Mr. Phillips received his grade school education at Hatcher Hall School
near the Taylor's Crossroads Community, and went on to attend and graduate
from high school at Livingston Academy with the class of 1922. While in
high school, he played both football and basketball, and was also a member
of the Musical Department and Dramatic Club of Livingston Academy. He
played the trumpet in the musical department and acted in many plays that
were presented by the Dramatic Club of Livingston Academy.
After graduation from high school, Mr. Phillips took a
job in Burks' Drug Store, which was located on the square of Livingston.
In 1928, he began working for Ragland and Potter, a business that was
housed in the old pajama department building of what used to be Livingston
Shirt Factory. At the same time, his future wife, Delia Mai Eubank, was
also employed with Ragland and Potter. Although Ethan and Delia both
attended high school at the same time, and were acquainted, they did not
actually begin to date until the time of their employment with Ragland and
Potter.
On August 4, 1929, when Mr. Phillips was 26
years-old, they were married, and for a time, they lived with Mr.
Phillips' mother in her home on Preston Street. That particular house has
changed somewhat over the years, but is still there, just next door to
Raleigh and Nola Mae Needham. In 1932, the Phillips built their home on
East Cedar Street, and there they lived out the remainder of their lives.
They were the parents of two children: a son, Dr. James E. Phillips, of
Nashville, who was born in the house on Cedar Street, and a daughter,
Elaine Phillips Pennington, of Livingston, who was born in the old Lady
Ann Hospital in Livingston.
Today, their granddaughter, Donna (Pennington)
England, her husband, Robert, and their two children, Emily and Ethan,
occupy the house on East Cedar Street. As a young man, Mr. Phillips was
interested in many different things. He took art lessons by mail, and was
quite talented in that field. His granddaughter, Donna, has many of the
drawings he did, most of which were pen and ink. His daughter, Elaine, has
one he did of Mr. Robert Eldridge sitting at a typewriter as he worked on
the news for the Livingston Enterprise.
Mr. Phillips was a writer of prose, and Elaine has many things he wrote
over the years, her father always careful to include the date on each one.
Those Elaine shared with me the day I visited with her were all done on a
typewriter and were very neatly saved in a plastic cover. Elaine has many
wonderful old family pictures, one of which was taken during the 100th
anniversary celebration of the Town of Livingston, held on the
square on August 10, 1933. The people in the picture, including Mr.
Phillips, were dressed as pioneers, and a very small girl wearing a dress
and bonnet like a little pioneer girl was Katherine McMillian, who grew up
to become Mrs. E.C. "Dusty" Hale.
Mr. Phillips was also a member of the Tennessee
State Guard, Company A, 7th Infantry Regiment, and served as company clerk
of his company. He once submitted a slogan to The Nashville Banner to be
used during the war. His letter is as follows:
March 6, 1942
Slogan Editor
Nashville Banner
Nashville, Tennessee
Dear Mr. Editor,
I am submitting a slogan. If you find it suitable for your purpose, you
have
my permission to use it.
To the attack! With Guns, Fire, Hell and Steel. Never shall America be
crushed under an axis heel.
The managing editor of The Nashville Banner replied: "Thanks. I revised it
a little to make it fit." The slogan was changed to read "Give 'em the
Weapons, Fire and Steel, and we need fear no axis heel." That slogan was
printed across the top of a March 1942 issue of The Nashville Banner.
Elaine's description of their home in Livingston was
that of a farm right in the middle of town. They had a huge garden, with
chickens and cows, and at one point, they raised goats that Elaine learned
to milk. Her mother did not work outside the home very long after she and
Mr. Phillips married. A love of antiques was something Mr. Phillips
thoroughly enjoyed. Reeder's Auction was a place he loved to go to, and
the barn near the Phillips' home on East Cedar Street was proof of just
how much he did love to collect antiques. Elaine told me the attic space
in the barn was packed full of items her father had bought and intended to
work on when he found the time. Pieces of furniture he refinished and gave
to family members were carefully marked and dated with a permanent marker,
the personšs name who was to receive that item included, along with his
signature.
Mr. Phillips would have been considered a pack rat
by many, since he never, ever threw anything away. Elaine says he was
meticulous about saving every little thing, no matter how insignificant it
might seem to others. She told me how one day her mother decided it was
time to clean out the basement. She said it took them all day to carry out
items and place them near the street to be picked up and hauled away. But
when her father came home late that afternoon, he was quite distressed by
what he saw, and told them, "you'll have to take every bit of that back
into the basement...there's no need to throw any of that away...we might
need it sometime." And they did just what he said, took it all right back
where it came from.
Ethan and Delia Phillips were both members of the
Livingston Church of Christ, where Mr. Phillips served as an elder, and
also taught an adult class for more than 30 years. In some of the many
things he saved were some of the Sunday School lessons he prepared,
including notes he had made for each lesson.
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