One morning in February, Philip D. Cole was on his usual walk near the marsh around Griffin Island in Wellfleet when he suddenly did not feel right. Unable to carry on, he called the Wellfleet rescue squad, who took him to Cape Cod Hospital. He was med-flighted to Beth Israel Hospital in Boston, where he died on March 6, 2025 of complications from the brain aneurism he had suffered that February morning. He was 77.
The son of the late Dennis and Winifred Cole, Phil was born on Jan. 30, 1948 in Hyannis. His father worked for Duarte Motors in Provincetown, and the family lived in Truro. Phil spent his boyhood exploring the dunes and earning spending money as a paperboy and mowing his neighbors’ lawns. He chose to attend Nauset High School, graduating in 1966.
After high school, he attended Northeastern University for a couple of years, but it was the 1960s, the wider world beckoned, and he headed west, enduring winter storms in the Rockies and camping for an extended time in the New Mexico mountains. He came back east in time to make it to Woodstock in 1969, where, unbeknownst to him, the woman he would eventually marry was in the crowd near the stage. He spent his time at the festival on the fringes of the crowd.
Phil settled in Maine in a cabin with no electricity or running water, living off the land in an area that drew others to organize communes. According to Phil’s son, Josiah, a friend had met a woman called Honey who lived in a nearby commune. The friend said she was cute and that Phil should meet her. He did, and he and Virginia Mary Keefe married in 1973, settling in Farmington, Maine. They were married for 52 years.
Phil returned to college and earned a B.A. in geology and environmental planning from the University of Maine at Farmington in 1990. To earn a living, he worked as a house painter before opening Cole’s Carpet and Upholstery Cleaning Service, with his hand-painted lettering for the business on the side of his truck. When he sold the business in 1995, the year he returned to the Outer Cape, the new owners did not change the name, and it continues to operate today.
Back on the Cape, Phil opened and ran Hydro Power Carpet and Upholstery Cleaning in Truro until he retired in 2014; he sold the business to the Furies, the cleaning business in Wellfleet.
In retirement, Phil continued to work for a series of businesses, including Ace Hardware in Harwich and Cape Cod Vacuum (from whom he had bought supplies) in Orleans. He especially enjoyed working in Agway’s lawn and garden shop because of the plants and “because the people there treated him very well,” said Josiah.
Phil was a talented amateur folk artist. “He made custom birdhouses for his wife every anniversary,” said Josiah. He also painted odd bits of wood he came across in his rambles on the beach, along the march, and in the woods. “Art would come to him,” Josiah added.
When his children were young, Phil made silver jewelry by hand, and he landscaped the property around his homes over the years with imagination and care. He also paid careful attention to the wildlife and weather he observed on his daily walks, sometimes rescuing turtles or birds in distress and always tracking weather changes, especially impending storms.
Phil and Honey traveled to Maine each summer, revisiting its forests, lakes, and streams.
“Phil was one of the kindest humans I have ever known,” wrote Tony Castro, a former co-worker, in an online remembrance. “A wonderful listener who took a sincere interest in what others had to offer. He always asked wonderful questions and shared well his own life adventures.”
“My father was moving constantly,” said Josiah. “He would walk for miles every day. His life was about being outside.”
Phil is survived by his wife, Virginia; by three children, Hannah Cole of Centerville, Elizabeth Cole of Truro, and Josiah Cole of Eastham; and by eight grandchildren: Cole, Eli, Stella, Lucie, Sophia, Gavin, Caleb, and Cora.
In lieu of flowers, donations in Phil’s memory can be made to Wild Care of Cape Cod.
A private burial was planned, as is a celebration of Phil’s life still to be announced.
