Phyliss Ann Galbraith

Phyliss Galbraith, née Smith, of Homosassa Springs, FL (and Wichita, KS), passed away in her sleep on February 5th, 2024. She was preceded in death by her mother Lois Pfau, née Webb, and stepfather Jack Pfau, both of Homosassa Springs, FL; father John B Smith of Inez, KY; and brother Johnny Smith, and stepbrother John Pfau, both of Grayson, KY.

Phyliss is survived by her loving husband and soulmate of 47 years (since both were 18), John Galbraith, of Homosassa Springs, FL (and Wichita KS); dear daughter Hathir (Heather) Galbraith Pfau, and spunky grandchildren Caelius Rowan and Rose DeConto, all of Haw River, NC; half-sister Cecilia Kazee of Inez, KY; stepsisters Donna Hvisdas of Palmyra, NJ, and Judy Andrews of Wake Forrest, NC; and many cousins, aunts, and uncles still living in Kentucky (the home of her birth).

Following a short tour of duty in US Army Intelligence (where she met her husband), Phyliss graduated from Morehead State University in Kentucky with a degree in Nursing and had a long career in healthcare and medicine in Kentucky, California, Ohio, and Kansas.

Phyliss was a voracious reader throughout her life. She would read one to two books every week and on most days she would fall asleep laying on her side while reading a book. Her husband estimates she read over two-thousand books in her lifetime.

After retiring, Phyliss became a snowbird in Homosassa Springs, FL (traveling between Wichita and Homosassa Springs). Phyliss was living her best life tending to her garden, feeding ducks, and trying to dognap her grand-dog Stormy. In addition to her love of books, Phyliss also enjoyed Mexican restaurants, margaritas, vacationing in Seattle, reading the New York Times (NYT) and comment posting famously as Phyliss Dalmatian, and watching her solar wind chimes light up at sunset. She made friends easily everywhere she went - as her mother, Lois, always said, “Phyliss has a heart of gold”.

Phyliss’s favorite place in the world was Seattle, Washington, and her favorite place in Seattle was Pike Place Market. In keeping with her wishes, a memorial will be planned at a later date, and her ashes will be scattered near Pike Place Market. Condolences may be sent in care of Merritt Funeral Home, Spring Hill, Florida.

This is a summary of my life with Phyliss. Despite its length, it is only a small portion of our life together, and my memories of her. I write this for the family and friends of Phyliss.

I met Phyliss Smith in February 1977 at the U.S. Air Force School of Applied Cryptologic Sciences, which was located at Goodfellow Air Force Base (AFB), Texas just outside of San Angelo, Texas. We had both enlisted in the U.S Army as MOS 98C10 Electronic Warfare Signals Intelligence Analysts (aka Communications Traffic Analysts, or simply code breakers). I enlisted from my home state of Utah, and she from her home state of Kentucky. The Army sent us to the Air Force for our initial training. When I saw Phyliss for the first time (I think in a typing class because code breakers have to be fast typists), she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. I was smitten. I learned later that she had seen me when I was going through reception because she had arrived early and was acting as an orderly for the training staff, and was running an errand when she saw me in reception. Later, she told me she was very taken with me. Our mutual friends at the school schemed to get us together and a little over 2 months later (April 29, 1977) we were married (in San Angelo. Texas).

After we graduated from the U.S. Air Force School of Applied Cryptologic Sciences (May 17, 1977), we had some time before our next duty assignment, so we traveled to Phyliss’s home of Grayson in Eastern Kentucky where I met her family. I remembered we arrived late at night and I was asleep until we got to her family’s home. This is when I met her mother Lois Pfau, her stepfather, Jack Pfau, her brother Johnny Smith, her stepbrother John Pfau, and her stepsister Judy Pfau. I don’t believe I met her other stepsister Donna during this trip. I was fearful meeting them for the first time (would they accept me?), but they were so nice, that I immediately took a strong liking to them. It was also during this trip, or another trip soon after, that I met Phyliss’s father, John B. Smith, for the first time. Later, I met many of Phyliss’s relatives from her Mother’s side of the family (the Webbs) and they were so friendly and kind.

After the trip to Phyliss’s home, the Army sent us to Ft. Devens, MA for Advanced Individual Training (AIT), which was Signals Intelligence training specific to the Army. It was at Ft. Devens that Phyliss and I had to go through an Escape and Evasions Course. Unfortunately, we both were captured and spent most of the time in a POW camp being questioned and mock tortured. After Ft. Devens, the Army sent us to Ft. Hood, Texas where we were both stationed at the 375th Army Security Agency (ASA) Company. It was while we were stationed at Ft. Hood that we had our daughter (Hathir, née Heather). Hathir was born January 11, 1978. Due to some serious medical complications, Phyliss was sent to Brooks Army Medical Center in San Antonio to treat her condition, and to deliver the baby via Cesarean section. This was the reason we decided not to have any more children.

Phyliss separated from the Army to take care of Hathir and I was sent to Okinawa for a 14 month unaccompanied overseas short tour. During this time, Phyliss and Hathir went to live with her parents (Jack and Lois). Phyliss also started going to school at Morehead State University (about 40 miles from Grayson). When I returned from Okinawa, we moved into married student housing at Morehead State. We both used the Vietnam era G.I. Bill to go to school. It was the best G.I. Bill ever offered. Phyliss got her degree in Nursing, and I double majored in Physics and Math, but before graduation, I transferred to the University of Kentucky (main Lexington campus) to switch my major to Electrical Engineering (where the real money was). Phyliss and I moved into a small apartment over a woman’s home right next to campus (127 1/2 Waller Ave, Lexington, KY), and I graduated with a BSEE in 1985.

Phyliss had supported me the whole time I was in school, either working as a Nurses Aide, or after she graduated, as a Registered Nurse. After I graduated, I joined the U.S. Air Force as a Development Engineer and was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant. My first duty station was at the Air Force Space Division in Los Angeles. Phyliss joined me a short time later (sometime in early 1986). She had been staying with her parents while i was in officer training at Lackland AFB, Texas. It was in California where Phyliss transitioned from Nursing to medical laboratory work, specifically in the area of Pathology. As a Nurse, Phyliss worked mostly in Cardiac Care and Intensive Care. She would often come home with blood on her uniform. I believe one of the reasons she left Nursing was to reduce the amount of stress caring for seriously ill patients.

In 1991, the U.S. Air Force transferred me to the Aeronautical Systems Division (ASD) at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, just outside of Dayton, Ohio. Phyliss and I bought a home in Dayton (our area was later renamed Riverside, Ohio). Phyliss worked several places in Ohio, but she eventually settled on Mount Carmel Medical Center in Columbus (their main facility), Ohio. She worked in the Pathology Department helping the Pathologists with autopsies and preparing laboratory samples for testing. Because we were in Ohio, we had relatively easy access to visit her family in Kentucky and we took many trips there during this period. I separated from the Air Force at the end of 1992 and eventually found a job with Beechcraft in Wichita, Kansas (November 1994). Phyliss stayed in Dayton for several years, before eventually joining me in Wichita, Kansas in early 2001. During the period we were apart, I traveled many times to Dayton, and she traveled sometimes to Wichita.

After Phyliss joined me in Wichita in 2001, we bought a home there (it’s actually located in Andover, Kansas). Initially, she told me the home was her “Dream House”, but after she lived in Kansas for a while, she really began to dislike it. What she disliked most was the climate/weather. She grew up in Eastern Kentucky. A very green, hilly place, with lots of rain and water. Kansas is mostly flat and brown, and relative to Kentucky, has only a little water. I don’t believe I can recall any time we’ve had rain in Wichita that didn’t come with lightning. If you’ve got rain, you’ve got lightning. Phyliss called Kansas “Dusty”. The other weather problems, of course, are the tornadoes. In our time there, Phyliss saw two tornadoes from our yard. She saw one many years ago (back in the 2000’s) when I was on a business trip. I got an emergency phone call from work saying my wife had contacted them and she needed to talk to me because our home was hit by a tornado. There was obviously a miscommunication because when I called her she said no, that a tornado passed by, but didn’t hit the house. She saw it. It was only an EF-0 or EF-1, but still it would have caused significant damage had it hit the house. The other Tornado she saw was the EF-3 tornado that hit Andover, KS on April 29, 2022. We were both at home, but she went outside to look around and saw it to the south. There were many other times we would have to seek shelter (in the basement under the stairs) because of nearby tornadoes. And of course, when we originally moved into the home in 2001, the prior homeowner said that the terrible F5 tornado that struck Andover in 1991 passed only a quarter of a mile from the house. His wife laughed at that recalling that he hid under their pool table in the basement after he saw the tornado. These things made it dead certain we were not going to stay in Kansas after retirement.

Phyliss started looking around at places for us to retire to in the mid-2000s. She considered Kentucky, Florida (her parents had moved to Florida for retirement in the mid-2000s), and most especially Seattle, Washington. Phyliss had developed a strong interest in Seattle from watching the Grey’s Anatomy television series, which was set in Seattle. At the time, Grey’s Anatomy was her favorite television show. So I took Phyliss on our first trip to Seattle, Washington in 2008. The trip was an adventure, not just because Phyliss hadn’t flown in a long time (we drove to most places), but also because our flight from Dallas to Seattle had to be diverted to Amarillo because we had an electrical fire on the plane. We went from 30,000 ft to the Amarillo airfield in something like 5-10 minutes. It was a controlled dive all the way. I still have the picture I took of Phyliss at the Amarillo airport holding the Diversion Passenger sign up. We eventually got to Seattle, and she fell in love with the place immediately. Even though on our first trip she spent half her time really sick (she caught the flu, probably on the plane trip), you can see in the photographs I took of her the sheer love she had for the place (I will be posting some of them separately from this). Over the subsequent trips (maybe 6-10 trips total), we went everywhere in Washington state west of the Cascade mountains (Phyliss was not interested in Eastern Washington). To the West, we traveled all over the Olympic Peninsula, and the islands (including all the San Juan Islands); to the North, we went as far as Bellingham; to the South, we went as far as Portland, Oregon; to the East, we went as far as the Cascade mountains. We’ve been to Johnston Ridge Observatory to look at a smoking Mount St. Helens; we’ve been up to Paradise on Mt. Rainier to have lunch in the lodge; we’ve been to all the Rain Forests of the Olympic Peninsula and on top of the Olympic Mountains at Hurricane Ridge; we shopped at some of the nicest stores in downtown Seattle (e.g. Nordstroms & Macy’s); we’ve dined at the finest restaurants in Seattle and the surrounding area; we toured the two main museums (Seattle Art Museum and the Asian Art Museum) several times; and we spent many hours in Pike Place Market, which is located close to the waterfront, on the northwest side of Seattle’s Central Business District. Pike Place Market was Phyliss’s favorite place in Seattle.

We resolved to move to the Seattle area after I had retired from Textron Aviation/Beechcraft (Phyliss had previously retired). If not Seattle, then some place close enough to be able to easily visit. Phyliss’s favorite place outside of Seattle was Port Angeles on the Olympic Peninsula. Unfortunately, events transpired to put our re-location to the Seattle area on hold (for several years). This included my unexpected early retirement in 2019, the COVID pandemic that hit in 2020, and the passing of Phyliss’s Mother (Lois Pfau) & Stepfather (Jack Pfau) in early 2021. This made it impossible to get our place in Wichita ready for sale. It took over a year for us to handle the Pfau’s estate. We were just put in a position days before Phyliss passed away that would have allowed us to get the Wichita place ready for sale and on the market. I told Phyliss about our good fortune and that I thought we would be able to get our Wichita place ready for Sale and on the Market this year and we could possible move to the Seattle area next year. She was cautiously optimistic, but she said there was no rush. For now she was OK living in Homosassa Springs at her parent’s old home. She liked it far better than Wichita. Still, I knew her ultimate wish was to move to Seattle, so I started making the plans for what we would need to do to get to Seattle when we returned to Wichita in April of 2024. And then just a couple of days later came the morning of Feb 5, 2024……and my whole world came undone.

Some interesting facts about Phyliss (not mentioned in her obituary except for the one on reading):

When Phyliss was in school (I think High School) she took Spanish. Her Spanish class took a trip to Spain. She was so proud of that. She told me she got to see the Rock of Gibraltar. I don’t remember if they ever crossed over into Morocco, but I know she talked a lot about the Rock of Gibraltar. Early in our marriage, Phyliss used to speak to me in Spanish all the time. Of course, her favorite thing to say to me was “Yo Te Amo”, or “I Love You”.

Phyliss’s pet name for me was “Puppy”. I’m not sure where that came from but she had “Puppy” and our wedding date inscribed on the inside of the wedding ring she bought for me to replace the original one I lost when we were living in Lexington, KY. She used to call me “Puppy” all the time.

Phyliss wanted me to call her “Piggy” as a pet name. Like “Puppy” above, I’m not sure where that came from. I used it early in our marriage, but stopped later on and she didn’t seem to mind.

She used to surprise me (early in our marriage) and throw cald water on me when I was in the shower. I thought that was something only male relatives did. But I got her back in spades.

For the first part of our marriage, Phyliss used to like to take bubble baths, rather than showers. I’m sure if we had bathrooms with large bathtubs in the places we’ve lived more recently, she would probably still take baths. It’s really been decades since I’ve seen her take any kind of bath (it’s all been showers for the last 20-30 years).

Phyliss was the fastest reader I’ve ever met. She could read a book in less than a day if she really got into it. If we both were looking at something we had to read (an ad with a lot of words for instance), she would glance at it for a second or two and have it down, where it might take me a few tens of seconds. Her reading speed was spectacular.

Like her mother, Phyliss was great with plants. She was constantly watering, potting, and re-plotting plants. She had a real green thumb.

Phyliss’s favorite music genre was a bit eclectic over the years. Her favorite band of all time was the Eagles (we saw them in concert at Key Arena in Seattle before Glenn Frey passed). It was Phyliss that turned me on to the Eagles when we were at Goodfellow AFB all those years ago – specifically by getting me to listen to Hotel California. Phyliss’s favorite solo artists were black female soul and rhythm and blues singers. Her favorite singer of all time was Tiny Turner. Phyliss also liked Elvis Presley - but he was an exception. Phyliss hated Pop music.

Phyliss loved to play the state lotteries. This went back at least as far as when we were living in California. She’s got tickets stashed everywhere, both in Homosassa Springs, FL, and in Wichita, KS. It’s going to take me awhile to sort through all of them to make sure there are no winners. I always considered it a waste of time and money, but in fact Phyliss has won quite a bit of money on lottos. In addition to the few dollars or a few tens of dollars you can occasionally get, she won one for $25,000 in California and another for $100,000 in Ohio. That’s made it pretty hard for me to tell her not to play the state lotteries.

Phyliss loved pets and we’ve owned many over the years. Her favorite cat was named Smokey. She was a smallish shorthaired all gray female cat that we originally had in California and took to Ohio when we moved. I believe her favorite pet of all time was a dog named Lucy, a female Dalmatian she and her brother Johnny had when they were kids. She used to talk about Lucy all the time. In fact, when we decided to get dogs while we were living in Ohio, she wanted Dalmatians. So we got both a male Dalmatian (which we named Nicholas or Nicky) and a female Dalmatian (which we named Alexandra or Sandy). The names Nicholas and Alexandra came from Phyliss’s love of Russian history and literature. When Nicky and Sandy passed away (in Wichita), she created a memorial in our home to them across from the front door - so they could be seen as you enter the house.

Phyliss’s mother Lois gave her the name Phyllis (two L’s and one S). Phyliss told me she didn’t like the way it was spelled and said she started using Phyliss (one L and two S’s). That’s how I’ve know her all my life, so I think it must go back to High School or earlier. But you will see it spelled both ways.

What follows is my short goodbye note to Phyliss.

Phyliss,

You were so kind and generous with me over the years. You helped me financially through college (both undergraduate and graduate programs), when we were just scraping by. You bought me things with your lotto winnings that I didn’t need but you know I liked. You supported and loved me through many hard times. You sacrificed so much for me. I know spouses do these things for each other, but I also know I owe you a huge debt. The one thing I know that would have balanced the scales would have been to relocate us to Seattle in our retirement. Yes, I took you many times to Seattle, but that’s not the same as living there 24/7. You were so sad when we had to return to Wichita from Seattle. I know if we had moved to Seattle, I would have seen constant joy on your face. That is no longer possible. My grief and feelings of devastation at losing you are amplified by the fact that I can’t do what I know would have brought you the most happiness in life. The best I can do now is honor your wishes, which you told me many times, “If I die before you do, I want to be cremated and have my ashes scattered in that little park next to Pike Place Market – my favorite place in the world.” Well, that little park that is adjacent to Pike Place Market is called “Victor Steinbrueck Park”. It used to be called “Market Park”, but was renamed to “Victor Steinbrueck Park” in honor of the renovator of Pike Place Market. I know you will be happy there.

Goodbye Phyliss - My Soulmate - My Love. God, I miss you. You will be in my daily thoughts until I die.

Your Loving Husband,

John