Phil Monfort looking forward to century mark

WAITSBURG–On October 17, 1923, Phil Monfort was born into the world in the kitchen of an Iola, Kansas, farmhouse, because his father Earl C. Monfort was rebuilding the family home. The kitchen, with its stove for heat, was the most finished of all the rooms in the house.

Monfort, who with wife Jeannetta, daughters Margaret, Sarah and friends in the community, will celebrate his birthday with a party from 2-4 p.m., Sunday, October 15, at Waitsburg Town Hall, also holds a very rare distinction: his date of birth is the same as both his mother and father.

Everyone wishing to attend the celebration is invited and welcome.

Earl and Winnie (Remsburg) Monfort were parents to eight and Phil was the baby of the family. "That's why I was so ornery," he remarked. "I was spoiled rotten. I never got straightened out until I was 27."

What "straightened" Monfort out was a near-death experience in a small airplane in a snow storm over mountainous Pennsylvania.

Monfort had enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II and was in flight training as the war began to wind down. He'd been honorably discharged in 1945 and his older brother Harry has been one of the servicemen assigned to decommission the Walla Walla Air Base and hand it over to the county for civilian use. Seeing pictures from Harry showing the beautiful Blue Mountains and rolling hills brought Phil to this corner of the country.

It was 1950 and Monfort had an airplane that he was flying to Pennsylvania to impress a girl in whom he was interested.

"What I'd like to get across to people is the crowning experience of my life has been the people of integrity God has led me to meet and know and mentor me in the Christian faith," Monfort said this week.

"My world view up until 27 years old, was selfish and materialist," he said. "God got my attention in snow storm over the Pennsylvania mountains, flying with intentions of impressing a girl who had a scholarship in Bryn Mawr.

"I got as far as Greensburg, before going over mountains of Pennsylvania, which were only about 3,000 feet, and I was very proud because I had flown over Rocky Mountains at ten thousand feet, and I thought I could take off in marginal weather conditions."

Monfort flew into white-out conditions and turbulence "beyond anything I had ever experienced," he said. "I was tossed around like a feather.

"Finally, I shouted out 'I give up.' That's when God took ahold and saved my physical life. It was so dramatic I started being interested in who God really was," Monfort said.

The relationship with the Pennsylvania woman didn't work out and Monfort flew to Opalocka, Florida, and found a job. He was given a pickup to drive and in it he found a Gideon New Testament. "I started reading that," he said, pointing to verses in Matthew such as "Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God" and "But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well."

Monfort settled in Washington and eventually in Waitsburg, working in several avocations: theater and drive-in theater manager and projectionist, farmer and dark room (photography) technician. He managed the Plaza Theater in the 1960s, as well as the Dayton Drive-In. He farmed for Roy Danielson and Frank Danielson. Monfort owned rental property and the former Oddfellows Building in Waitsburg.

In 1971, he met his wife Jeannetta. They married three years later and the couple have two daughters, Margaret, born in 1976, and Sarah, born in 1981.