Phyllis Irene Hess

With her family by her side, Phyllis Irene (Lafferty) Hess, 94, died of natural causes on March 15, 2023, at her home in Monterey, California. Phyllis had moved to Monterey in 2017 to enter assisted living in a location close to her family. She was born in Harrisburg, PA, on July 17, 1928, the daughter of George Howard Lafferty and Nellie Iota Hancock, but lived for over 83 years in Warren, Ohio, which she always considered her home. She married Richard Morton Hess on December 9, 1951, and loved him dearly through 62 years of marriage, until his passing in 2013.

Phyllis graduated from Warren's Harding High School in 1946 and attended Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. She was a member of the First United Methodist Church of Warren during her entire life there, and in 1999 she wrote and published the book, History of the First United Methodist Church of Warren, Ohio. She was deeply saddened when the church closed in 2019, after 200 years of serving local congregations.

After a brief career as a legal assistant and notary, Phyllis left the workforce to raise her three children. She was a long-time member of Words and Wisdom, a women's study group, and the Monday Afternoon Club.

When her oldest children left for college, Phyllis dived into a passionate, decades long pursuit of her family history. Visiting libraries, cemeteries, and other family members, she pieced together the story of her family for the enlightenment of us all. Her ancestors were a family of pioneers: Richard Warren, a passenger on the Mayflower; Stukeley Westcott, one of the founders of Rhode Island; Abraham Amsden, a Revolutionary War militiaman who took up arms at Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill; Erastus Fowler and Temperance Merrill, one of the first families in Ohio; and several of the earliest families in Trumbull County. In 2019 Phyllis became a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution.

Very active in the community, Phyllis was also a long-time member of the Ohio Genealogical Society and the Trumbull County Genealogical Society, who gave her their first-ever lifetime achievement award in 2012. For many years she served as a trustee of the Warren Library Association and served on the boards of the Sutliff Museum and the Trumbull County Historical Society. She was a frequent volunteer in the Ohioana Room of the Warren-Trumbull County Library. At one time or another, she was an officer in most of the organizations she belonged to.

Phyllis loved homemaking. She was an excellent baker, known for her pies, and she enjoyed doing needlepoint. Her home on North Road in Howland had the finest materials and finishes, with every last brick put in place by her husband Richard, a true craftsman. Phyllis warmly decorated her home with myriad collectibles and family photographs, making it comfortable and inviting for friends and family alike.

Phyllis will be dearly missed by her surviving family: sons, Kenneth (Constance) Hess of Carmel, California, Jeffrey (Patti) Hess of Tomball, Texas; grandchildren Kyle (Katie) Hess,

Christopher Hess, Amber (Agustya) Hess Mehta, Logan Nelson, and Lucy Nelson; great-grandchildren Miles and Tara Hess, and Ambrose, Augustine, and Anselm Mehta.

She was preceded in death by her parents, husband Richard, daughter Linda Elaine Hess Nelson, and brother Donald Eugene Lafferty.

Services will be held on Saturday April 8, 2023, at the Carl W. Hall Funeral Home, 533 North Park Avenue, Warren, OH 44481. Visitation will be at 10:00am and a memorial service will begin at 11:00am. Phyllis will be buried next to her husband in Howland Township Cemetery.

Memorial tributes can be directed to the Trumbull County Historical Society or the Ohio Genealogical Society.