Margarett Elizabeth Shiplett Scalora, of Temple, Houston, and Buda, passed away at the age of 87 on August 30, 2019. Memorial services will be held at Cook Walden Forest Oaks Funeral Home Chapel on Saturday, September 7, 2019, at 3:00pm. A reception will follow.
Margarett was born on a farm outside of Rogers, in Bell County, Texas. She was an only child but had lots of cousins and plenty of dogs, barn cats, and farm animal friends. Our bedtime stories were about the calf that came to her window for a scratch and a rub and swinging in the vines over creeks with her cousin Duane. She graduated from Moody High School in 1949, at 17. Her first secretarial job was at Hoover Brothers in Temple, TX, where she met her true love and husband-to-be, Thomas Scalora. Thomas and Margarett married on June 6, 1953 and after spending a few months in the Panhandle and then close to the Ship Channel, they settled in Houston where they raised their family and remained until Thomas’ death in 1998.
Margarett was a talented artist, painting in oils and acrylics; she was also a skilled seamstress. She was crafty, making all kinds of play costumes, Halloween garb, and decorations. Margarett loved to garden and always had tomatoes and basil growing. She loved animals and spoiled several cats, dogs, and parakeets. Ricky, her last parakeet, kept her company and somehow managed to run her life for more than eight years. Ricky died just a few months before Margarett left us (but we never told her he was gone). She was a fantastic cook. Her lasagna and stuffed artichokes were famous, as were her fantastic holiday dinners, spaghetti sauce, and pear preserves. No one ever made better cornbread dressing.
Once her kids were in high school she went to work, first in retail and then as a department manager at Pinemont Bank in Houston. Margarett was a devoted member and long-time employee of Chapelwood United Methodist Church in Houston. She spent 17 years as Chapelwood’s wedding coordinator, skillfully and calmly guiding more than 1,000 anxious brides and grooms through happy ceremonies. She loved that job. Later she worked with the Reverend Kelly Williams, Chapelwood’s pre-eminent pastor of more than 35 years, both before and after his retirement, assisting him with church business, personal business, and lots of lunches. Kelly was the Scalora family’s guardian angel and Margarett’s best pal and partner in “pie crime.” Margarett and Thomas were blessed with lots of good friends over the years, many of whom they met at Chapelwood, especially through their decades-long participation in the Wedding Band Sunday School class.
She had a spine of steel, both figuratively and literally (titanium, actually). Margarett was always fully in-charge and in “take-no-prisoners” mode. She served as elementary school “room mother,” and Girl Scout cookie-manager, cared for her elderly parents, designed homes, and balanced books while juggling depleted bank accounts. She dealt punishments loudly and dramatically, but with rare follow-through. She was lots of bark and almost never a nibble, much less a bite. But she terrified most of the neighborhood kids, especially the Flores boys next door on Broken Bough. Margarett wiped the tears of her children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and her brides as well. Like a drill sergeant, Margarett marshaled nervous bridegrooms, tipsy best men and groomsmen, silly bridesmaids, high-maintenance brides, and their anxious mothers, and still whipped up chess pies and banana puddings, all while muscling through Thomas’ serious health issues and bi-polar disorder, as well as her own heart surgery, multiple back surgeries, diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, pancreatitis, and without anyone ever knowing, Parkinson’s. Her picture appears in the dictionary alongside the definition of “grit.”
Margarett is survived by her youngest daughter, Karon Kathleen Scalora; her son Michael James Scalora and his wife Cheryl Workman Scalora, and their daughter Nicole Leigh Scalora Tarpley and her husband, John Wesley Tarpley, and their children (Margarett’s great-grandchildren), Logan Thomas Reid Scalora, Natalie Lynn Tarpley, John Wesley Tarpley, Jr., and Dallas Alexander Tarpley; as well as her daughter, Jennifer Beth Scalora and her husband William V. Rice, III, and their sons Thomas Griffen Rice, and Walker Houston Rice. Margarett is preceded in death by her beloved husband of 45 years, Thomas Frank Scalora, by her parents, J.C. Shiplett and Ruby Lee (Dunnam) Shiplett; and by her grandson, Ryan David Scalora.
In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the American Heart Association (http://www.heart.org) or the Parkinson’s Foundation (https://www.parkinson.org). The family would like to express their gratitude toward the many patient and kind caregivers at Elmcroft Senior Living and Sodalis Summit Oaks Assisted Living; Eileen Schwartz, Margarett’s Magnolia Hospice nurse, and the entire staff at Sodalis Buda Memory Care, led by Bobbi Cornwell, who made her last months as safe, homey, and comfortable as possible.
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