Pokin Around: One man's protest against Greenlawn Funeral Home

Richard Phillips, 80, tells me he has 46 grandchildren who are ready and willing to join his protest against Greenlawn Funeral Home.

All he has to do is give the word.

"I have tried to keep them out of it because they will get on Facebook and just turn it loose," he says. "And some of the boys are just old rednecks" — quickly adding — "but none of them has been in trouble."

Richard's issue with the funeral home involves his late-wife's grave. Wilma died of cancer in 2005 and two of the couple's daughters built a small flower bed at the foot of the double-wide headstone. This is Richard's future home, too.

The flower bed was framed by bricks.

In April — 10 years after Wilma was laid to rest — cemetery workers left a note at the grave-site asking Richard to remove the flower bed. He never saw the note.

"Most of the time I just drive by and don't get out of my car," he explains.

So he showed up one day and it was gone.

"I came out here and I was hot," he tells me, as we sit in the cemetery in his 1950 maroon Studebaker. It's a beautiful car. But unfortunately it's July and the car lacks air conditioning.

"Now I'm a little guy but I can eat your lunch in a heartbeat," he tells me.

How little? I ask.

"I used to be 5 foot 4 1/ 2 ," he says. "But now I'm 5 foot 1."

By this time, I'm hot, too. But not because of what happened to Wilma's flower bed. But because it's about 95 degrees in Richard's car.

I ask if we can move to my car, which is parked behind his Studebaker.

"I grew up without air conditioning," he tells me.

We switch cars in the cemetery and for some reason I feel like a mobster having a secret meeting.

Richard tells me that he and Wilma were married 35 years. It was a second marriage for both. Richard had four children from his first marriage and Wilma had six. They adopted one child as a couple.

This explains the 46 ready-to-protest grandchildren. Richard says he just might deploy them at all three Greenlawn funeral homes in the Springfield area -- two in the city and one just north of the city..

He is waging war in memory of Wilma, whom he loved. She was an unusual woman, he says.

On their first date she helped him put a stereo into his car.

"I used to tell people that God gave her to me. But that's really not correct. He loaned her to me for 35 years. And that wasn't long enough."

Occasionally, I have to ask Richard to repeat what he tells me.

"It's my new teeth," he explains.

They look great.

Richard's protest is, basically, the sign he holds while sitting on his lawn chair: "In my opinion, they desecrated my wife's grave."

I like Richard. I like him even more in the air conditioning of my car.

But "desecrated"? It was a flower bed.

But Richard is entitled to his opinion.

As is Clay Adams, Greenlawn's general manager.

Adams tells me he and Richard have talked extensively about Wilma's flower bed and why it was removed.

He likes Richard, he says, adding that Richard took immaculate care of that flower bed.

"Mr. Phillips is a great guy. He came in once a week and talked to us about it. But having the bricks there is a safety hazard during the mowing season."

In addition, Adams tells me, the cemetery's rule against brick ornamentation pre-dates 2005, when Wilma died and her flower bed was created.

"It has been forbidden for years," he says. "It's just that we had been pretty lenient."

The problem was that more and more people saw Wilma's flower bed and decided to build their own, Adams says. And most of these new builders were not nearly as meticulous and as caring as Richard.

"For example, you might have a family from Kansas City that buries their mom and dad down here and — unlike Mr. Phillips — they only come down once a year," Adams says.

"And did he tell you that he can put up whatever he wants during the non-mowing season?"

No.

"Well, we've told him that several times."

The non-mowing season is Oct. 16 to March 14.

What would Wilma have thought of all this? I ask.

"She would be behind me all the time we were married," Richard says. "We would discuss what we wanted to do and — even if she was against it — once I decided I was going to do it anyways she would back me up. That is a rare woman."

I also have an opinion on who is right and who is wrong in this matter.

But you're nuts if you think I'm going to express it. Not with Richard's 46 grandchildren waiting in the wings.

These are the views of Steve Pokin, the News-Leader's columnist. Pokin has been at the paper three years and over the course of his career has covered just about everything — from courts and cops to features and fitness. He can be reached at 836-1253, spokin@gannett.com, on Twitter @stevepokinNL or by mail at 651 N. Boonville, Springfield, MO 65806.