Laurell Marie Hilbig Skaggs

Laurell Marie Hilbig Skaggs, 81 years of age, passed away peacefully on Sunday, November 18, 2018.

She leaves her husband, Raleigh Ross Skaggs, her children, Raleigh Ross, Jr. “Sonny" Skaggs, Celeste Ann Skaggs Dunham and husband Chet, Steven Anthony “Tony” and wife Melanie and her grandchildren, Derek Ross Dunham, Angela Laurell Dunham, Erin Leigh Dunham, Grace Spencer Skaggs, and Grant Spencer Skaggs.  She often described her family as her shining lights of joy.

Survivors also include her siblings Marian Hilbig Nelson, Clara Hilbig Klinkovsky, Stanley James Hilbig, Robert Sylvester Hilbig, Terry Patrick Hilbig, and Glennis Raymond Hilbig, and numerous nieces and nephews.

She was preceded in death by her parents, Sylvester Jacob Hilbig and Clara Mary Kadura Hilbig, her brother, J.C. Hilbig, her sisters Leatrice Hilbig Jakubowski and Eileen Hilbig Whitten, and two infant children, Garland Eugene Skaggs and Luci Ann Skaggs.

Laurell was born on January 10, 1937, at the Hilbig ancestral homestead in Rockne, Texas to Sylvester and Clara, the fourth of ten children.

She attended high school at St. Mary's Academy in Austin, graduated as class valedictorian and was awarded a one-semester scholarship to the University of Texas.  She continued to take courses at UT until 1957.  At that time she started working full-time at Southwestern Bell Telephone Company and took classes on a part-time basis.

She met Raleigh Ross Skaggs in 1959.  They were married on February 4, 1960, at St. Ignatius Martyr Catholic Church on Johanna Street in Austin.  For the next seven years, they lived on Forest Avenue in South Austin before moving to New Braunfels, New Orleans, and Atlanta as Raleigh advanced during his tenure at United States Gypsum.  Upon retirement in 1998, they moved to Bastrop, Texas.  She loved retiring only a few miles from her place of birth and was delighted to meet friends and family in public places around Bastrop and at church functions.

In addition to working for Southwestern Bell Company for ten years, she was a Tax Examiner at the IRS in Atlanta from 1971 to 1983. From 1983 until retirement, after getting a real estate license, she was gratifyingly employed as both an office manager for a residential developer and an office administrator at an investment/real estate company.

She always loved to travel, play scrabble, cook and bake, do crossword puzzles, read, and garden.  Additionally, she found genuine pleasure when applying her crafting skills, which showed in her amazing pine cone wreaths, intricately painted art objects, and impressive flower arrangements.

Laurell was as a caring mother and dedicated wife who consistently maintained a lifelong love and devotion to God.  She is dearly missed by her loved ones, who celebrate the fact that she is at peace with her creator.

Services, along with a Recitation of the Holy Rosary, will be conducted by Bastrop Providence Funeral Home in Bastrop.  A Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Rockne with burial in the Sacred Heart Cemetery following the Mass.

In lieu of flowers memorial donations may be made to the Society of St. Vincent De Paul at the following web address:

https://www.svdpusa.org/