LOCAL HISTORY
Wayward Son A Look Back at the Life of John G. Phillips Sr. by Lori Roll Often referred to as “Bartlesville’s spoiled rich kid,” John G. Phillips Sr. was his mother’s darling who could do no wrong, and his father’s crushing disappointment. The only son of oil tycoon Frank F. Phillips and Jane G. Phillips, John was born December 9, 1898 in Creston, Iowa. The Phillips family moved from Iowa to Bartlesville in 1905, where Frank built his fame and fortune in the oil and banking businesses. John and his adopted sisters, Sarah Jane and Mary Francis, lived a life of privilege fueled by the family’s wealth, showered with affection and everything money could buy. John attended Garfield School and appeared each Sunday at the Methodist Sunday school in his “Little Lord Fauntleroy” suit. To make up for the time they spent apart, Frank gave John a pair of roller skates and a pony, which he hitched to a fancy buggy for trotting through the neighborhood. However, Frank’s long work hours and trips away from home, and Jane’s doting overprotection of John, was ultimately his undoing.
minating Oil Company and Foster Petroleum Corporation, and Henry Doherty, founder of Cities Service Company. During this time, there was a large group of young executives emerging on the social scene. They called themselves the “Halcyon Club,” although their raucous parties were anything but tranquil. John and Mildred were members of the Halcyon Club, which held memorable costume balls, elaborate dinner parties, poker parties, and impromptu balls with orchestras. During the hot summer months when the wives and children went to cooler climates, the young husbands left behind spent their evenings gambling, drinking, and pursuing unattached young women. John was at the heart of the pack.
Stories of John’s excess were legendary. Like the time “Titanic Thompson,” a dapper hustler and master of pool, blackjack, poker, craps, and golf came to Bartlesville lured by the promise of bilking the new, wealthy executives of Phillips Petroleum. John was an easy target and he ended up losing not only all his cash to Titanic Thompson, but also the home Frank and Jane had gifted him. Frank was enraged. He couldn’t understand a man who would risk his own home, and he couldn’t abide a man who seemed to only be good at losing. Frank bought the home back and put it in John Phillips Jr.’s name, who was six Frank Phillips, left, with his son, John G. Phillips Sr. months old at the time.
John was sent to Hotchkiss, a Connecticut boarding school, at the age of 15. He acquired an affinity for liquor at an early age and became known as a “hell raiser,” which led to his being expelled from Hotchkiss. With the onset of WWI, Jane encouraged John’s engagement and marriage to an educated, attractive young lady named Mildred Beattie, the only child of a prominent banker. They were married March 1, 1917, three months after John turned 19, thereby avoiding military service. He was named assistant secretary treasurer of the newly-formed Phillips Petroleum Company, but his heart was not in the oil business. He worked at various jobs for Phillips, Southwest Radio, U.S. Mortgage and Discount Company, and Southwest Supply Company.
His wife tried to keep him sober, but not even the birth of their daughter, Betty, in 1921 slowed his drinking. With the birth of their son, John Gibson Phillips Jr., in 1925, the family moved to a new residence on Cherokee, a gift from Frank and Jane — conveniently located across the street from their townhouse where they could keep a watchful eye on him. John never finished school, and it was speculated that the communication gap between him and his father, severe depression, and a desire to be someone he wasn’t contributed to his alcoholism. John had many plans and ideas, none of which came to fruition. The Roaring Twenties were in full swing in Bartlesville, with business titans Frank Phillips, H.V. Foster of Indian Territory Illu-
Mildred gave birth to twin boys on December 23, 1929, and they named the boys after their two grandfathers, the late Robert Beattie and Frank Phillips. But the family’s joy was short-lived when Frank Phillips II, the weaker of the twins, died on Christmas Eve, 1929. By 1931 Mildred had grown weary of John’s antics. After their divorce, Mildred stayed in the family house and maintained a good relationship with Frank and Jane. Frank sent John to Bill Brown’s Health Farm in upstate New York for alcoholic recovery, but it wasn’t long before his head was turned by Mary Kate Black, a young widow from South Carolina. They were married Jan. 3, 1933, just 13 months after his divorce. Jane died in 1948 and Frank died in 1950 while on vacation in Atlantic City, NJ. John and Mary Kate were in Colorado Springs when they learned Frank was in poor health after complications of a gallbladder operation. John rushed to be with his father and was by his side when he died. He was devastated by the loss of his parents. Heartbroken, John died of a heart attack at 52 years of age aboard the Queen Mary cruise ship on January 27, 1951, less than five months later. He is entombed in the family mausoleum at Woolaroc. OCTOBER 2020 | bmonthly
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