Remembering the Philpott Family........Friday shoot out.

Meet the Philpott's. 

These are my great grandparents, William J. Philpott,  Ela Philpott and my grandfather Clarence (Phil) Philpott, and his sister Ruth Philpott.

This week's theme for the Friday Shoot Out was suggested by ChefE. 

She chose the subject of  Rememberance.  If you are interested in participating you can add a link to your blog by clicking here.

I struggled with what to post because I have lost so many loved ones.

I decided to focus on my dad's side of the family because I've already talked about my maternal grandparents and how much I miss them and of course I am remembering them as I write.

I don't think I've ever really mentioned my dad's side of the family.

All I can say is that there isn't anyone left on my dad's immediate side of the family.

I have one cousin and my siblings left. 

That's it. 

My dad and his two brothers and my grandfather all died at fairly young ages from various cancers.

My dad's real mother, Roberta, whom I only met once also died from cancer.

Let's start with my grandpa Phil.

This photo was taken in 1977, probably at Lake Mead.

He and my grandma Nellie were avid fishermen and they loved camping out at lake mead.

I really loved my grandpa a lot.  He was always kind and generous.

What I remember about him is when we would come to visit he would always take us to the store.

We had our choice of the big store, which was a store named Grants or the country store which was just a little store where we would buy candy, etc.

Grandpa loved Sanford and Son and Chico and the Man.

I liked hearing him laugh at the jokes on TV.

I also recall him looking through the stock pages of the newspaper and doing the crossword puzzles. 

He was a good man.

He died from Lung Cancer and was buried on my 20th birthday. (1984)

Next....meet my uncle Roy.  He is the oldest of the boys.

Uncle Roy was the first one diagnosed with cancer.

I'm not sure exactly, but I think he died while I was still in high school.

When I was a kid I had a crush on him.

I thought he was so cute.

Uncle Roy was also a health nut.

I remember him drinking powdered milk and adding wheat germ to just about everything he ate.

He loved his daughter. (s)  He was also step dad to my cousin Tammy who is my age.

Sarah is the same age as my youngest brother which would make her 32 now.

Uncle Roy was very intelligent and artistic and he also mined for gold on a regular basis.

I remember the last Christmas gift I got from him was a baby love's so soft body spray.

Isn't it funny the things we remember.

I also recall he really liked Olivia Newton John.

Next is my uncle Bob. He is the youngest of the brothers.

This photo was taken in 1977 and was probably taken at Lake Mead.

I was pretty close to him once I became an adult.

Uncle Bob was a wild one when he was young.

When he was 18 years old he was out partying with some friends and their car rolled into a canyon.

I know at least one of the persons died and my uncle ended up paralyzed, so ever since I was born he was in a wheel chair.  It seemed perfectly normal to me.

He always said that if he hadn't ended up in a wheel chair that he probably would have ended up in prison.

Uncle Bob was also very artistic and generous.

I have so many memories of him.

He was also a humanitarian and he cared greatly for people and animals.

He has been in the newspaper several times for his good work.

The newspaper photos were taken in the 90's except for this last one.  It was taken some time in the 80's.

My uncle Bob was also a musician.

He used to be in a band and he often played at party events for the mentally retarded.

My grandparents on my mom's side owned a care home and so we often got to go these parties

where my uncle was playing.  It really was a lot of fun.

One night, my uncle talked my sister and I into singing a song at one of the parties.

We sang, Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Some by BJ Thomas.

We were horrible, especially me but everyone loved us anyway.

I miss my Uncle.

My uncle was also a diabetic and later in life became a double amputee.

He died from leukemia and infection due to his diabetes.

Meet my dad.....Jerry Leon Philpott. 

In case you haven't noticed yet, I was named after him.

What?

You can't see him?

Click on the photo and look in the second row from the bottom fourth person from the left.

That's my dad.

He's 31 year's old in the picture above.  My brother looks just like him.

My sister, my brother and myself all have the Philpott nose.

My dad died just four days after his 53rd birthday.

He struggled with cancer for a long time.

The following is an article that his pastor friend wrote about him.  It was published in The Covenant Companion.

Click on the image to read about my dad. It's a really good article.

My brother and my dad at my brother's high school graduation.  1986.

This is one of my favorite pictures.

My dad was an alcoholic.

He had been sober for years and years when he died.

He also really loved mortorcycle racing and car racing.

He raced motorcycles when he was really young.

He started racing stock cars in the 1980's.

I loved going out to the track and watching him race.  It was so much fun.

I have some of his trophies at my house.

I really miss my dad.  He was so funny.  He reminded of a cross between Bill Cosby, Richard Pryor, and Bob Eubanks. He didn't have a foul mouth like Richard Pryor though.

My dad loved animals too and raised rabbits at one point, had four dogs all named after a Burt Reynolds Character.  There was Hooper, Bandit and I can't remember the other two.

My dad loved to golf.

He was a building contractor by trade and he was a perfectionist.

His work was excellent and so was his work ethic.

Every house he lived in he built himself.

I have his construction calculator.

I also have his wallet, his driver's license, his debit card

and a few other personal items.

So whenever I'm missing him, I go sit in my closet and go through the box of hundreds of pictures that I have or I'll go through his yearbook and read what people wrote to him.

Below is a family bible that belonged to grandma and grandpa.

 I guess the reason I chose to write about the Philpott family is because of it's health history.

Today, as I write this my sister is in the hospital having surgery.

This is her second fight with cancer.

This time it was uterine cancer and she had to have a full hysterectomy.

She went in to surgery at 5:00 this morning and the surgery took five hours.

When I talked to my mom and to my brother-in-law just a couple of hours ago, they said she was still in recovery and probably would be for awhile.

I feel like I'm leaving something out even though I posted quite a bit.

Tomorrow I plan to post a remembrance of one of my best friends.

Please keep my sister in your thoughts.

I will be forever grateful.

Thanks for stopping by and reading though my memories.

I really could have gone on and on.

I have so many pictures from the 1800's and the early 1900's.

Someday I will post some of those.