Phyllis Collier Kerns

The light of our family has been irrevocably dimmed. Phyllis Collier Kerns, writer, poet, teacher, businesswoman, life-long learner, friend, aunt, mother, grandmother, and great grandmother has, at 100 years of age, passed on to her next bold adventure, leaving us all, as ever, pleasantly dumbfounded and alarmingly graced.

Phyl was first and foremost a writer. Phyl's experiences as a woman in the 20th century battling stifling conformity blossomed in her writing, as she braided feminism, pacifism, witness of the atrocities committed against Native and Japanese Americans, and above all else an absolute commitment to speak the truth, no matter how impolite. She wrote thousands of poems, essays, newspaper articles, film scripts, and plays. She is the author of the play, Cowboy of the Western World, the poetry and essay collection, Pine Street Christmas, the poetry collections, Who in the World Am I? and Eight Poems, and the memoir, Growing Up American. She wrote the screenplay for the film The Travelers, which was produced in 2007. Early in her life, she wrote at the night news desk for the Herald and News in Klamath Falls. In mid-life, she wrote film and theater reviews for the Willamette Week and Eugene Weekly, and she contributed to the Lake Oswego Review in her elder years. She has left behind an extensive archive of writing that her children will continue to share with the world.

Phyl was a third-generation graduate from U of O and went on to earn a master's degree in American Studies from Yale University as the first woman in their graduate program in 1950. As a female student, she had to attend class behind a screen so she didn't distract the other male students. Soon she was plunging her professors into as-yet un-plumbed depths of cerebral revelation, such as when she earned an A+++ on a philosophy final exam by simply writing, "I know nothing."

A fifth-generation Oregonian, whose ancestors came to Oregon as educators, she raised 5 children on her own in Eugene, Oregon, while sustaining her life as an artist. Phyl was a founding member of the Book and Tea bookstore as she was a reader throughout her life, intimately conversant with the works of Tolstoy, and other writers who deepened her sense of craft, and her sensitivity to human yearning, struggle, and fulfillment. She was proud of her thrift, raising her children on very little income without them feeling like they lacked for anything. She and her son, Tom, built a family home behind Laurelwood golf course in Eugene which became a sacred space for her children as well as an investment that was able to carry her into her retirement. She was renowned for creating beautiful and cozy living spaces, and always made a crackling fire in her fireplace to meet the dawn.

Phyl raised her children to be honest, free-spirited, and unfiltered. In her later years, she took up sailing, sculpting, and painting. And whenever anyone complained about anything, she suggested they drop everything and go to Paris. As time wore on, her beloved summer abode of "Lake of the Woods" became overrun with grandchildren, to whom she taught the sacred techniques of whiskey for breakfast, throwing whole bags of pinecones on the fire, sleeping on the dock, moonlit skinny dipping, guarding your queen in chess, and going all in on every single hand of poker. By the age of 90, she had assumed the title of "designated enjoyer," which she had borne in secret all her life and could often be seen plying the azure waters on an impulsively rented party barge, gin and tonic in hand, both arms flung wide to the sky.

This summer, Phyl will return in style to the Lake of the Woods one last time, as her surviving children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and loved ones spread some of her ashes in the place she loved the most. There she will be good company with the "Lady of the Lake," the mountain Phyl loved to watch at sunset until the last golden ray shone like a beacon from its tip over the valley blanketed in darkness. Phyl shone like that, a rebel from the day she was born, keeping sadness, tyranny, and silence at bay with fierce, spontaneous "joie de vivre."

Demosthenes sought in vain with his lantern, looking for an honest man. If he had looked for a woman, he would have found her in Phyllis Collier Kerns, her arms open wide as the Klamath sky, for all that life had to offer.

Phyl Kerns is survived by her children, Tom Kerns, Marsha Chez, Ben Kerns, Mia Scofield, and Perrin Kerns, and their children and their children's children. Her daughter, Joanie Kerns, journeys before Phyl. Phyl will have a tombstone both beside her beloved Joanie, her parents, Andrew and Georgia Collier, and her sisters, Marie Ragland and Carolyn Larson, in Klamath Falls, Oregon, and at the Masonic Cemetery in Eugene next to her grandparents, Charles and Janet Collier, and great grandparents, George and Sybil Haskell Collier.