Hi, I’m Catherine McLean, one of Phyllis’ two daughters. My sister, Laura, and my daughter, Sylvana, are here today as well. Phyllis’ grandson, Scott, has started school at UCLA, so he is unable to attend.

Thank you so much for coming today. Some of you live nearby and some have come from far away. Phyllis’ brother George Heine and his wife Nancy are here from Madison, Wisconsin. Phyllis’ sister-in-law Marj Szor drove from her summer home in the Adirondacks, Sam and Judy Szor came up from Toledo and several nieces and nephews from Ohio and California have also joined us. Thank you all for coming.

A special thank you to Alison Donahue and Carol Lusk for offering to add some wonderful music to that provided by St. James’ Music Director, Glenn Burdette.

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Mom was a devoted wife and mother. When she spoke of her marriage to Dad, she said, “We’re like swans, we’ve mated for life.” She seems to have reduced many thoughts down to their essence. For example, she often said of her relationship with Dad, “We dated 3 years, were married 3 years and had children 3 years apart.” Simple as that. 

She pursued her passions and led a very full life. Mom had many great qualities. When Laura and I started to make a list of qualities, descriptive words tumbled out in rapid succession. I thought I’d share a few of those with you today.

She was an incredibly creative person.

Mom’s degree from Wayne State was in art education, and it laid the foundation for many of her lifelong passions. Her creativity was boundless and found many outlets including designing for the 1985 Art and Flowers Spring festival, held at the Detroit Institute of Arts and sketching complex outdoor environments for the Ann Arbor Flower and Garden Show, for which, I believe, the crew from Cranbrook won several awards. Some who worked on those projects are here with us today and I’m sure you have many more stories to tell.

She was generous in many ways; I’ll give you just a couple of examples.

Mom was probably best known for her hand made Christmas cards and cookies. Using her original designs, cards were silk screened in our den with up to 200 cards drying on every surface, couches, bureaus, tables and chairs. To this day, the smell of turpentine makes me nostalgic.

Cookie baking was another annual event. In late fall she would begin stocking up on butter, flour, nuts and dried fruit. Later in life she discovered Trader Joes and that made for one stop shopping, even if she was flying back from Los Angeles with a suitcase full of ingredients. When they were younger, Mom and Dad drank a lot of Hills Brothers coffee, so she saved up the coffee tins, wrapped them with colorful Contac paper and filled them to the brim with more than a dozen different kinds of cookies to hand out to friends and family. Some of you might have been fortunate to have had a taste, for those of you feeling left out, well, she probably just ran out of time to make that extra batch.

Mom was a gardener.

Becoming a gardener doesn’t happen over night; it’s something that takes years of practice and study. In the early 1960s, she sought out a well respected master gardener, Alice Burlingame, for advice. Of course, at the time I was much too young to know about these things, but my sister and I have seen her develop and refine her taste and interests over the years. What do you think were her favorite plants? I’m not sure but I’m guessing that Michigan wildflowers would be very near the top of her list, especially trillium.

Travel was one of Mom’s passions.

Having moved with her parents and 2 siblings nearly 20 times, from New York to Connecticut to Toledo to  Chicago and, finally, Detroit, it isn’t surprising that Mom settled into a permanent home base for the past 50 years right here in the Birmingham/Bloomfield area. 

Her love of travel was re-ignited in the mid-1960s when she joined the Docent Committee at the Detroit Institute of Arts. Each spring, the Museum volunteers would travel to a major art center either here in the US or abroad. I think Mom went on every trip for at least 20 years. In 1976, we were both volunteering at the DIA and I had the privilege of traveling with her and other volunteers to Los Angeles. It was a great time getting to know many of Mom’s wonderful friends and it was a trip that gave me my first glimpse of a city that would later become my home.

Travel stories could go on and on; I’m sure most of you have heard a few of them. Just mention Paris, Venice or Florence and the stories poured out.

She was drawn to water.

Mom loved to go swimming. She wasn’t picky; she loved pools, rivers, lakes, and oceans. She was particularly fond of swimming at Jonah Lake at Cranbrook, back when you could swim there. Actually she admitted that was one of the big motivators behind her joining one of the Boards there, she received swimming privileges!

Mom loved music and she loved to sing.

When Laura and I were young, Mom joined to Oakland University Chorus. She practiced religiously, learning all of the Latin phrases in Carmina Burana with precise enunciation. In my mind, I can still hear the phonograph recording filling the house while she sang along.

Later, after Mom lost her sight, she returned to her musical roots as a strong supporter of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.

Only a few of you knew how nocturnal Mom was.

Most of her creativity flowed after the kids were in bed. There were often surprises when we got up in the morning, a stack of silk screened posters, a sketch for a floral arrangement, two more batches of cookies, a pile of uniquely wrapped gifts, or maybe a snow man outside the living room picture window.

Mom was a religious person.

She joined St. James in 1960 and it was here where her daughters were baptized and confirmed. Her major contribution to the church community was her role as a church school teacher from the early 1960s until the mid-1970s. She used her art education training to enhance each of the weekly classes she taught; she was particularly fond of teaching the 3rd and 4th grades, I believe. Later she undertook an intensive two year Bible study course, working her way through the Old and New Testaments. Some of you might have attended the Wednesday Lenten suppers just a few years ago, when she brought some tasty soups, like her recipe from Thailand with chicken and coconut milk.

Spending time in the kitchen was a passion, not a chore.

Mom loved to cook and all of our meals were made from scratch. Our school lunches never had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches; instead we had creative surprises like sliced green olive, pimentos and cream cheese on Pepperidge Farm whole wheat - she did her best to expand our palates early. Julia Child was her inspiration and her cooking style changed dramatically with the introduction of French cuisine. She mastered Béarnaise and Hollandaise sauces with ease.

When Laura and I were in college, friends would drop by late in the evening. Mom would rush to the kitchen and whip up the most amazing sandwiches. I called it Phyl’s Deli. A few of you here today might remember those days. The cookbook, Cranbrook Reflections, was another major project. Many of us received copies as gifts or worked on the project, taste testing each recipe several times to get it just right.

Lastly, Mom was the consummate volunteer.

I think you see a common thread that has flowed through these many qualities. Mom’s purpose in life was to give back to her community, through the Museum, Cranbrook, St. James and in many other ways. When I described Mom to my friends, I would say that she could be all dressed up to give a tour at the Museum, driving downtown in a clean shiny car, but what you didn’t know was, she had a trunk filled with shovels, mulch, flower pots and work clothes, ready to rescue some trillium, bloodroot or Jack in the Pulpit on a moment’s notice.

It is hard to say good bye to someone who lived such a full and meaningful life. Here is a story that’s helped me; maybe it will help you, too. Once when I was about 7 years old I burst into tears when I realized that someday my parents would pass away. Mom heard me sobbing and asked what the matter was. After I told her, she said very simply and matter of factly, “We had two children for a reason, you will replace us on this earth after we’re gone.”  It was such a straight forward explanation that my tears dried quickly and my worries melted away.

Mom would have wanted this memorial to be a time of celebration and cheer. I thought I’d close by reading a children’s poem that Mom read to us from the “Better Homes and Gardens Story Book” when we were young. It’s a poem written more than 70 years ago, by Dorothy Aldis, entitled “Names”.

Larkspur and Hollyhock,
Pink Rose and purple Stock,
Lovely smelling Mignonette,
Lilies not quite opened yet,
Phlox the favorite of bees,
Bleeding Heart and Peonies -
Just their names are nice to say,
Softly,
On a summer’s day.

Phyllis McLean passed away on Monday 9 April 2012 at 11am at Verdugo Vista Health Care Center in La Crescenta, CA. Although she had suffered with dementia for the past five years, her death came quickly and peacefully. Her family had the opportunity to be by her side, to comfort her and to tell her that they loved her very much. Her memory loss, although severe, had slowed; she still remembered close family members, and stories of her early years still entertained her. 

Phyllis Clary Heine was born on 25 May 1930 in White Plains, NY. Her family moved several times, notably Cannondale, CT, enduring the Great Hurricane of 1938; Toledo, OH during the War; Highland Park and Fox Lake, IL for high school; and finally settling in suburban Detroit, MI, where she graduated from Wayne State University in 1952 with a BA in Art Education. She was a member of the Zeta Chi sorority. 

On 21 February 1953, she married Thomas Nicol McLean of Detroit and they settled in suburban Detroit, living since 1959 on an idyllic 2 ½ acre property that became Phyllis’ gardening and landscaping pride and joy. By the mid-1960s, Phyllis became a very active volunteer in her community. For 30 years, she was a docent at the Detroit Institute of Arts, twice chairing the Docent Committee. By the 1970s she was also active with the Cranbrook House & Gardens Auxiliary, volunteering not only as a garden docent but as a gardener as well. She was instrumental in the development of the Cranbrook Gardens annual spring and fall plant sales. In 1979 Phyllis received the prestigious ‘Heart of Gold’ award from the United Way Community Services for her many years of outstanding volunteer service. 

Phyllis’ artistic side was always finding an outlet, notably in her hand silk screened Christmas cards and posters announcing Oakland University choral programs. Julia Child was her culinary inspiration and Phyllis’ passion for cooking manifested itself most notably with her amazing selection of home-made Christmas cookies, packed in large tins (most likely Hills Bros coffee tins). As the years went by, recipients of Phyllis’ cookies not only expected them, they demanded them. 

After her first DIA docent trip, Phyllis was hooked on travel; she hardly missed a single docent trip which gave her an opportunity to visit many of the major art centers, both in the United States and abroad. When, in 2003, her daughter Catherine called her on Mother’s Day and asked, “Would you like to go with Sylvana and me to Paris?” Phyllis couldn’t say yes fast enough. We had a marvelous trip together.

Phyllis always maintained a cheerful demeanor, even when times were difficult. In 1999, she survived a serious heart attack that left her legally blind. She remained optimistic, shifting her interests from the visual arts to season tickets to the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. 

Phyllis is survived by her two siblings, George Freeman Heine of Madison, WI, and Maude Scolaro of Green Valley, AZ. She is also survived by her two daughters, Catherine Clary McLean of Los Angeles, CA, and Laura Thompson Morrison of La Crescenta, CA, and two grandchildren, Sylvana Elektra McLean, a student at Pasadena City College, and Scott Franklin Morrison, who graduates this year from UCLA.

At Phyllis’ request, cremation has taken place. In doing so, she joins her husband Tom, who pre-deceased her, in the beautiful columbarium at St. James Episcopal Church, Birmingham, MI.

In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to Cranbrook House & Gardens Auxiliary (http://housegardens.cranbrook.edu/donate) or in her memory to the Detroit Institute of Arts Friends of Art & Flowers (http://www.dia.org/auxiliaries/9/33/FAF/floral-tributes.aspx).

Phyllis lived a full and meaningful life, and contributed enormously to the happiness of many others. We will all miss Phyllis, and invite you to share your memories with her friends and family by contributing to this online tribute.