From John Ballard:
Phyllis Fleming, d 2009
http://www.shelbycountyindiana.org/obituaries/obit_fleming.htm
It was humorous when this obituary was published in our paper last summer. I was on a
church youth group trip in Wisconsin. When I came home, my husband was very
"disappointed." He assumed he would be deluged with phone calls from people
thinking I had died. One of my daughters was very disappointed because she thought people
would bring food to the house. I assured them both that my friends were the kind that
read past just the headliners and into the meat of things, realizing that Phyllis J.
Fleming, physicist, was not Phyllis Miller Fleming, Bible student and family historian!
The Boston Globe article does much more justice to Ms. Fleming's accomplishments than
our local paper. This Phyllis was from the Fleming line that came to the east coast
during the Irish potato famine. Her father worked his way to the midwest as a railroad
employee and settled in Shelbyville. Someday I would like to know why he decided to
settle here. Even though 'Fleming' seems a slightly uncommon name to me, there
are at least three very separate Fleming lines that have lived here in this small town of
ours.
P