Susan Conlon Phillips, 65, attorney and City Solicitor for the City of Westfield, passed away on June 23, 2020 at her home in Chicopee after a short, but hard-fought battle with pancreatic cancer.
Sue was born in Weymouth, MA on April 22, 1955, daughter of the late Wilfred and Dorothy Conlon. She was a graduate of Sacred Heart High School, Nasson College, and Western New England School of Law. She was admitted to the bar in 1985 and was a member of the Massachusetts, Hampden County, and Chicopee Bar Associations, as well as the Massachusetts Municipal Lawyers Association.
She joined her father, Wilfred, at the firm of Conlon & Phillips for many years, then went on to earn the admiration of nine mayoral administrations across her combined twenty-seven years as City Solicitor in both Chicopee and Westfield. Those she worked with were among her closest friends, and she had looked forward to celebrating her impending retirement with them.
She served on the Chicopee Council on Aging and the Westover Metropolitan Development Corporation, and for thirty-two years she served in various capacities, including as Chairperson and Treasurer, on the board of the Willie Ross School for the Deaf, a cause close to her heart. It gave her great pride to be chosen as Chicopee's Marshall for the 2011 St. Patrick's Day Parade, an honor her father had received 21 years earlier.
She is survived by her husband, William Phillips III, her son, Jonathan W. Phillips, his wife Jolene, and their children, William Conlon Phillips and Atia Eleanor Phillips; and by her sister, Atty. Sheila Conlon-Mentkowski, her husband, Thomas, and their son, Alexander Mentkowski, of Sacramento, CA.
Sue showed her love most clearly through food -- and that love will be sorely missed in both heart and stomach. As she had been working towards a retirement spent in Maine, her ashes will be scattered among the trees and flowers of the land she yearned to be a part of. A celebration of her life will take place at a later date due to pandemic restrictions. Donations may be made to Willie Ross School for the Deaf, 32 Norway Street, Longmeadow, MA 01106. Corridan Funeral Home, 333 Springfield St., Chicopee, has been entrusted with handling arrangements.
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