These prepared remarks were delivered by Janet A. Green, Co-Chair, Board Member, Mount Sinai Phillips School of Nursing, at the 120th Commencement of the Mount Sinai Phillips School of Nursing on Thursday, December 15.
Janet A. Green, Co-Chair, Board Member, Mount Sinai Phillips School of Nursing
Until my mother’s passing in September, 2021, it was she who delivered this greeting to all of you on behalf of our family. I was always enthralled listening to Carol Phillips Green retell the tale of our family and how we became staunch supporters of New York City health care and this school of nursing. Truthfully, of all of the ways I’ve had to attempt to fill her shoes, this speech is the hardest.
Before we begin this ceremony of graduation, I would like to carve out a brief moment in remembrance of my dear grandfather, Seymour Phillips, the man who was honored by having his name linked to the nursing school from which you are graduating today. The Phillips School of Nursing… many of you may have wondered about this man who was so greatly honored by having this school named after him. I have been assured and reassured that no matter which hospital group becomes our umbrella institution, we will always remain the Phillips School of Nursing, and that is a commitment and promise that will be kept.
It is now 35 years since my grandfather’s death—a minute and a lifetime. Possibly the way you feel today looking back on this time you have spent at the Phillips School of Nursing—a minute and a lifetime. Take a moment to think about how different you are with this knowledge and with the friendships you have created here!
The number of generations that our family has been a part of Beth Israel, its nursing school, and New York City health care is now five. I proudly represent the fifth generation as co-chair of your Nursing School Board, serving with the amazing and dedicated Ruth Nerken who has her own compelling tale of philanthropy and service to community to tell. We represent your interests and needs to the Mount Sinai Health System, and even though you may not see us wandering the halls, we have been there with you in spirit every day. And it gives me great, great pride that my daughter, Kristine Mikkelsen, has recently joined the Board representing the sixth generation of our family. Really, it leaves me kind of speechless.
As President of the Phillips-Green Foundation, it is my honor to keep the generations of our family informed about this school, our students, scholars, and graduates. I send regards and congratulations from our seven Directors on this milestone in your lives.
As so as many of you and your families have come from other countries, so too, my grandfather’s grandfather, Moses Phillips, his wife, Endel, and three sons, came to America in 1881 as penniless immigrants from Poland.
President Theodore Roosevelt with supporters at the groundbreaking of Beth Israel Hospital in New York, including Isaac Phillips, the second person to the left of the president
The family first settled in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, where a cousin was living. As there was not much work in this community for a cantor, a singer in the synagogue, he bought his wife, Endel, a sewing machine, and Moses, from his pushcart, sold the shirts his wife made to the coal miners emerging from the mines with their Friday paychecks. A business was born there.
In the 1890’s my great, great grandfather, Moses, moved the family and the business to New York City, where he helped open an infirmary on the Lower East Side to help care for and train immigrants that had arrived here from all over the world. Twenty years later, his son, Isaac, helped raise the money and turned the first shovel of dirt for the new Beth Israel Hospital at 17th Street and First Avenue—proudly standing next to Theodore Roosevelt, the newly elected President of the United States. Can we even possibly imagine the pride of this immigrant and the honor he felt at that moment? There is a photo of this event in the Phillips display case on the main floor of the school, and I hope you will pause for a moment to look at it the next time you pass by.
After Isaac’s too early death, my grandfather, Seymour, then in his early 20’s, came to work in what we still lovingly think of as “the family shirt business” which eventually morphed into the Phillips Van Heusen Shirt Company. But Seymour devoted his free time to his real love: the Beth Israel Hospital and the Nursing School whose Committee he chaired for 37 years until his death in 1987. There are some great stories of Seymour on that Board as he championed nurses and nursing education, saving the school from budget axes and closure in the 1970’s because some others couldn’t see the value added, only the expense. That we are standing here to honor you today is a testament to what can happen when you stand up to the naysayers.
During each of those 37 years, my grandfather presided over these graduations, and he and his wife, Madelyn, warmly hosted dinner dances for the graduates in their Park Avenue apartment, and occasionally I still hear from alumni that remember those evenings. In the three plus decades after Seymour’s passing, my mother delivered this message of welcome to the graduates and their families, and to hopefully give you a sense of my grandfather’s extraordinary life.
Graduation was the favorite day in Seymour’s busy year. He loved this school, its staff and faculty, and he especially loved its graduates. It was the highlight of his very full life when he was honored by having this nursing school bear his name.
This section of my remarks come directly from my mother—her sentiments so beautiful they need no improvement: As I look out at your beautiful faces today and feel the love of your families who now sit behind you, but who have stood behind you during these difficult years of education, we realize that you represent the very best of our country and the hope for its future. If America could look and act as this class does… with love and respect for each other, with strong support and caring concern for community, faculty and family, then we will have deserved the continuing blessings of this great country.
I am truly sorry that you did not get a chance to know my grandfather or mother. But today, we are even sorrier that they did not know you.
So on behalf of my dear grandfather, Seymour Phillips, whose memory I do invoke for this brief moment, and for my mother, Carol and all of our family, I salute each of you… and on with the ceremony.