Nancy Giles, instrumental in Phillies ALS partnership and wife of former owner, dies at 88

Nancy Giles, 88, the wife of a former Phillies owner who led the franchise into a partnership that has since raised $19 million to fight ALS, died Sunday night from heart failure.

Her husband, Bill, was part of the group in 1981 that purchased the Phillies from the Carpenter family. Three years later, Mrs. Giles implored her husband to name the ALS Association’s Greater Philadelphia Chapter as the official charity of the Phillies.

Last year’s Phillies Phestival, the team’s 35th annual event to raise money for ALS research and patient services, raised $768,020.

“She adopted our chapter without knowing a lot about us,” said Ellyn Phillips, the chair of the chapter’s board. “We had a budget of $4,500. They took a chance on us. It turned us around. We could have never gotten to where we are today without their help. They never stopped.”

Mrs. Giles grew up in California and met her husband while they were students at Ohio’s Denison University. She was studying for a graduate degree in education after completing undergraduate work at San Diego State University.

They met at a dinner mixer between Bill Giles’ fraternity and Mrs. Giles’ sorority. Bill, arriving late because he was in a school play, found the last open seat, which was next to his future wife.

“The first words out of my mouth were, ‘Oh, you must really be popular, the only empty seat in the place is next to you,’” Giles said with a laugh. “It went downhill from there. I put salt in her coffee. I sat behind her when she played bridge and made fun of every card she played. I called her the next day for a date.”

Mrs. Giles cut him off on the phone, having no interest in dating the man she’d met at dinner. But her courtier was persistent, and Mrs. Giles finally allowed him to take her to a movie.

“You don’t realize it,” Bill Giles said he said that night. “But you’re going to marry me, and we’re going to go to Hawaii on our honeymoon.”

Two years later, the newlyweds were in Hawaii. They came to Philadelphia in 1970 after Bill was hired by the Phillies and later settled in Gladwyne. Bill Giles, whose father was a Hall of Fame baseball executive, worked on the team’s business side before becoming an owner. He recently sold his shares in the team, but is recognized as chairman emeritus and is honorary president of the National League.

“She was more of a basketball fan,” Giles said. “I taught her how to keep score with a score book, and that got her interested. As time went by, she became more of a Phillies fanatic than I was. She never missed a pitch on television. She loved the players. She got to know a lot of the wives of the players. I’ve gotten messages today from Mike Schmidt, John Kruk, Ryan Howard, Charlie Manuel and others. They loved her and she loved them back.”

The Gileses were married for 64 years and had sons Michael, Joe, and Chris. She is also survived by eight grandchildren, a sister, a niece, and a nephew.

“Everyone loved her,” Bill Giles said. “She was so kind and sweet to everyone, no matter who the person was.”

Mrs. Giles was inspired to help the ALS Foundation after hearing the story of Ellyn Phillips and her husband, Alan, who died in 1984 from ALS. Ellyn Phillips’ mother, Malvina Charlestein, founded the fundraising arm of the ALS Philadelphia Chapter and wanted the Phillies to help, believing a baseball team was well suited to help raise money for an ailment commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.

But Phillips and her mother had no connections with the team until learning that the Gileses’ family dog kept wandering into a cousin’s backyard. Phillips’ cousin returned the dog to the Gileses and helped put Charlestein in touch.

“Nancy came to my parent’s house,” Phillips said. “And as they say, they came in and shook hands and when they left, they hugged.”

A meeting shortly afterward at Veterans Stadium with several Phillies executives, including Bill Giles and David Montgomery, forged a partnership that helped Philadelphia’s ALS chapter grow from a group of volunteers on a shoestring budget into one of the nation’s leading chapters.

“From that day on, it was Ellyn Phillips with the energy and my wife with the feelings toward ALS, and just me in the middle trying to make things happen,” Giles said. “It turned out to be a wonderful experience.”

“She taught me so much just by her example,” Phillips said. “She was very caring to our patients, to me, to my whole family. She wanted to know everyone. She came to all of our events. She got her sorority involved. She was so sweet and low-key. She just has a way about her, and I’m not the only one who says this. I’ve gotten so many emails. She made an extra effort for everyone. I wrote to our board that she was so humble that if you went to the dictionary and looked up the word, her photo would be in there.”

Because of the coronavirus outbreak, services will be postponed to a date to be determined. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made to the Philadelphia Chapter of the ALS Association, 321 Norristown Road, Suite 260, Ambler, PA 19002.