Phyllis Addie (Priest) Ward, 92 of Melbourne, FL, passed peacefully June 16 at the William Childs Hospice House in Palm Bay, FL, after a brief illness.  Mrs. Ward was the daughter of the late Bernice Addie Piper and Robert Earle Priest of Winchendon, MA.  She is survived by her son, Robert Mitchell Ward of Melbourne, FL; sister, Reta Warman of Brookfield; brother-in-law Tommy (Mary) Ward of Birmingham, AL, and many nieces and nephews and their families.  She was predeceased by her husband of 63 years, Hilliard Grady Ward, Jr.; brothers Stewart, Mardis, Stanley, George and Chester Priest and sisters Ina Robbins and Arlene Prueser.

Mrs. Ward was born in East Barnard, VT, but her family relocated to Winchendon while she was very young.  She was a 1948 graduate of Murdock High School, where she was involved in several school activities, including playing cornet in the Murdock band for four years.  She was also an active member of the Winchendon Church of the Unity and participated in the American Unitarian Youth group there.  After high school, she attended Bryant and Stratton in Boston in the secretarial program.  On a whim, she and several of her friends took a test to work for the US Government.  When she passed, she left the program early and went to work for the Bureau of Yards and Docks, a branch of the Navy, in Washington, DC.  It was there that she met her future husband on a blind date.

A memorial service will be held at The Fountains of Melbourne, where she had resided for the last several years, on July 8 at 2:00.  She and her husband will be interred at the Massachusetts Veterans' Memorial Cemetery in Winchendon at a future date.