born in Hendricks County, Indiana on October 28, 1885 and moved to Lexington, Indiana about 1900. The following letter was written by Howard B. Phillips in which he describes his childhood, college and ministerial days.

My memories of the folks of the Lexington Church are very pleasant and vivid. I attended the Sunday School, Christian Endeavor and Church services quite regularly from about 1900 to 1905. At that time I went away to Maryville College in Tennessee and for several years was home only during the summer months.

During vacation times from 1905 to 1909 I was sent out as a student helper and rendered what service I could to the Utica and Smyrna Churches one summer and also served the Vernon and Sapio churches another summer. This will show the scarcity of ministers that existed at the beginning of this century. I do not know if ordained men are any more numerous nowadays. I am afraid not.

I graduated from Maryville College in the Spring of 1909 and that Fall entered Lane Theological Seminary of Cincinnati, Ohio, and graduated there in 1912. I was fairly busy preaching all during my Seminary course. I served the Sardinia, Ohio, church quite regularly for a year and a half or more. They wanted me to stay on at that church after my graduation and were somewhat disappointed when I received and accepted a call from the Williamsburg, Ohio, church not many miles away from Sardinia; but in Cincinnati Presbytery I began work at Williamsburg about the first of the year of 1912. I graduated in May and was ordained the same month.

I was married in June at Maryville, Tennessee, and am still living with the wife that was joined to me at that time. We have had no children but our hearts have been constantly filled with love for the children of our churches with whom we have had a heffy relationship. Children and young people have always had a large place in our consideration and they have furnished a large part of the joy of our ministry.

We left Williamsburg the Spring of 1915 and moved to Cowan, Tennessee, and served the Churches of Cowan and Huntland till the Fall of 1917 when we moved to Cleveland Street Church in Nashville, Tennessee. In the fall of 1922 we moved to St. Louis and served the Richmond Heights Church until the fall of 1932.

We always had a hankering after missionary work. Dr. Somerndike of the Board of National Missions opened up the way for us and in the Fall of 1932 we entered the ranks of the Missionaries of the National Board. We served first as Sunday School missionary in Western Kentucky for 22 months and in June 1934 we were transferred into Indian work of the Dakota Presbytery where we have been up to the present time.

On June 11, 1912, Howard and Ruth Wilson had a double wedding ceremony with E. C. and Jessie McCulley Brown. Ruth's father Samuel T. Wilson President of Maryville College performed the ceremony. The Browns had two children. Sixty years later both couples celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary at the home of Brown's daughter in Louisville, Kentucky.

After retirement Rev. and Mrs. Phillips left the Presbyterian Indian Mission in Poplar, Montana and moved back to Maryville, Tennessee. Today the Phillips are still living there and Mr. Phillips is 90 years old.

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