Phyllis Ann Roe
(November 16, 1922 - August 25, 2013)

Phyllis A. Roe, 90, of Lake Worth, Florida, died peacefully in her home on Sunday, August 25, 2013. She was born in Huntington, West Virginia, on November 16, 1922, and was the daughter of the late Charles Lisle Roe and Thelma Wright Roe. She graduated from Huntington High School in 1940, attended Arlington Hall Junior College in Virginia, graduated with honors in 1944 from Converse College in Spartanburg, South Carolina, and earned her Masters Degree in Social Work at Columbia University in New York in 1951. She worked at the Sylvania Electric Company in Huntington in 1944 then for the Department of Public Welfare from 1944 to 1954 in child welfare and adoption placement programs. She moved to Florida in 1954 to continue in the same line of work in training and supervisory capacities. She worked on task forces responsible for Florida's first organization of all human services into the State Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services (HRS). She became the first HRS District Administrator for Palm Beach County and five surrounding counties in 1975, continuing there until 1978 when she moved to Tallahassee to accept a position in HRS Field Operations where she worked until 1981, when she took an early retirement to care for her mother. After retirement she became more active in local agencies, particularly Hospice of Palm Beach County. She was a member of the first Hospice board formed to develop the local Hospice facility. She also became active in church work at the United Methodist Church of the Palm Beaches including being on the Administrative Board, Council on Ministries, the Finance Committee, and was the leader of the Ruth Circle for 20 years. She is survived by her beloved godchildren Ashley Collette and Kyle Collette and their parents K.C. Collette and Anni Collette. Funeral services will be held in Huntington, West Virginia, at 10:00 a.m. on Wednesday, September 4, 2013, at the Chapel in Woodmere Cemetery.