PHYLLIS MAXINE DYE SLATER, the daughter of Cecil Rhodes Carter Dye and Virginia Madlyn Giffin, was born in Wheeling, Ohio County, West Virginia and and grew up in Bridgeport, Belmont County, Ohio. She graduated from Bridgeport High School in 1946.

Also in 1946, Phyllis married James Edwin Conaway III. Their three children were James Edwin IV, Virginia Lee and Phyllis Maxine. James Edwin, IV died in a traffic accident in 1974. Virginia Lee married Curtis Harvey and they have one daughter, Courtney McNeal Harvey. Phyllis Maxine and her husband, Gregory Dale Ritchie, have three children, James Dale, Cecila Lynn and Christina Beth.

Phyllis married John Slater in 1968 and they lived on Wheeling Island. Her mother resided with them until her death in 1985. John owned Slater's Record Shoppe on Twelfth Street in Wheeling from 1949 to 1980; Phyllis worked there, beginning in 1959. John died in 1990.

Although Phyllis is a descendent of a number of the pioneer families of the Ohio Valley, one of the best known is the TOMLINSON family [Tomlinson Genealogy File]. Both Joseph Tomlinson and Joseph Tomlinson, Jr. served in the Revolutionary War. Joseph Jr. was the founder of Elizabethtown (named for his wife, Elizabeth Hartness), now the city of Moundsville, Marshall County. Joseph was also the founder of the Prehistoric Mound in Moundsville. Phyllis is a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution. - - A number of men from the Tomlinson family served in the Civil War. [Tomlinson Brothers in the Civil War].

Another ancestral family is GIFFIN/GIFFEN. Phyllis is a descendant of Robert Giffen, the pioneer settler and leader of the Kintyre group of Giffens who settled in the vicinity of Wheeling, W.Va. about 1787.

Phyllis' interest in genealogy began when she was in high school. Her grandmother, Ella Tomlinson Giffin, lived with Phyllis and her mother. Mrs. Giffen told many interesting stories and wrote down all the family she knew.