Phyllis Elaine Morris Middleton
April 11, 1953 - August 19, 2025
Obituary
Phyllis Elaine Morris Middleton
Beloved Sister and Friend
April 11, 1953 – August 19, 2025
Phyllis was born in Fort Worth, Texas, April 11, 1953, to Harry Keith Morris, Sr., and Dannie Louise Welch Morris, both deceased. She passed away in Renton, Washington, on August 19, 2025, from exacerbated COPD and CHD. She is survived by one brother, Harry Keith Morris, Jr. and his wife Mixy Rebeca Morris, their three children, Genesis Querit, Michael Winter, and Hannah Belen, and three surviving nephews, Jared Cole Gragg, Colton Lane Gragg, and Parker Reid Gragg, sons of another sister, Rebeccah Eloise Morris Gragg, who passed away in 2011.
Phyllis graduated from Bronte Highschool, Bronte, Texas, class of 1970. She graduated from Baylor University in 1974 with a degree in business. She then moved to Washington State, as she put it, to “get away from the oppressive and conservative atmosphere of Texas!”
She worked several years for a Seattle-based Alaskan fishery company. Then she worked with the Puget Sound Educational Service District for some 19 years. She was there when the Puget Sound Risk Management Pool was formed in 1986-87. It was patterned after a schools pool in California and was the first self-insurance pool of public-school districts in Washington. She started as an Executive Secretary and eventually became Director of Operations.
During this time, on October 3, 1993, Phyllis and David Middleton were married.
She recalled that 9/11 shook the insurance world very hard. “That event affected every kind of insurance there is and was the largest industry loss ever. Insurance companies and self-insurance companies bought re-insurance to cover their losses. Rates skyrocked in 2002, and it was my job to explain why to the members. It was an impossible task!”
Stress from the work, a marriage that was falling apart, and a bout with shingles forced her to resign from her job.
Phyllis and her husband David had no children, and were eventually divorced around or after 2004. David later passed away.
In Feb 2021 she fell at home, ended up in the hospital, underwent a serious and prolonged treatment, and had to learn to walk again. From that time on, she had increasingly difficult health issues, many of those provoked by a life-long habit of smoking. Recognition of the deleterious effects of smoking eventually brought Phyllis to determinably and definitively quit smoking on October 1st, 2020, her “smoke free” event she celebrated annually for almost six years before her death.
Phyllis was born into a Christian family. Our Dad was in Seminary preparing for the ministry when she was born, and he became a Baptist pastor. She grew up as we would say, “a Preacher’s Kid.”
Phyllis made a personal profession of Christian faith as a young teenager and was baptized. However, throughout her life, her commitment to her faith, to the Lord, and to His church was sporadic at best.
In recent years, her interest in the faith of her childhood and youth returned. In a conversation with her less than one week before she passed away, she declared her trust and belief in Jesus Christ. She declared that she believed Jesus was the Son of God who was born flesh, died for our sins, was buried, and rose from the dead on the third day. Her statement of faith reassured us, the family, and gave us a sense of peace about her relation to her Creator.
Phyllis was gifted with “perfect pitch” and could easily discern when music was on or off pitch. She was a great story-teller, blessed with an unimpaired and unparalleled memory, recalling names and intricate and fascinating details of personal, family, and friendship experiences throughout her life. She enjoyed and appreciated good food and particularly liked her meals served hot.
Phyllis’s wide range of interests often found expression in her Facebook postings. She particularly liked taking “found objects” and recreating them into beautiful arrangements of art. She had a large collection of “rusty things” which also sometimes found their way into her creations. In her own words, she describes herself in this way:
I am an artist, a writer, and a beader.
I have created many beautiful things, including cement stepping stones, beaded necklaces, bracelets, and earrings, as well as peyote stitch designs with small seed beads. Additionally, I have made numerous mobiles using rusty items, kitchen utensils, and mismatched earrings.
I’ve painted on untreated canvas with acrylic paint as if it were watercolor – very thin and using how it absorbed into the canvas as part of my technique, and lately for years I made paper collages – some on tiles, most on cardboard—elegant, delicate, sometimes tiny words and objects put together to make something new—sometimes a statement, but sometimes just funny or pretty.
I developed a way to be able to move around cut-out objects until I got the arrangement I wanted. I would put removable, double-sided tape on the back of the object and stick that to waxed paper. Then I would cut out the object and remove the waxed paper—¡voilá!—a sticker!
Some collages are laminated, some have found objects on them preventing lamination, some are in plastic sheaths.
At her request, Phyllis was cremated and inurned in a columbarium niche at Bonney Watson Funeral Home | Washington Memorial Park, South Seattle Location, Crystal Niches-A-20
Memorials in Phyllis’s name may be sent to the Southern Baptist International Mission Board for the ministry of Keith and Mixy Morris in Spain. Use the following link, typing their names in the missionary name box.
https://www.imb.org/generosity/give-now/?designation=missionary+or+team&projectCodePreselect=F9MINGIFT#imb-give-form
