‘Mr. Phil’ Celebrates 90 Years
Phil Jordan “Mr. Phil” as he’s known to so many, will celebrate his 90th birthday tomorrow, April 24, 2015. Born in Monticello in 1925, there are so many highlights to this man’s life, it’s hard to know where to begin.
He is a walking encyclopedia about Monticello and Jasper County, and knows more than the average person about the military, particularly World War II in which he served, and so much more.
Mr. Phil served on the Jasper County School Board from 1965 to 1985. His tenure put him at the center of court-ordered school integration locally that produced controversy and bitterness that Mr. Jordan does not like to recall. But his influence, along with support of family and other community leaders is credited with development of what is widely regarded as an exceptional small county school system today.
He served on the Monticello City Council for about four years, too. He said he and some cronies decided they’d find someone to replace the old guys on city council, and ended up running and winning the seats. He talked about how the city and county were run then, with the county clerk handling virtually all the county business.
Recently, one of Mr. Phil’s great-grandchildren asked him to answer some questions about his life, which revealed a lot about his early years.
His first job was working in the peach packing shed. He stamped labels on boxes and baskets. He was about seven or eight years old. At that time he wanted to be an aviator when he grew up. He was lucky enough to be one of the people who flew in the first plane to take passengers. Each summer, he and his mother and brother took the Dixie Flyer train to Chicago to visit her family. It was during one of those trips that he took the flight.
As a child, one of the mischievous things he did with his brother and friends was to tie a piece of black rubber tube to a string and pull it. When a man walked down the street, we would pull it across and he would think it was a snake and jump and run, he said. He said he did it all the time. Mr. Jordan grew up in the big house on Hillsboro Street across from where the funeral home is now.
He said he first saw the ocean when he was a Boy Scout and they went to camp at Sea Island. He said all the boys sat in the back of a pick-up truck all the way to the island. He talked of boys losing their hats when they would blow off their heads, and having the driver stop so they could go retrieve them.
Mr. Phil attended school at the Monticello District School (now Thomas Persons Hall). He was a junior on the 1940 state champion Hurricanes football team, and the following year the ‘Canes fell short, finishing second in state.
He said there were no divisions. They played whoever was in the area. The 1940 team held every team except Gray scoreless in the regular season, and that was when the ‘Canes played them there. They played each of five opponents twice…once at home for each school. They beat Dublin 18-13 in the state playoff game.
He also said that the players played the whole game, offense and defense, and he didn’t think they ever got substituted for a break. He can still tell you the plays they called, including playing the “Notre Dame shift,” which was common at that time.
One of the team members, Harold Morgan, was the first to get a scholarship to play ball. They lured him from the Hillsboro District School to Monticello so he could play sports for the Hurricanes. No other school had a football team, but they all had baseball teams.
When Mr. Phil was young, each community had a district school, and the black children were educated primarily in the churches.
He went on to attend Georgia Tech where he lettered in track for pole vaulting. He won the silver medal in the Southeastern Conference in Birmingham, Ala. for his pole vaulting.
While attending Georgia Tech, he would hitch hike to the Hub Junction then catch the bus to Monticello. He graduated in December, 1947, with a degree in Industrial Management.
Mr. Jordan told about his military background.
“When we got into war with Japan and Germany in December of 194l l was a senior at Monticello District High School. I graduated in a ceremony on Rose Bowl Field on a Friday in the latter part of May and started classes at Georgia Tech the next Monday morning. I had applied for and was selected along with about 40 others to the Naval ROTC program.
“In August I took the oath of allegiance and entered the Navy’s V-1 program. I was 17 years old.
“I have never thought of myself as a veteran of a war because I was never shot at by the enemy, never saw the enemy and was never really ‘in harms way.’ But I was intensively trained to fight or oppose the enemies of our country. I was a member of the Naval Reserve for over 19 years, was on ‘active duty’ for six years including being a gunnery officer at sea on destroyers for about 30 months.
“My service to our country in the U.S. Navy includes my service in the Naval ROTC at Georgia Tech and against the German U-Boat menace off the Georgia-Florida coast as a Navy Cadet in June of 1943; my training from February to October 1945 as an Ensign in destroyer schools as a Gunnery Officer and Visual Fighter Director to combat the Japanese kamikaze pilots in the planned invasion of the Japanese mainland.
“I was the Assistant Gunnery Officer for seven months on the Destroyer Chevalier at the end of the war until June 1946; and as a Lieutenant serving during the Korean Emergency as Air Defense Officer and later as Gunnery Officer and Senior Watch Officer on the Destroyer Eaton against the ‘anticipated’ Russian submarine menace in the Atlantic Ocean.”
Mr. Phil began dating his future wife, Clydie Banks, when he was a sophomore in college, and she was a sophomore in high school. They married on September 14, 1947 at her home in Shady Dale.
They had five children, Lynda Louise Gasses, Wiley Phillips Jordan, Jr., Patti Myrene Lanier, Robert Young Jordan, and Daniel Clyde Jordan. Their grandchildren are Capal Ann Hadid, Joseph Arthur Gasses, Cara Lynda Stevens, Anna Clyde Sitz, Wiley Phillips Jordan III, Alexander Meriwether Jordan, Rebekah Lynn Mullinax, Meredith Young Jordan, and Jonathan Robert Jordan. Great-grandchildren are William Patrick (Liam) Sitz, Eli Harvey Sitz, Julia Miriam Sitz, Grady Phillips Jordan, Rebekah Brae Hadid, Amelia Burke Stevens, Sadie Myrene Stevens, Carson Capie Mullinax, Aaron Jordan Mullinax, and Rawlins Young Jordan.
Mrs. Jordan died August 7, 2012, and Mr. Phil tears up whenever the subject goes to the love of his life. They were married 65 years, and the family numbered 35 at the time of her death, said Mr. Phil. The family continues to grow, with a wedding planned next month, and the birth of another great-grandchild expected any day, posibly on his birthday.
In his memories he shares with his great-granddaughter, he tells of a time he was invited to a dinner party with older friends and relatives. He invited Clydie to go with him, although he had several young ladies he could have taken. She asked why he chose her, and he said, “Because you know how to talk.”
Besides being involved in the family peach business from a very young age, Mr. Phil later worked in the beef cattle business. He graduated with a mortuary degree from Gupton-Jones School of Mortuary Science in Nashville, Tenn., and ran Jordan Funeral Home for 50 years before retiring in 1998, when his son, Phillip, took the reins.
He was a partner with his brother, Glover Jordan, in the family firm of E.G. Jordan Furniture Company for a number of years. The funeral home was operated out of the furniture store until the building on Hillsboro Street was built.
Mr. Phil also remembers helping Fitzhugh Penn with the newspaper when he was a young man.
Always active in Monticello Presbyterian Church, Mr. Jordan was an elder and Clerk of Session for many years, and served a term as moderator of the Augusta-Macon Presbytery.
Mr. Phil is a delight to talk with, as he is a walking history of our community. He remembers watching the “chain gang” pave roads. He remembers so much about the history of Monticello and Jasper County, and he’s related to the people who put in the first telephone line in the county and the first electrical system in the city, which was later sold to the city.
Mr. Jordan just plans a small birthday get-together for his milestone 90th…just the family. You can bet the house on East Washington Street will be brimming over with good wishes as this interesting man celebrates his 90 years right here in Monticello.
