Flaming Foliage Festival Queen Mystery Solved: FF Committee Reconnects with 1953 Winner Carol Phillips After Decades of Wonder
From Staff Reports
It’s a safe bet to say that no one person has gotten to know as many Flaming Foliage Festival Queen participants than Maria Ransom. Along with other titles including chairperson throughout the years, Ransom has served as Queens Advisor for the past 25 years. That’s one third of the 75 years that Flaming Foliage has welcomed participants from throughout central Pennsylvania.
Memories, laughs and friendships have defined Ransom’s tenure as advisor, but one thing really captured her sense of wonder for years.
Past Queen portraits are always displayed at the Queens Banquet each Saturday evening of Flaming Foliage Weekend, as well as Coronation as the weekend comes to an end and a new Queen is crowned- whose picture will then also be displayed each year.
Now at 74 past winners and growing, one picture always caught Ransom’s interest.
Carol Phillips was representing Williamsport High School in 1953 when she was crowned FFF Queen, many years before Ransom was born. Still, there was something about her picture atop Hyner View, looking down into Hyner at the Susquehanna River that always had Maria wondering what had come of Phillips.
The past queens have been invited to milestones in the past, including the 50th anniversary as well as others, but Phillips never received an invitation as her whereabouts and fate were unknown.
However, the internet has provided possibilities of making reconnections that were never possible before so Ransom spearheaded trying to get at least an invitation and response from all former living queens, with the secret hope that Phillips would be reached.
A couple of weeks ago Todd Warner of the Clinton County Veterans Affairs office learned of the search for past queens, when he realized that he knew of Carol Phillips.
Warner knew that her husband, Robert Shaffer had been a veteran and contacted Ransom to pass along his obituary, Robert had passed in 2022.
From there, Ransom searched for the oldest daughter, Beth living in New Jersey through social media. Soon, the mystery was solved and updates even beyond what Maria was thinking were coming in.
Ransom had hoped that Phillips had led a healthy and successful life, but she never would have guessed just how full of a life the woman from Williamsport would live.
Carol was now residing in Haddonfield New Jersey near Beth, one of her five children. It turns out Maria wasn’t the only one captivated by pictures of Carol. The Williamsport native did a stint doing modeling in New York, became an accomplished artist but most importantly a loving wife and mother. Her husband Bob’s profession as a Presbyterian minister would afford the couple a full life and several scene locations that they would call home.
“Beth sent me some of her mom’s pictures of when she was a model, she’s so beautiful, the pictures are so unique, I’m so happy to have gotten in touch with her and really wish she could have made the trip to Renovo this year, but she’s unable to” Ransom said of the one queen she always wondered about.
Despite not making the trip to the 75th annual Flaming Foliage Festival, Carol did provide a brief bio of her life for the program book, to be unveiled and sold throughout the coming days and over the festival weekend. Her daughter Beth said it was bittersweet to have gotten the invitation on behalf of her mom.
“I was so happy to hear from Maria, a few years ago Mom could have made the trip, but it would be a bit much for her now, we’re so happy to hear that she made an impression on Maria” Beth offered.
Below is the biography that Beth and her mom shared on the 5th Flaming Foliage Festival Queen and 1953 Miss Williamsport Carol (Phillips) Shaffer.
From Carol (Phillips) Shaffer
I was born April 10, 1936, in Williamsport, PA where I graduated High School in 1954. My lifelong love of art began in the 2nd grade at Henry Clay Elementary School.
In high school I received a scholarship to attend Penn State University to study art. After 2 years I was given the opportunity to go to the Barbizon School of Modeling in NYC. During the day I went to classes and at night I worked as an usher in Carnegie Hall.
After 3 months of training at Barbizon I began my modeling career, working in fashion shows at major stores such as Lord and Taylor, Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s and Altmans. I enjoyed this work especially during the Christmas Season, and the Spring Bridal shows.
During my time in NY I had been dating Bob Shaffer, also from Williamsport. He was a Presbyterian minister serving a little church in Ogdensburg, NJ, we were married in 1959 and had 5 children in the next 9 years.
In 1964 Bob accepted a call to be Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Glassboro, a college town in southern NJ.
In 1967 we moved to Berea, Kentucky where Bob organized and led a 3-county Community Action Agency as part of the War on Poverty. In 1971 Bob was transferred to a regional office in Philadelphia, Pa. We moved to Haddonfield, NJ where we raised our 5 children.
I became an Elder in the Presbyterian Church, and I was President of the Women’s Association. I was part of an active Prison Ministry for women held in the Camden City jail.
During these busy years I continued to paint.
In 1982 I acquired an antique store called the Wooden Peg. I specialized in Victorian and Primitive furniture and restoring antique dolls.
In 1991, our children having left the nest, we retired to a 550-acre farm in Estill County, Kentucky where we raised cattle. I began painting more and was able to display and sell my paintings.
After 20 plus years we sold the farm and moved into town.
In 2020 we moved back to New Jersey to be near our daughter and her family. Bob passed away in 2022.
