Phyllis was born in August of 1933 in a small, two room farmhouse in Missouri to Don and Augusta Shafer. On the farm, the family grew corn, wheat, oats, and various other crops as well as diverse types of cattle and livestock. Phyllis and her older sister Betty would often care for the runts of the different litters as their pets. She loved to play with dolls and go to her grandparents’ farmhouse which was only a half a mile across the field. Although both of her parents were farmers, they always wanted the girls to get a good education and pursue dreams beyond the farm.

Phyllis loved school, both the one-room schoolhouse that she attended from grades one to eight, and her high school, from which she graduated at the top of her class.

In 1951, Phyllis attended Chillicothe Business College on a scholarship and enrolled in the Stenographic course. This led to her getting a job in the big city as a secretary at Puriton Compressed Gas Corps in Kansas City. One year later, she was engaged to Sam Turner, who she had begun dating in high school.

For the first five years of their marriage, Sam was in the Army and Phyllis was busy raising their first two daughters. They moved from Missouri to North Carolina to Virginia when Sam was employed with the Agriculture Department. Later, Sam worked for the Federal Reserve Board in Washington DC and Phyllis worked for the Fairfax County School Board. A third daughter was born to them while in North Carolina.

She says she was always interested in the medical field while growing up, so she pursued an associate degree in Medical Records from the Northern Virginia Community College. In 1958, after their children had grown up and married, Sam retired and they moved to Florida. They lived on the eastern coast of Florida for over 20 years until Sam’s passing in 2011.

Phyllis moved to The Culpeper in March 2013 to be closer to two of her daughters. The Culpeper has now been Phyllis’s home for eleven years and she has seen many changes in that time. Phyllis started learning to play the piano when she was eight years old. At The Culpeper, she has played the piano for all three worship services for many Sundays and has also played for residents in Memory Support every Sunday for around five years.

Friends at The Culpeper have said that she is conscientious about doing what she can to stay in good health. She is most proud of her daughters, who are all hard working, family driven, and each followed a similar path for education. Phyllis is also a proud grandmother, with ten grandchildren and fourteen great grandchildren all over the world from Hawaii to Australia. When asked what her personal motto is, she said, “Do what I can to help and encourage others.”