Beatrice K. "Bea" Phillips

Beatrice K. “Bea” Phillips, of Elizabethtown, PA, formerly of Easton, MD, passed away on Monday, November 5, 2018 at Masonic Village, Elizabethtown. Born Tuesday, March 13, 1934, she was the daughter of the late Edward and Anna (Barrett) Lawson. She was married 52 years to John D. Phillips also of Elizabethtown.

Bea was raised in Philadelphia and attended South Philadelphia High School for Girls. Then she went to our nations first hospital, established in 1751, the Pennsylvania Hospital, where she graduated as a registered nurse. Her first love was Lankanau Hospital, run by the Lutheran church, so she applied to work there and gradually became the Senior Evening Supervisor. One of her patients was a woman who desperately wanted Bea to meet her son and ten years later when her son was in his last year of law school, Bea not only met but married him.

After marriage, Bea moved to the Baltimore area where she was employed by the Baltimore City Public Health Department. Later the Health Department sent her to Johns Hopkins for special training as a Pediatric Nurse Practitioner. With this training Bea was in charge of the health of the children in six of the Baltimore public and parochial schools.

She and her husband then moved to Catonsville, MD where she formed a ministry with the aging at Salem Lutheran Church. Her ministry would raise money so nursing home patients in the area, many of whom had not left their nursing home in over ten years, could come to their church, particularly on Holy Wednesday where they would receive refreshments and Easter baskets after the religious service.

She and her husband retired in 1987 and built a home in Ingleton on the Miles river in Maryland where they lived for 26 years before coming to Londonderry. While in Ingleton, Bea volunteered many hours each week at the Pines, again bringing outside stimulation and activities to the nursing home patients. As a member of Trinity Episcopal Cathedral, Easton, Bea was a Lay Eucharistic Minister. In 1997 she took the Clinical Pastoral Education course at Memorial Hospital and visited all Episcopal residents at William Hill, and did all music for the weekly services. 

In her spare time, Bea enjoyed working on family genealogy. She and her husband watched Londonderry grow over the years and when their house sold, they moved to Londonderry in February 2013. She and her husband then moved to Masonic Village in June 2016.

A funeral service will be held on Wednesday, November 14, 2018 at John S. Sell Memorial Chapel, Masonic Village, Elizabethtown at 10:00 AM. There will be no viewing. Interment will take place in Oak Lawn Cemetery in Wilkes-Barre, PA at 1:30 PM

Donations in Bea’s memory may be made to Masonic Children’s Home, Office of Gift Planning, One Masonic Drive, Elizabethtown, PA 17022.

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