Phyllis Jean Barrows

Phyllis Jean Barrows, 90, passed away peacefully, surrounded by her loved ones, in her Northern Michigan home on September 6th, 2026. She was a lifelong Michigander, born November 13th, 1935 in the Upper Peninsula, to Daniel and Ila Balog in the midst of the Great Depression.

Phyllis was a caretaker by nature and by trade. Shortly after high school, she married Marvin Dean Barrows, an Air Force mechanic and a union worker on the General Motors assembly line, and made a home with him in Lansing for the next sixty years. In 1968, she opened a daycare in that home and kept her doors open to neighborhood children for over three decades. She was the reason an extra shift could be taken, a class finished, or a second job kept. The children she raised under that roof will always know the smell of homemade strawberry jam and applesauce, the gentle murmur of soap opera drama in the background, and the feeling of love that follows having someone’s full attention. Throughout her long life, she lent her love and labor to many as their primary caretaker: her father-in-law Clarence, her mother Ila, her cousin Lillian, and—at the end of his life—Marvin, who had spent his own life serving others.

Those she leaves behind will remember her lovable quirks, the products of a thrifty childhood that taught her to waste nothing. She saved, cleaned, reused, and recycled everything, refused any purchase without a coupon in her pocketbook, and worked a garage sale like a hustler, hauling her finds north to her grandchildren, who learned to expect a bag of Box Tops for school, a loaf of banana bread, and a thrifted find upon arrival.

Her pleasures were small and simple. She liked a scratch-off ticket and the occasional twenty dollar gambling spree at the casino. It was, by her standards, a wild streak. She was a Scrabble fiend and a sore loser, whether it be to her brother-in-law Bruce or internet strangers on her iPad. She also loved to bake. At the holidays, Phyllis gifted dozens of cookie trays—full of star bars, snicker-doodles, snowballs, and classic cutouts—to family, friends, and neighbors. And she loved her Michigan State Spartans: the one thing in her life she was ever loud about. Fist balled up, punching the air: get 'em, get ‘em!

Phyllis left this world better tended than she found it, her family fed, looked after, and unmistakably loved. She leaves behind a legacy of prosperity, with her children and grandchildren each more educated, more well-off, and more free than the generation before. She also leaves a legacy of land—sixty acres of northern Michigan woods and meandering waters, where a modest log cabin stood for many years and her young family gathered for weekends and summer months. Great grandchildren she will never meet will learn and play and be with family under the shade of the trees she planted.

Phyllis was predeceased by her parents, Daniel and Ila Balog; her husband of 63 years, Marvin; her daughter, Debbie Seger; and her sisters, Janet (John) Krogulecki and Joyce Smith. Surviving to cherish her memory are her son, Douglas Barrows; her daughter-in-law, Linda Barrows; her grandchildren, Mitchell Barrows and Kayla Barrows; her brother, Bill (Linda) Balog; her sister-in-law Jane (Ken) Bearse; and her son-in-law, Marty Seger. The Barrows family extends its deepest thanks to the entire Bieganowski family, for adopting her as one of their own.

There will be a cemetery chapel service held on Monday, September 14, 2026, at 12 PM at Deepdale Memorial Gardens Cemetery, 4108 Old Lansing Road, Lansing, MI 48917.