Edna Mae Phillips

Mrs. Edna Mae Kent Phillips was born January 5, 1920 in Ragland, Alabama to Eddie Lee Kent of Calhoun County, Alabama and Willie Mae Kent of Douglasville, GA. She attended primary school in Choccolocco, Alabama and graduated from Cobb High School. After her formal education, she worked at the Anniston Army Depot, was a homemaker for several families, and served as a home health care giver for many years until retirement.

Edna confessed Christ at an early age. She was a long-time member of Seventeenth Street Baptist Church and ended her Christian journey as a member of The Salvation Army as a soldier of Christ. At the local Anniston Salvation Army Corps, a prayer room was dedicated in her name in 2015.

On May 30, 1946 she married Linwood Doiley Phillips. To this union six children were reared and nurtured to understand the value of human dignity, respect, sacrifice and hard work.

Edna loved all of God’s creation and traveled nationally to several states including to Alaska on an adventurous cruise and Arizona’s Grand Canyon, and internationally to Antigua, the Holy Land, Israel, London, England and to Canada. She was a seamstress, care giver, homemaker and a great cook. Her favorite dessert was her mother’s fried pies. She loved her many cats, flowers, gardening, visiting the sick and shut-in, nearly all sports, singing, music and line-dancing. Most importantly, she loved her family and friends. She kept many late night hours on the phone laughing and talking with family and friends. She was a collector of friends and pen pals as she never met a stranger in almost 98 years.

Edna had a lifelong thirst for knowledge as she was always curious and wanted to learn about people of different cultures and countries, technology, and how things worked; she was creative, inventive, innovative and adventurous and blessed with a talent for problem solving. Her motto was, “Find a way or make a way.” Because she continued to knock her phone off her night stand, she permanently glued/ bolted it to a piece of plywood. Until the very end, she was clear of mind, quick-witted and had a sense of humor. She loved laughter and always had a funny joke for everyone she met. She was conscientious and compassionate towards the plight of those who were mistreated and sought to care for those who struggled throughout their lives. She was the champion of the misfortunate. In her own way, she reached out to help people, animals and causes across the world by making annual charitable donations to Doctors Without Borders, Veterans’ Associations, Native American Societies, the Humane Society, the Salvation Army, and so many more. And in her own community, she could not bear to see any living being suffer, and provided meals to people and stray animals who had no one else to feed them. The family home was dubbed by some as the “Phillips Feline Soup Kitchen”.

On September 22, 2017, she completed her servant’s work to the world and was promoted to Glory with family at her side at the Regional Medical Center. Edna was preceded in death by mother, Willie Mae Kent; brothers James Kent, Winston Kent and Fred Kent and sister, Ruby Averette. Life and adventures with Edna will be remembered by Lin Phillips, her husband of 71 years; children Eleanor (Leon) Davis; Dorothy Phillips; Ruby (Robert) Gasque; William (Nadine) Phillips, Valerie (Rex) Slate; Sylvia (Gerald) Mosley; sisters Wilma McCalla and Eleanor Kent; grandchildren, nieces, nephews, cousins and many other relatives and friends, including Hal and Gail Childs.  

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