Cheryl Lynn Scovill

Suffering tends to make you self-absorbed. If you aim mainly at personal happiness, as western secular culture dictates, or seek God only in the sense of eliminating the causes of your personal suffering and enhancing the causes of your personal prosperity, you with find neither happiness nor God. Instead, the Bible says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,” and “whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.” If we don’t seek to find ourselves but to find God, we will eventually find both God and ourselves. Glorifying God means nothing other than making God the most important person in your life. – Tim Keller, paraphrased.

If ever there was a woman, wife and mother who used every trial of her life to, “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God”, it was shy Cheryl Lynn Gallaher Scovill. Her suffering through cancer, surgery, chemo-therapy, clinical trials, pain and wasting during the last twenty months of her life never, never, never diminished her selfless zest for life, family, friends and making big occasions out of all holidays, events, and every meal together. She loved and was loved and is loved. Such was her approach to making a family, living a life, and blessing the God who gave it all to her. For the sake of her worrying family she chose to not deviate from this path in the final trials of her life. To her last day, Cheryl had the same peace, joy, pious contentment, and sense of humor she had as a new bride. Though she grieved, she grieved for us who would lose her, never once asking, “Why me?” May all who read this be blessed by her life of faith and grace.

How, then shall we walk away from Cheryl and leave her behind? It must be in bits and pieces, scattering seeds of her grace to grow where they will. Cheryl tells you all to walk to God. Walk toward God, in Jesus name.

Cheryl Lynn Gallaher was born at old St. Paul’s hospital in Dallas, Texas on November 29, 1954. She was the oldest of five children, all born within six years, and spent her entire childhood in Garland, Texas. Like most oldest children, she was put to work looking after the other kids at an early age and that occupied and nourished most of her childhood, for she was destined to raise three of her own children and a granddaughter. No one of these three generations of kids ever complained about her devotion.

During Cheryl’s childhood the Gallaher family spent their family time on the lake, water-skiing. It was a recreation and time together they all loved and still talk about today. Cheryl was an expert skier. When they moved back to Texas from Colorado, she amazed her husband Mark performing stunts on a slalom ski on Lake LBJ. He had no idea she had such skills!

In high school Cheryl’s passion was from-scratch cooking. It was an area of confidence for her all her life. Her two close friends from high school loved to come to her house and watch her demonstrate her cooking skills. Beatrice, Cheryl’s mother, fondly remembers the three girls chatting and Cheryl’s beaming smile at being the “teacher.” Besides honoring her growing family in Colorado Springs with first-class cooking, Cheryl took courses in cake decorating and amazed friends and family with her birthday creations for years. She secretly baked and supplied the goodies every Sunday for three years for her large Sunday School class at First Presbyterian Church. She did multiple stints as Girl Scout Troop Leader, home room mother, pre-school car-pool driver, and manager of the Burnet Middle School snack concession (five days a week at lunch). At the end of her life she was an enthusiastic member of the cookie committee at Hillcrest Baptist Church and getting those cookies to church was the top priority assignment for her granddaughter and husband when Cheryl was too sick to come herself.

Cheryl and Mark both suffered broken-heartedness, embarrassment and disappointment from first marriages that ended in divorce. Mark, in particular swore he would never be entrapped again! But what do you do when the most beautiful girl you have ever seen falls in love with you? And we did fall in love with each other – in a way that made all of life’s tensions disappear when we only held hands. We spent our lives rushing home to be with each other. Cheryl married Mark on July 4, 1980 in Dallas. They moved to Colorado Springs on February 1, 1981 to start a new life together in a rugged, beautiful place.

Colorado lasted ten years. Cheryl and Mark bought a house, started a family and became absorbed with the life and challenges of a young couple with young children. Oh! how that life is missed! Cheryl bore a son and two daughters between 1982 and 1987. Cheryl’s joy was in her little children. She was obsessed with being the perfect mother but a few years of motherhood corrected and mellowed her. These years were spent camping in the mountains, riding the narrow-gage railroad, skiing, swimming in the hot springs, hosting family and friends who came up from Texas and Oklahoma for vacation. Best of all they were spent reading to three successive little children. “Chairman mouse and the mouse members … et al.” Cheryl saw to it all three of her kids had the “water-baby” experience, learning to swim before they could walk. Some years later their Dad beamed at Glenwood Springs as all three dove from poolside and swam out to him while other frustrated fathers around him struggled to teach their scared seven-year-old kids to swim. Mark had Cheryl to thank for that.

Sadly, Colorado ended due to unemployment and tough times. Cheryl and Mark moved their family back to Texas to find work. During this time Cheryl pulled us tightly together as a family. Cheryl’s focus was on those she loved and she submitted to that love with unreserved loyalty. We had one car, so Cheryl walked kids to school, then drove Mark to work and then drove back with the kid’s in the evening to pick Mark up from work. We were bankrupt and broke. But simple little things like eating out at Taco Cabana once a week and walking to the community swimming pool were the treats Cheryl made into grand affairs. She was the queen of un-bitterness. We started over.

The 1990s seemed like an endless stream of hot, Austin summers. Cheryl’s kids completed elementary school and Cheryl’s life as a home room mother seemed over. (We didn’t dream of repeating it with a grandchild.) Life for her revolved around older kids and teenagers. These were the years of organizing Saturday trips to Schlitterbaun for the girl scouts, Sunday visits with Mark’s parents in San Antonio, trips to Port Aransas with the kid’s San Antonio cousins. We managed to get to the Grand Canyon and Arches National Monument with a rented van packed with Scovill cousins, aunts and Cheryl’s mother-in-law, Lavonne. The best of times for Cheryl and Mark were often hot evenings at the middle school running track, walking three miles together, talking and watching the great comet that appeared over the horizon as the sun set.

Cheryl was a friend of Lois W., as is Mark. The decade starting in 2000 saw us with a very sick child and the torment that comes with that. That’s all I can say. By the grace of God things are great now. We met our fears in the arms of each other and those of fellow parents suffering through the same torments. These hard experiences shaped Cheryl in extraordinary ways. She came to develop her exceptional peace of mind through them and had great delight in meeting with these other parents, who sustained each other.

Cheryl was the most tender-hearted girl ever. Sweet experiences would easily move her to tears; even weeping. Intimacy would do this every time, whether with husband, children, family or friends. She just became overcome with emotion when things were sweet. Between 1996 and 2014 she lost Mark’s Dad, her Dad, Mark’s mother and her brother Darryl. These events just wrecked Cheryl.

Cheryl would just as easily be overcome with giggling, laughter, roaring laughter…snorting. She had a way of screaming out the first measure of her laughter followed by visual but silent suffocation, and then repeat. Always something amused her at the most awkward, public place and time and she would lose control. Many people commented on how they first noticed shy Cheryl when she collapsed in unstoppable laughter. We all loved it.

Cheryl mad was another matter. It was nose up in the air, a quick turn of the shoulder and then the silent treatment. After three days she would sweetly say, “I decided to get over it.” We needed a little financial boost so Cheryl spent four years working on the sales floor at Macy’s. Cheryl never quite got proficient at the hard sale with a haggling customer. She tried sweetness instead and her co-workers adored her for it.

Granddaughter Isabella was born on April 6, 2006 and Cheryl and Mark became her legal guardians in 2011, just before she turned five. Here was another instance in Cheryl’s life where she was torn in her mind. She well understood what she would have to give up to raise another child, and how long it would have to last. But Cheryl chose to submit for Bella’s sake. She quit Macy’s and raised Bella. Cheryl was back dropping off, picking up, doing home room mother and sitting with the other mothers at the playground. Mark was the one who wept with emotion when the other young mothers adopted Cheryl into their group.

What else to say? Cheryl graduated from Garland high school in 1973. Her favorite classes were German, science, and biology. She had an unrealized dream of becoming a dental technician. Cheryl met Mark while they both worked at Texas, Instruments in Dallas. She was Bob Martin’s secretary and Bob was Mark’s boss. Mark coached a women’s softball team and Cheryl played right field. They both loved to jog together. Cheryl was a lover of pets, especially dogs all her life. She, in turn, was adored by Eddie, Casper and Sugar, her lap dogs. Sugar, originally mother-in-law Lavonne’s dog, is the only survivor.

Cheryl was the most loving, authentic and devoted wife, mother, grandmother and friend a person could be. The greatest joy occurred to her when her grandson Xander was born on January 28, 2015. Her deepest regret was this little tyke would be too young to remember her in future years. Cheryl helped Xander celebrate his second birthday four days before she died.

Cheryl passed away at 8:36 am on February 2, 2017 at home in Austin, Texas, of gallbladder cancer. Husband Mark and daughter Katy were with her all night and at the end. Her struggles with cancer are well documented in her Caringbridge website, so will not be repeated here except to say exceptional insight and quiet reserve became Cheryl's trademark qualities for all who knew her. It was one of the many reasons why all who knew her loved Cheryl Lynn Scovill, and she died thanking God for her salvation and for all the prayers of her family and friends.

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Cheryl Scovill, age 62, of Austin, passed away on February 2, 2017. She was born in Dallas, Texas on November 29, 1954 to Owen and Beatrice (Turney) Gallaher.

She married Mark Scovill on July 4, 1980. Cheryl and Mark were members of Hillcrest Baptist Church in Austin. She was devoted to her family, especially her two grandchildren.

Those left behind to cherish her memory are her mother, Beatrice Gallaher, her husband, Mark Scovill, her children Jay Scovill, Kelly Perkins and Katy Scovill, her sons-in-law Daniel Perkins and Mathew Sotelo, her grandchildren, Isabella Sotelo and Xander Perkins, her sisters Beth Gallaher and Brenda Hozak, her brother, James Bryan Gallaher, her cherished sisters-in-law Jamie Scovill, Shelly Scovill and Carolyn Scovill, brothers-in law Dennis Hozak, Jerry Scovill, Bret Scovill and Joe Scovill, and numerous nieces and nephews.

Cheryl was pre-deceased by her father Owen Gallaher and brother Daryl Gallaher. She will be deeply missed by her family and friends.