A Lansdowne family of 11 hold a cherished memory of the day President Jimmy Carter visited their home, writes Jennifer Lynn for WHYY.
In October 1980, Jimmy Carter, running for re-election, reached out to Joe and Bertha Phillips, two Catholic Democrats, to see if he could host a question-and-answer session from the backyard of their Lansdowne home.
They wanted a big Irish Catholic family with a priest, “but we had a nun, so I guess that worked,” recalled WHYY News senior reporter Susan Phillips, one of the nine children at the Phillips home.
Joseph Phillips was a Philadelphia public school English teacher. Bertha Phillips was a Democratic committeewoman who volunteered for Congressman Bob Edgar.
An advance team that included Secret Service were at the house for four days prepping for the visit. Installing half a dozen phone lines.
“There was a red phone, literally,” Susan Phillips said. “And one of my siblings picked it up one day, and it started ringing, and then everyone kind of screamed and ran and hid.”
Phillip’s older brother, Joe, a Notre Dame grad student in economics, made national news with a question to Carter about the federal reserve and interest rates.
Find out more about the day President Jimmy Carter visited Lansdowne at WHYY.
