Phillip Nathan Nelson

Donald used to tease Phillip until he would get angry and then he would chase Donald. This happened pretty routinely. Glenna would also tease Phillip but she couldn’t run as fast as Donald and Phillip would always trap her in a corner by the table.

Phillip and his siblings would ride bikes and have mud ball fights with the neighbor boys down the street. They would make Glenna make the mud balls to throw at the neighbors.

Once while Mom and Dad were gone, Phillip was left in charge of keeping his eye on Glenna, he took a whole loaf of bread and made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and instead of sharing he ate the whole loaf.

Phillip grew up playing a game called Dibble Dabble with his siblings in the pool that they helped their dad build. Dibble Dabble is a game where they took a piece of wood and one person hid it in the pool. The first person to find it came up out of the water and said Dibble Dabble and that person got to hide the wood piece.

In high school Phillip was the photographer for the journalism class. He would develop the pictures for the yearbook and school newspaper in the dark room at the school. He was in the high school marching band and concert band where he played the saxophone. Phillip was a man of many musical talents besides the saxophone he played guitar and piano.

He was in a band with his brothers Paul and Donald. They would play for school functions and New Years Eve dances. They also played for Ron and Marla’s wedding. The boys only knew 7 songs but people kept asking them to play until midnight.

At 16 years old Phillip went with his father and bought his first car which was a white 61 Ford Falcon. He later wrecked that car and he and Donald spent the entire summer taking everything out of and off of the white Ford Falcon and putting it on a different Ford Falcon frame. He drove that car for a year in college.

Growing up in a large family of 7 children and with 5 of them being boys you can imagine the kind of shenanigans that they tried. Donald says that he and Phillip would take black cat firecrackers and put them inside of a piece of steel pipe and they put a marble in the opposite end of the pipe. They then would aim it at the neighbor’s barn, strike the match and set the black cat on fire to see if they could hit the side of the barn. There were no admissions of ever hitting said barn.

When Bob graduated from high school Phillip took over his Job at Willcox Commercial. His mom would drive the boys to work at 5 in the morning and they would clean the building and have it ready for customers to come every day. After working they would walk to early morning seminary.

Phillip and Donald played tennis in high school. While Phillip enjoyed tennis, he decided he liked chasing girls more and he ended up stealing Marta’s heart.

Marta Lesley Nelson was born on November 23, 1953, in Phoenix, Arizona the second of two daughters born to Martin Leslie and Sally Jane Eldridge Pinson. She lived in Phoenix until she was about 3 and then moved to Tucson and lived there until she was in the 3rd grade. She then moved to Willcox, Arizona where her father was the manger of the Sulphur Springs Valley Electric Co-Op.

At the age of 5 Marta decided she wanted to run away from home. She packed up all her dolls and sat at the end of the driveway and that was as far as she got.

When Marta first started school, she remembers being scared. She was certain they would send her home because she couldn’t write. She was left-handed and she talked about how teachers would try to switch her to using her right hand.

Marta’s least favorite subject in school was math. Good thing she married Phillip who could help all the kids with math growing up and then help the grandkids. Blayson (grandson) talks about asking grandpa a math question. He would never just give you the answer. He would go into teacher mode and give an in-depth lecture about the how and why of the problem. All the grandkids have a memory of grandpa helping them with math.

During Marta’s childhood she loved to roller skate. The first time her parents left her and her sister alone over night she was out skating and skating backwards. Of course, it didn’t go as planned and she fell and broke her left arm.

One of Marta’s favorite happiest memories as a youth was a trip she took with her family through California, Washington, Oregon, and Canada.

She loved to ride horses and had a horse that would do it’s best to scrape you off on low branches whenever you rode him. One day while riding, the horse suddenly stopped and Marta did not and she fell off and broke her wrist.

Marta learned to drive on a stick shift. The first time she was behind the wheel she was with her dad and she related that he wasn’t a very patient teacher. She says the driving lesson ended with her getting out of the car and walking home. Marta’s children tell a similar story about one of their siblings so the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree😊

Marta loved to read and was a bookworm as a child and even as an adult. When she was younger, she would often go out and sit under a huge willow tree in the backyard and read.

While Marta was in high school her sister Pat was going to beauty school she would style and cut her hair for special occasions. Pat said Marta had such a pretty dark brown color. She would practice a lot on their mom and Marta.

One time when Marta and her sister Pat were home alone. They decided to watch a scary movie. Marta left the room for a moment and when she came back, she found that her sister had put ketchup all over herself. This scared Marta.

Marta’s favorite activity in high school was choir in which she was very involved. She loved to sing and had a very beautiful voice. She joined the Willcox High School Choir along with a group called the Sextet. They sang at luncheons, rotary meetings and social events around Willcox. Marta talked fondly about being in the musical Oklahoma as Aunt Eller. After she got married, she often sang at church activities.

Phillip and Marta met on the school bus as teenagers and from that day forward, they seemed to be inseparable.

Phillip graduated from high school in 1969. He attended Cochise College for one year and then went on to Eastern Arizona College to complete his AA degree. When Phillip went off to College Marta kept in contact with Glenna. She would come and take Glenna to the Dairy Queen or to her house to visit. Phillip came home every weekend to see Marta. Glenna says Marta was always kind to me.

At the time that Phillip met Marta she was not a member of the church. She took the missionary discussions. Marta’s father was not quite sure about all of this and would never sit through a discussion with her. At the age of 16 Marta made the decision to be baptized. The bishop asked Marta’s dad for permission and that impressed him and he gave his consent. Phillip baptized Marta on February 20, 1970.

Marta graduated from high school in 1971. After high school she worked as a teacher’s aide for Head Start and as her first paying job, she worked in a flower shop making a little more than a $1 an hour.

On August 22, 1972 Phillip and Marta were married in the Mesa Arizona Temple Marta was only 18 at the time. They lived in Flagstaff while Phillip attended NAU working on his B.S. Marta also attended NAU for one year and then went to work. They were married a little over two years before their first daughter Jennifer joined the family in December 1974. Marta laughed about the night of her birth, the doctor called them and said it was time to come to the hospital. It had been snowing and the roads were slick. The hospital was up the hill from where they lived. They drove the car around in circles in the store parking lot to get enough speed to get up the hill.

After Phillip earned his degree, he worked as a teacher in Ganado, Arizona. Marta remembers how fascinated the people were by their baby and how red her hair was.

Phillip worked as a teacher for three years and then went on to work for the cable tv company.

After moving to Patagonia, Arizona, Melissa joined the family in 1976 and Kathy in 1978.

When Melissa was 3 years old, she was diagnosed with leukemia and that turned their little world upside down. Jennifer remembers Phillip coming to kindergarten to pick her up early because Marta was gone taking Melissa to appointments in Phoenix. Jennifer got to go on cable calls with Phillip a lot during those days.

In 1979 Marta lost her mother to cancer just before Jeremy joined the family. Having three young children, losing your mom while being pregnant, and having a sick child shows how strong of a woman Marta was and a great example of a mother.

Eventually the family moved to Phoenix to be closer to the doctors for Melissa. They didn’t live there for very long before they decided to move to Safford. They briefly lived in Safford before deciding that Thatcher was the place to be and moved to a little house on the highway.

In 1981 Kari joined the family. Poor Jeremy was the only boy among all these girls and we think he felt tortured. 😊

In the summer of 1983, they moved to the place they called home for nearly 40 years. Phillip worked hard building their home over the next several years.

Over the years Phillip worked as a manager of the local cable company, county health inspector, and eventually returned to where it all began as a school teacher from which he retired.

Marta went back to work part time transcribing parole records at the Swift Trail Prison. She used to carry her Apple 2E computer and HUGE printer to and from the prison every day.

Marta went to work full time after Kari started kindergarten working for Eastern Arizona College. She worked for the college for 33-1/2 years retiring in March of 2020.

Once they were both retired, they took up quilting and that became a hobby they enjoyed doing together. They liked to show their kids and grandkids how things worked. It was another way they got to teach and spend time with others.

Marta liked to bake and Kathy enjoyed baking pies with her. They both had a tendency to get flour all over. She recalls one time that Marta had a flour handprint on her backside. They had a good laugh.

Marta had a collection of vinyl records that she kept from her childhood. We had a record player and would play her records when we were kids. One that stands out the most to us is Petula Clark’s song Downtown. We would play that song over and over and could sing all the words.

Phillip loved to gather the family and have jam sessions. Jennifer would play the piano and Phillip would play the saxophone or guitar. Marta, Melissa, Kathy, Jeremy, and Kari would sing and would make up actions to the songs. One that comes to mind is “How much is that Doggie in the window”. If you know the lyrics to the song you can imagine dogs with wagging tails and barking…. 😊

One thing that we loved to tease Phillip about, Marta was out of town for work and he was on his own for dinner. He decided he was going to make beans in the pressure cooker. After he pressured them, they weren’t quite done so he decided it would be a good idea to just put them in the blender to make refried beans. To this day we don’t know if he couldn’t find tortillas or what his reasoning was but he decided to make a bean sandwich. Yep, beans on bread.

Phillip and Marta taught their children how to work and work hard. Growing up they were expected to help outside with watering trees, pulling weeds, mowing, and helping in the garden. Once we got outside working someone (who will remain nameless 😊) would always find a way to sneak back in the house to get a drink, check on mom or whatever it took to not be outside. Kathy’s favorite memory was working with her dad outside in the garden and creating her own flower garden.

Phillip and Marta loved their grandkids. They have 7 boys and 3 girls. Each one of them have fond memories of the time they spent with their grandparents.

Brenden remembers when Brexton was ordering parts for the computer that grandpa was building and some of the parts were not the right ones and brexton started saying sorry grandma, sorry grandma, sorry grandma and that became a thing that Brenden and Brexton would say to grandma until she would laugh.

When grandma and grandpa would come to visit Blayson remembers talking grandma into trying a new virtual reality game. The game was called beat saber and you had to listen to music and smash the beats coming at you in time to the music or game over.

Brianna loved baking pies and desserts with grandma every Thanksgiving and Christmas and listening to Christmas music.

One time Brianna was helping grandpa move flour to put in freeze dry bags to seal and one of the bags spilled all over Brianna, her lap, the table, and the floor. They both laughed about it for 20 minutes and then got the vacuum and cleaned it all up.

Brianna also liked to sit and chat with both grandma and grandpa about anything and everything. She loved listening to them tell stories and asking for advice.

Holly, Emily, and Scott remember having nerf gun wars with grandpa. One particular war started when grandpa brought his own nerf gun loaded and ready to go. The war ended in causalities when grandpa broke a vase. They were still finding bullets days later and the laughs continued.

Grandma always liked to feed the grandkids. She had brownies and cookies whenever you came over and knew everyone’s favorite drink or soda and kept it stocked. She always made sure to have a dinner that everyone would like which is not an easy task with a bunch of picky people!

Holly and Scott like to show grandma and grandpa what they learned in band on the flute and trumpet. Grandpa taught Holly some chords on the guitar. Emily liked to show off her tumbling skills for them. They always had a way to make the grandkids feel special with whatever activities they were involved in.

Emily recalls a trip they took to Utah with grandma and grandpa. Grandma seemed amazed by how much food Scott could eat, it seemed never ending.

Devon remembers grandpa always wanting grandma to sing his old country tunes. “Have I told You Lately” was always a favorite. Grandma had a beautiful singing voice.

Many of the grandkids have learned to play that and many other songs and enjoyed jam sessions with grandpa.

Brayden loved going over to grandma and grandpa’s house for dinner. Grandma always made the best things. He enjoyed hanging out with grandma and grandpa one on one. He also liked listening to their stories. Grandma told the story of the attack of the praying mantis. When grandma and Melissa were coming home from an appointment in Tucson, they stopped on the way home to get something to eat and didn't know it got in the car with them until they were back on the road. They were both screaming and trying to get it off each other. Finally, they pulled over and grandma did a dance until it jumped off. They both laughed so hard they were crying.

Another story Brayden remembers is grandma and grandpa were talking about a “spooky” noise they kept hearing in the house. After investigating, they figured out that the noise was a lost happy meal toy that turned out to be a haunted minion. They had a good laugh over that.

Brexton brags about how grandpa let him drive the tractor. Grandpa was very protective of his tractor and had not let anyone else drive it.

Collin remembers when he, Brendon, Brianna, Brexton and Blayson were all playing Minecraft down the hall. Grandpa wanted to take a nap so Collin snuck out to see where grandpa was and grandpa "trapped" Collin in a leg lock. Collin yelled for help and Blayson came to help him and he got trapped also. Blayson called for help and Brenden came and then Brexton came and they all yelled for Brianna to help but she wouldn't come because she was smart haha. Then grandpa fell asleep and they all snuck away.

Collin liked to help grandma decorate her Christmas tree. He would call grandma the tree police because you had to fluff it right and couldn't have ornaments hanging on the bottom branches.

The last time Brenden was with grandpa he helped him vacuum out his car and grandpa kept saying make sure you watch out for all the pennies and he would look at them and say this one is real copper these might be worth something someday.

Phillip and Marta loved their family and their life and leave behind a great legacy to carry on the laughter, kindness, and the music. We will cherish the time we had with them.