Phillip Lane Rhodes

     Phillip Lane Rhodes, age 72 of Wolf Lake, passed away on Friday morning, May 6, at home with his children by his side, listening to music and surrounded in love. He was born on January 25, 1950 to Geneva Mildred (Bridgeman) Rhodes and Ray Thomas Rhodes of Wolf Lake. He married Belinda Lu Stage of Vandueser, Missouri on October 11, 1974 at Beech Grove Baptist Church in rural Alto Pass. 

     Lane and Lu started their life together living near the family farm in a rental house from Merle and Ida May Smith - it was a tiny yellow house they would fondly refer to at “The Little House on the Prairie”. They began raising their first two children (Stephanie and Kevin) there. When they outgrew the little house on the prairie, they built their forever home on the Rhodes Farm and welcomed their third child, Felicia in the summer of 1979. 

     Lane is survived by his children Stephanie Rhodes of Alto Pass, Kevin (Darson) Rhodes of Hamlin, NY, and Felicia (Jason) Gale of Keokuk, IA; four grandchildren, Toby (Kenzle) Gale of Montrose, IA, Molly Gale of Keokuk, IA, Tyus and Jonas Rhodes of Hamlin, NY; and one great-grandchild, Kaesen Lane Gale of Montrose, IA; siblings, Dale (Joann) Rhodes of Ziegler and Sherry Rendleman of Wolf Lake; special friend and bonus mom, Ida May Smith of Anna; nieces and nephews, other family and special neighbors and friends. He is preceded in death by wife Belinda Lu, parents Ray and Geneva, sister Beverly, and brother in-law Gary Rendleman. 

     Lane was a member of Beech Grove Baptist Church and enjoyed supporting the Anna Heights Baptist Church Sunday School Class at the Anna Veterans Home. He and Lu held Sunday school and song services there for 23 years, making friends there to many veterans and their families. 

     Community members, friends and family remember Lane as a local basketball star at Shawnee H.S. in Wolf Lake, a proud serviceman in Vietnam, a Sunday school teacher at Beech Grove Baptist, a ministry leader at the Anna Veterans’ Home, a regular song performer at community events and churches and not the least of which was a long-time farmer of the creek bottom ground of Clear Creek.  

     Above all, friends and family knew Lane as a kind-hearted, compassionate, strong, patient, generous and hard-working man who always had time to “shoot-the-breeze” with neighbors and strangers alike. Lane loved his late and recently passed wife, Lu, as deeply as one could love another. 

     Funeral service will be at 2:00 p.m. Monday, May 9, 2022 at the Rendleman & Hileman Funeral Home in Anna with Bill Littrell officiating. Interment will be in the Jonesboro Cemetery. Graveside military honors will be conducted by the Carroll P. Foster Post #3455 of the VFW in Anna and the Illinois Army National Guard Funeral Honor Team of Marion. Visitation will be after 12:00 p.m. and until the service hour at 2:00 p.m. Monday at the funeral home. Memorial contributions may be made to the Anna Veterans’ Home Activity Fund or the Beech Grove Church Cemetery Fund. Envelopes will be available at the funeral home.  

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