Hello, and welcome to my little corner of Find A Grave. Roughly a month ago (it's now 5/17/20), I stumbled upon a massive geneology project here undertaken by my late first cousin and south Texas cemetery transcriber, Charlie Amelia "Priscilla" Ward. It appears she made quite an impact on here for most of a decade. Charlie, whom I remember to be one of the more free-spirited of 30-plus first cousins descended from our grandparents John Monroe Phillips and Bessie Ann Cates Phillips Starnes, apparently did not give up easily.

Charlie logged hundreds, perhaps thousands of miles documenting our Phillips family (it's a horrifically common surname), as well as Cates on our Grandma Bessie's side. She scoured courthouses, archives, graveyards and contacted present or lost relatives. She really drilled down to get as much as possible from Grandma Bessie before her passing in 2001. But Charlie ran out of time in 2014 when she passed away near Corpus Christi.

Six years later during the COVID-19 quarantine, I was Googling the family's way-back hometown, Premont, Texas, in search of some interesting artifact for my father James Phillips' 84th birthday. By freak chance, I ended up on Charlie's cemetery transcription web page (for three counties), and a rabbit hole of URLs landed me here. She had, I'd say most, of the Phillips family and Grandma's Cates side already done. But she was thwarted at finding the grave and final resting place in Arkansas of our great grandfather, James Crawford Phillips. Since then, I've pieced together clues and found some missing aunts, uncles and cousins on the Phillips/Cates trees, and began building it forward with the still-living. Many, many thanks to Charlie's sister and first cousin Dona Dye for the trove of photographs that her mother and my aunt, Hazel Graham, so painstakingly collected and labeled over many decades. No words to tell you what it means to have that.

Charlie, I'm also hot on James Crawford Phillips' trail, and I've uncovered some compelling family history and lore. You left a gift for this old newspaper reporter, and I wish you were here so we could do it together. Dona says you'd probably verbally abuse me in the process, but back in the day I could take it off some nasty editors. To any of the Phillips/Cates clans who see this, I hope you find it interesting, useful or a means of motivation to add to it. Hopefully we can convene soon for a long-overdue reunion. Until then, the deceased here will wait.

-- Troy Phillips (Find A Grave ID 50372025)

Hello, and welcome to my little corner of Find A Grave. Roughly a month ago (it's now 5/17/20), I stumbled upon a massive geneology project here undertaken by my late first cousin and south Texas cemetery transcriber, Charlie Amelia "Priscilla" Ward. It appears she made quite an impact on here for most of a decade. Charlie, whom I remember to be one of the more free-spirited of 30-plus first cousins descended from our grandparents John Monroe Phillips and Bessie Ann Cates Phillips Starnes, apparently did not give up easily.

Charlie logged hundreds, perhaps thousands of miles documenting our Phillips family (it's a horrifically common surname), as well as Cates on our Grandma Bessie's side. She scoured courthouses, archives, graveyards and contacted present or lost relatives. She really drilled down to get as much as possible from Grandma Bessie before her passing in 2001. But Charlie ran out of time in 2014 when she passed away near Corpus Christi.

Six years later during the COVID-19 quarantine, I was Googling the family's way-back hometown, Premont, Texas, in search of some interesting artifact for my father James Phillips' 84th birthday. By freak chance, I ended up on Charlie's cemetery transcription web page (for three counties), and a rabbit hole of URLs landed me here. She had, I'd say most, of the Phillips family and Grandma's Cates side already done. But she was thwarted at finding the grave and final resting place in Arkansas of our great grandfather, James Crawford Phillips. Since then, I've pieced together clues and found some missing aunts, uncles and cousins on the Phillips/Cates trees, and began building it forward with the still-living. Many, many thanks to Charlie's sister and first cousin Dona Dye for the trove of photographs that her mother and my aunt, Hazel Graham, so painstakingly collected and labeled over many decades. No words to tell you what it means to have that.

Charlie, I'm also hot on James Crawford Phillips' trail, and I've uncovered some compelling family history and lore. You left a gift for this old newspaper reporter, and I wish you were here so we could do it together. Dona says you'd probably verbally abuse me in the process, but back in the day I could take it off some nasty editors. To any of the Phillips/Cates clans who see this, I hope you find it interesting, useful or a means of motivation to add to it. Hopefully we can convene soon for a long-overdue reunion. Until then, the deceased here will wait.

-- Troy Phillips (Find A Grave ID 50372025)