Phyllis Leona Brandon was 88 years old when she fell asleep in the Lord surrounded by her family at her home in Calvert City, Kentucky, on March 21, 2017. While in the loving care of her daughter, Terry, she battled with end stage renal failure and lost the good fight.
Phyllis was born in Villa Park, Illinois, to proud parents Chaplain John and Melinda Hiebert Baergen on August 7, 1928. Her two siblings Elvira Baergen Boyd and Darrell Baergen, along with her parents, preceded her into heaven. Her husband of 47 years, Dycus Farley Brandon, passed in 1996.
As a child Phyllis attended Ardmore School and enjoyed roller skating to school and to the store for a double dip five cent ice cream cone. Working in the yard with her father and helping her mother wash windows two stories high were just the things for the tomboy she was. She loved to play marbles, climb trees and, with an old rotary mower, she would mow the grass into a baseball diamond and play ball with friends
until it was time to finish mowing. Phyllis hated doing the dishes. She would run to the bathroom, lock the door, open the window and escape until she thought the dishes were done. One of her favorite things to do was to spend time at the old Home Place in Corn, Oklahoma, playing with her cousins, gathering eggs, playing in the grain bins and cooling off in the horse trough.
As she grew older Phyllis went to Wheaton Academy in Illinois by train as it was seven miles from her home and there were no buses. She ran track in high school and could run faster than any of the boys and won many ribbons. Overseen by protective train conductors, this adventurously spirited girl took the train 25 miles into Chicago to attend Youth for Christ Rallies once a week with a friend. She was married to Sgt. Dycus Brandon on December 10, 1948, in occupied Frankfurt, Germany. They met at a Youth for Christ rally in a chapel on Rein Mein Air Force Base where she was leading the singing and her father was leading the worship. Dyke took one look at her and knew this woman would be his wife. Inscribed in one of her Bibles, Dyke wrote that she was the Proverbs 31 woman – a worthy praise to be sure.
The young Brandon family moved to Alaska in 1958 while it was still a frontier and not yet a state. On Easter Sunday 1964 during the 9.5 magnitude earthquake, Phyllis kept her family safe while her husband performed his Air Force responsibilities. Isolated from family, they would head south to the Lower Forty-Eight through blizzards, car failures, glorious scenery and fussy feisty kids and then north again to return home. They drove the Alcan Highway which stretched through 1,520 miles of wild and unpopulated gravel road between Canada and Alaska. Phyllis loved to camp and spend time outdoors, once earning a trophy for shooting a .22 pistol.
She and Dyke started a Baptist Mission in Big Lake, Alaska, and helped plant a church in Anchorage. She continued working in missions throughout her life as the message of Christ was dear to her heart. Phyllis was always involved at her church whether teaching young women’s Bible studies, teaching Sunday School, being the church librarian or church secretary. Many of her former Bible study ladies have come by these past few weeks to not only pay their respects but to thank her for teaching them the glorious Word of God. Phyllis enjoyed singing with her beautiful tenor voice in the church choir and with three of her kids when singing in a quartet. Her lovely voice harmonized with her children’s as only family can. Her love of the Lord Jesus was foremost in her life and she was wise in the scriptures. She will be missed.
John 5:24 (ERV) 24 “I assure you, anyone who hears what I say and believes in the one who sent me has eternal life. They will not be judged guilty. They have already left death and have entered into life.”
Phyllis is survived by her four children, David Brandon, Mindy (David) Brandon Hamm, Terry Brandon, and Matthew (Alou) Brandon, her three grandchildren, Tracey Hamm Lodge, Joshua (Laura) Hamm, and Jessie Brandon as well as three great-grandchildren.
Phyllis’s family will celebrate her life at the First Baptist Church Calvert City on March 23, 2017, at 2:00 PM. Pastor Jim Ewing will be officiating.
Interment will follow at the cemetery next to Mt. Carmel Methodist Church in Benton on Big Bear Road.
Father Achilles Karathanos will be officiating.
In lieu of flowers, Phyllis would like you to make a donation to Temple Bible Church, 3205 Oak View Dr., Temple, Texas, 76502. Please designate it: Church Plant, Penang, Malaysia.