Ponderosa pioneer
During his life Lloyd Phillips has seen change come to his area of the Valley

Nina Culver
Staff writer

Lloyd Phillips has done it all on his farm on the edge of Spokane Valley in the Ponderosa neighborhood. He grew wheat, hay and corn. He ran a dairy and raised beef cattle. He also raised a bumper crop of homes, creating the neighborhood that surrounds Ponderosa Elementary from scratch.

His parents bought 20 acres of land in 1908 and began farming, slowly adding acreage. "My folks grew wheat and hay and they sold cream," said Phillips. "They had chickens and they sold eggs."

Phillips, who recently turned 80, was born and raised on the farm. He remembers an old ski area, called Ski-More, on the west end of 44th near his home.

An old Chevy engine powered a tow rope and there was a toboggan run and a skating pond. "That's where I learned to skate," he said. "I enjoyed that. It was a fun thing for all the kids."

The ski hill opened in the mid-1930s and closed in the early 1940s. Like many kids, Phillips didn't have the money for skate rentals. But sweeping the ice rink off two or three times a night would earn him a free skate rental and a hamburger. "I thought that was really living," he said.

The only time Phillips left the farm was when he served in World War II from 1943 to 1946. He spent most of his time in the European Theater and participated in the Battle of the Bulge.

Like many World War II vets, Phillips doesn't talk a lot about the bad memories. "It wasn't a lot of fun," he said. "I had pneumonia three times overseas."

He rode in a "half-track," an armored vehicle bristling with guns with wheels in front and tank-like tracks in back. "I was a cannoneer (ammo loader) on the half-track, then the gunner was shot and I became the gunner," he said.

After he came home, he earned a degree in accounting from Kinman Business School. He worked as an accountant for a few years and opened Phillips Corner Grocery at 11th and Walnut in 1950.

His father died in 1949 and his mother struggled to run the farm with the help of a hired hand. So Phillips swapped jobs. He took over the farm while his mother ran the store, which she did until 1965.

Phillips married his first wife, Molly, in 1949. After having two children, Elizabeth and Steve, they divorced in 1959. He married his second wife, Jeanne, in 1963. They had three children together, Bill, John and Andrew. She died of lung cancer in 1989. "She'd fought it since 1983," he said. "It finally got the best of her."

Phillips started a dairy on his family's land in 1951. "It was a pretty hard way to make a living," he said.

At his peak, Phillips farmed more than 1,600 acres. The main farm went up the hill to the west of the house on Sunderland Drive, then east to Schaffer Road. The southern border was 44th Street. He owned and rented more land in Saltese Flats and Mica.

He started developing his land in 1966. "It would have been nice if it could have stayed a ranch," he said. "We just couldn't make it. Subdividing the land is what put the kids through college."

Pete Presta farmed land near Phillips' farm for years and still lives in the area. "When he developed Ponderosa, he was developing his home," Presta said. "He didn't do any shortcuts. He did it right."

That included underground utilities, a community pool and park. "He developed the land we couldn't farm," Presta said. "It was just well thought out. If it weren't for his long-range planning, a guy could have made it a real fiasco out there."

Like Phillips, Presta remembers fondly the years spent coaxing a living from the earth.

"All of us farmed together," he said. "We helped one another because no one had all the machinery they needed."

Presta recalled the winter of 1968, when heavy snow kept them from going anywhere. Phillips plowed the family out. "We plowed for 13 days straight," Presta said.

The sense of community wasn't a one-way street. More than once Phillips got heavy farm equipment stuck the mud. Phillips would sit there patiently until his neighbors brought their equipment to get him out.

"The one thing I learned about mud is the more you fight it, the deeper you go," Phillips said.

Phillips didn't farm alone all those years. He had a hired hand, Cecil Kafka, for 37 years.

"Not constantly," he said. "We'd get in arguments and he'd quit. Then he'd call me up and ask me if I needed help."

He sold the dairy cows in 1973 with relief. Phillips had chafed at the seven day a week schedule that running a dairy farm required. The cows didn't care if it was Christmas, they had to be milked. "It was so confining," he said. "I couldn't do anything. The whole family was tied down."

Phillips ran beef cattle and grew his own hay for years. He hasn't farmed since 1992 and sold off the last of his cattle in 1997.

"My body is not up to working like I did," he said. "What I used to do before breakfast takes me all day now."

In 1990 Phillips managed to find love again. A longtime neighbor dropped by for a visit one day, her widowed niece, Faith, in tow. "I had just come in from the field and was eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich," he said. "I was covered in dirt and dust."

Faith didn't mind. She knew her aunt wanted to set her up with Phillips. "It worked," she said.

Faith proved to be a good fit and they married in 1991. "I liked doing the outdoor stuff," she said.

She drove a truck during harvest time, Phillips said. "It's been a wonderful deal. We've gotten along great."

He has 200 acres of land left, which he leases to a cattle rancher. He spends his days restoring a 1948 Ford farm truck and a 1920 Model T. "He's seen a lot and done a lot," his wife said.

Phillips doesn't have much hope that one of his children will take over the farm. They all have established careers and these days it takes more than 2,000 acres to make a farm

work, he said. "There's not much left in farming." He does hope that one of them will move into the original farmhouse that still sits on the land, which Phillips has restored and remodeled. Neighbor Art Hess has lived across the street from Phillips since 1986 and is pleased with how well the old farmhouse looks. "They're always making it look nicer," he said.

Phillips is a fine neighbor, Hess said. "We rag on each other a little bit," he said. "If he's out cutting the grass I'll go over and disturb him.

"They're just superb folks. He's a dear, dear man. It wouldn't be the same without him."

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