By HDN Staff
LAURENE SKINNER
CHESTER LauRene Wretha "Sally" Skinner, 101, died Thursday, Dec. 21, 2000 at a Chester hospital of natural causes.
Funeral services will be 2 p.m. Wednesday at the Liberty County Nursing Home activities room in Chester. Committal services will be Wednesday, Jan. 3, 20001 in Portland, Ore., with entombment in the Portland Memorial Mausoleum.
Skinner was born Jan. 3, 1899 in Laurens, Iowa to Thomas and Tama (Brockett) Jerome. When she was 3 years old, the family moved to North Dakota and homesteaded south of Minot. She received her formal education at the Center and Reed country schools near the farm.
She married Ray Egbert Skinner in Minot on July 4, 1916. He entered the military the following year to serve during World War I. She moved to Minneapolis, Minn. to work at the Bemes Bag Factory. When he was stationed at Des Moines, Iowa, she moved there and worked at a coat-and-dress factory. They moved back to Minot upon his discharge and she began working as a telephone operator.
In 1922, they moved to Portland, Ore. where she continued to work for the telephone company. His health failed and he died in 1952.
Skinner retired from the telephone company in 1962, but continued to work odd jobs in the Portland community.
She suffered a heart attack in 1975 and she moved to Great Falls at the suggestion of her physician that she live in a drier climate. She lived in an apartment in Great Falls near relatives for nine years. She moved to Chester in 1984 to be near a friend she referred to as her "foster granddaughter."
Skinner enjoyed music, flower gardening and house plants. In her early years, she enjoyed deep-sea fishing and crab netting and she belonged to bowling leagues for many years. She also enjoyed latch-hooking, knitting and crocheting, cooking, baking and playing cards.
She was preceded in death by her husband, Ray Skinner; her parents; brothers, Clifford, Clinton and an infant; sisters, Lela, Merle, Marie, Edith, Dolly, Lernerma and Cleo.
Survivors include a sister, Nola Frolich of Coon Rapids, Iowa; numerous nieces and nephews, and many friends.
Memorials will be given to the nursing home.
Arrangements are by Rockman Funeral Chapel, Chester.
