Those who knew her best say food was Diane Skaggs’ love language.
“She loved surfing the internet for new recipes,” said her daughter, Debbie Skaggs, 59, of Festus. “She’d spend hours looking at recipes. It was always, ‘This sounds good … let’s try it.’”
Mrs. Skaggs died May 13 at age 81 of complications following a brain bleed. She spent more than half a century in the food service industry as a volunteer and cook, eventually retiring from St. Pius X High School as head of food services.
She grew up in Festus, attended Sacred Heart Catholic School before completing one year at Ursuline Academy in St. Louis County and graduated from Festus High School. She worked part time at the local Dairy Queen during high school.
She met Fred Skaggs when he offered her and a group of friends a ride home from school.
“A few weeks later, he saw them walking again,” Debbie said. “He gave them a ride and that time asked Mom out on a date.”
The two were married in 1962 at Sacred Heart. Fred worked for Hostess, and Mrs. Skaggs went to work at Liguori Publishing in Barnhart.
“When she wasn’t pregnant within a year, she had to quit,” Debbie said. “That was (the company’s) stipulation. Right after she quit, they changed that rule.”
Debbie came along in 1964, brothers Mike in 1965 and Dan in 1970.
As a stay-at-home mom in the early years, Mrs. Skaggs started making decorated cakes for weddings.
“She was self-taught; I don’t think she ever took any classes,” Debbie said. “I can remember her doing roses and putting them on waxed paper to dry.”
Once her children started at Our Lady Catholic School, Mrs. Skaggs began volunteering in the school cafeteria.
“She helped cook, she served, she did clean up,” Debbie said. “After a few years, she applied at St. Pius (High School) and got hired as a cook in 1976. She made out menus; she went to classes for government certification. She was there for 29 years.”
Debbie said her mom supported the school’s annual Bona Fortuna fundraising auction.
“She always made hundreds of her famous cookies for the auction, and always in four flavors: chocolate chip, peanut butter, sugar and potato chip. All of us kids helped.”
One year Mrs. Skaggs helped make elaborate chocolate floral display to be auctioned off.
“She and her crew made flowerpots and all the flowers were chocolate,” Debbie recalled. “They put them on this old-time flower cart for display. So many hours of work!”
Her husband and children helped Mrs. Skaggs in many of her efforts.
“My brothers learned they just had to say, ‘Mom needs help in the kitchen,’ and the teachers would let them leave class,” Debbie said with a laugh.
The whole family pitched in to help unload deliveries and clean the school kitchen during the summers.
In the early 1980s, the Skaggs family began a modest catering business out of their home, frequently renting cooking and prep space in the St. Pius kitchens.
“Mom would come up with menu options, figure out what supplies were needed and figure how much to charge,” Debbie said. “We helped cook, haul it to the venue, serve, clean up.”
The family purchased Stoplight Produce Market in 1993, just after that year’s record flood.
“They remodeled it right after the water went down,” Debbie said. “They moved it to higher ground after a couple of years, but then got flooded again anyway. They sold it in 2002.”
Around 2000, the catering business wound down as well.
“We were all just tired and it was too much work,” Debbie said.
Following the birth of her only grandchild in 2004, Mrs. Skaggs began looking to retire.
“She wanted to spend time with him, of course,” Debbie said. “And she wanted to travel. She and my dad used to go with friends to the Lake of the Ozarks, to Branson. She loved to sight see, go shopping. And she loved to gamble.”
Mrs. Skaggs also loved to read, especially romance novels and cookbooks.
She was diagnosed with diabetes in the early 1980s but only recently began having health issues.
“She had heart surgery about five years ago. She fell in the kitchen and broke a hip. She slipped and bashed her head on the steps,” Debbie said. “She had a lot of things happen over the last five years. But she always bounced back. She used a walker the last couple of years, but she was always rarin’ to go if someone asked her out to lunch.”
She went on one last adventure last fall.
“My cousin, aunt and I took a girls trip with her to the Smoky Mountains,” Debbie said. “She thoroughly enjoyed that.”
Mrs. Skaggs always was a woman of strong faith.
“She got her little prayer books and cards out every night,” Debbie said. “She prayed for a lot of different causes and people.”
In early May, Mrs. Skaggs went to the ER with a blinding headache, high blood pressure and vomiting. Diagnosed with a brain bleed, she was intubated and sent for testing.
“They did trials to see if she could go off the vent, but it didn’t work,” Debbie said.
Doctors told the family that Mrs. Skaggs would likely never be able to come off the ventilator, and would require specialized care, with the closest facility in Chicago.
Her husband and children met to discuss it, but Mrs. Skaggs already had made her wishes known to her family.
“That was not the life she would have wanted. She made that clear,” Debbie said. “But it still was so, so hard to let her go.”
“Life Story,” posted Saturdays on Leader Publications’ website, focuses on one individual’s impact on his or her community.