Dec 20, 2021

Virginia Phillips passed away Friday, December 17, 2021.

She was the oldest of six children and learned to be a mother by mothering her brothers and sisters. She remained close to them throughout the years and was beloved by her many nieces and nephews. They called her aunt Jeannie.

Virginia has seven children, 18 grandchildren, several great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren. She was a hard worker and had a strong abiding faith in God. She loved to socialize and had many friends. She loved to get “fancied up” and put her jewelry and make up on. She was an avid reader and largely self-educated. Virginia loved to learn and was very knowledgeable about a wide variety of subjects. After her husband’s death, she obtained her driver’s license and got her first job, after 33 years of being a homemaker and a stay-at-home mom. She was very practical and her children and grandchildren appreciated her wise advice. She was always available to lend a listening ear and a hug. She had a knack for making a dollar stretch to clothe and feed seven children and could make a meal from whatever was on hand. She was always very accepting and her door was always open to her children’s friends who called her mom and whoever else needed a cup of coffee and a friend. She opened her heart and home to her daughter’s boyfriend, Harold “Butch” Hawkins, who like all of her in-law children became one of her own. She loved with her whole heart and gave freely with whatever she had even when she had very little. In her later years she was able to travel with her companion, Warren Aiken, who she faithfully cared for until his death. No one who met Virginia Phillips ever forgot her unique personality and she will be remembered as being quite a character. She was deeply loved and will be greatly missed.

Preceeding her in death were her husband, Lawrence O. Phillips Sr.; her daughter-in-law, Betty Phillips; her son-in-law, Harold Hawkins; and a granddaughter, Jacie Rae Phillips.

Friends will be received from 5 to 7 p.m. Tuesday, December 21, in the Piatt and Barnhill Funeral Home, 420 Locust Avenue, Washington, where services will be held at 11 a.m. Wednesday, December 22. Interment will follow in Fairmount Cemetery.

Condolences may be expressed at www.piattandbarnhillfh.com. Piatt and Barnhill Funeral Directors, Inc., Charles R. Piatt, owner/supervisor, Andrew C. Piatt, director.