Phyllis V. Wiley; Former Detroit Taxi Dispatcher

Phyllis V. Wiley died Saturday in a Ventura hospital after a stroke on Aug. 22. She was 95.

Wiley was born March 6, 1903, in Bay City, Mich. Two months ago, she moved to Ventura from La Verne.

Carol Wiley said her mother-in-law left La Verne to live with her granddaughter, Karen Wiley, and to be near the beach. The ocean reminded Phyllis Wiley of Florida, where she had lived for 25 years, Carol Wiley said.

“She was just having a real great time living by the water [in Ventura], because of Florida,” Carol Wiley said.

Known as Phyl, Wiley was a homemaker and skilled gardener and had worked at the Yellow Cab Co. in Detroit as a dispatcher.

“She knew Detroit inside and out,” Carol Wiley said. “Anybody who wanted to know a street, Phyl knew it.”

Wiley’s husband, Bob, was a Detroit police officer. He died in 1979. Their daughter, Lanna, died in 1955.

Wiley is survived by her son, James, and his wife, Carol, of La Verne; grandchildren Karen Wiley of Ventura and John Wiley and his wife, Donelle, of Bakersfield; and great-grandson Patrick Wiley of Bakersfield.

Wiley was cremated and will be interred next to her husband in Ellenton, Fla. The family gathered Sunday on the beach in Ventura and released flowers into the ocean and balloons that carried messages for their relative.