PHILLIS (GIBBS) BALLEW

     Phillis was born on March 23, 1935 in Holdenville Oklahoma. Her parents, Kenneth and Edna Gibbs, adopted her and moved back to Shattuck, Oklahoma in 1939 to help on the family farm. Phillis graduated 8th grade from the Shattuck Adventist Academy and went to school the following years at Southwestern Junior College in Keene Texas.

She graduated from high school in Keene and continued for two years of college. She completed her college degree at Union College in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Phillis married John Jerry Wiley on May 30, 1954, in the Shattuck Seventh Day Adventist Church. Their son, John Kent Wiley was born on May 1, 1957 in Lincoln, Nebraska.

     Phillis always was an artist. She loved to draw and paint. She participated in many art shows in California, Arizona and Oklahoma during her life. After moving back to Oklahoma

in the early 1990's, she and her husband Dan, built her a beautiful studio. One of her many projects was to paint a series of the old school houses of the area and had a solo show in the Governor's office building in Oklahoma City. 

     She loved the outdoors and everything in it. She was an accomplished botanist and knew and cared about most every creature on her land along Wolf Creek.

     Phillis married Daniel Ballew while in California and moved several times throughout the United States, while Dan was building or managing nursing homes. During those years, Phillis adapted her talents to help Dan, whether it was becoming an office manager or applying her artistic talent to commercial interior design. 

After moving back to Shattuck, Phillis and Dan, along with others, planned and opened the Shattuck Windmill Museum in 1996. Currently, there are over 50 windmills, a sod house and a general store at the "Windmill Park," all maintained by local citizens and national volunteers.

Phillis inherited the O.G. Gibbs "Home Place" and she and Dan worked hard to restore it and to have it declared a "Centennial Farm." She loved the history and heritage of Oklahoma and Gibbs Farm.

     In January, 2014, Phillis sold the "Home Place" in Shattuck and moved to Summit Ridge Retirement Village in Harrah, OK, where she was lovingly cared for by Melvina Wahl and her great team of caregivers. She passed away peacefully, in her sleep, on her own terms.

     Phillis is survived by her cousin Glenda Bales Dusek, her sister and lifelong confidant, Algie (Gibbs) Didlaukies, five nieces and nephews, her son, John K Wiley, his wife Teri Capp and their child, her granddaughter, Zara.