Editor’s Note: Matthew Phipps came of age in Tulsa and has traveled the world as a photographer and curator. (Back in 2012, This Land Press captured him filming a skate video in downtown Tulsa for an episode of True Tulsa.) He has been based in Mexico City for the past six years. He’s recently published a new book of photography, Heart and Soul, that documents his grandparents and more importantly his adventures with his grandfather, who battled dementia during the last 10 years of his life. In this essay, Phipps shares a handful of those photos and the stories that surround them.
For 10 years I traveled without stopping for more than three months in each place, but I made it a point to come home to Oklahoma to see my family regularly. Family has always been important to me. I am adopted, but the family that raised me has been a continual blessing my entire life, so each time I was home, I tried to spend as much time as possible with my grandparents, William and Velma Phipps, because I knew the clock was ticking.
Both of my paternal grandparents grew up in Okmulgee, although my grandmother was born along the Sand Springs trolley line somewhere around 65th Street West. They married before World War II and then my grandpa was sent to Fort Bliss and later to Hawaii. He was preparing for the invasion of Japan before the atomic massacres occurred. Luckily he never saw combat. During the war, my grandmother went to live with her sisters in Wichita, KS. After the war ended, they lived for a couple years in Muskogee, then for more than 50 years in Oklahoma City. They moved to Tulsa in 1995 to be closer to the grandkids.
My grandparents were like a second set of parents to me. They lived a mile down the road from us in Broken Arrow and were constantly present. Their style and grace has been a big factor in the way I dress and conduct myself on a daily basis. They were classy, yet not fancy. This helped shape the way I see the world and the morals and values I have in my head and heart.
Things changed as they aged. My grandmother had kidney failure and stayed on dialysis for six years. In 2015, she called me when I was in Warsaw, Poland, and told me it was time for her to go. I flew home and held her hand while she passed, then played a salsa song about life being a carnival and danced around her body.