Robert Rix Scoskie

June 6, 1943 - August 16, 2026

Robert Rix Scoskie, 83, died peacefully with his family by his side on August 16, 2026, in the Texas Hill Country home that he built and lived in with his wife for 25 years.

He was born in Paramus, New Jersey to Louise Hoeffler and Richard Rix Scoskie. Rob (Butch, as his father called him) grew up on his father’s corn farm, where he became his number one protégé.. Butch was maintaining all the farm equipment by the time he was eleven. His first job on the farm was shooting blackbirds out of the corn fields with an old 12-gauge shotgun. He learned to drive a tractor when he was six years old. Rob was always proud of his ventures on the farm, and remained critical of store-bought sweet corn and of how his guests ate it (side to side was the only acceptable way). When he graduated from high school, his father bought him a 1962 Ford Galaxie 500 convertible as payment for all his hard work on the farm. It was white with red interior, and his niece said he made her and her siblings take their shoes off before they got in the car.

With the encouragement of his church pastor, he left for Bloomfield College in North Jersey. He put himself through college as a school bus driver/mechanic. When he graduated, his draft number came up, and he was able to join the Air Force as an officer. He married his college girlfriend and love of his life, Lyane Wallerius Barton, on June 3, 1966. After 58 years of marriage, she died almost exactly one year ago. With his family along for the ride, he had an amazing Air Force career that lasted 28 years. It included faraway places such as Okinawa, Japan, Korea, and Alaska, as well as Alabama, Georgia, and two tours at Randolph Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. In Anchorage, Alaska, he was commander of the Component Repair Squadron at Elmendorf. He and his son, Jack, took advantage of Alaska’s amazing hunting and fishing. Jack caught a 55-pound salmon and shot his first caribou before he was 12, with Rob’s guidance. Rob also shot a brown bear, a Dall’s sheep, and a mountain goat. He mounted his trophies and hung them on the wall, to Ly’s chagrin. Rob instilled a love of Alaska in Jack, to the extent that Jack went to University of Alaska Fairbanks and worked as a logging engineer in Ketchikan before coming back to the Lower 48 and managing lumber mills. Rob’s passion was maintaining vehicles and fixing up old cars. In the different neighborhoods he lived with his family, he kept the neighbors’ cars running. He told his son, “Most people drive a car from the showroom to the junkyard...I drive cars from the junkyard to the showroom.”

While in San Antonio, Texas, Rob developed a love of the Hill Country and even convinced his daughter, Susan (he bribed her with a car), to stay in-state and go to the University of Texas in Austin, where she graduated as a proud Longhorn, before moving and staying in California to pursue graduate school and a career in psychology. Rob retired as a full Colonel when he was in his early 50s. He and Ly moved back to their house in Universal City, north of San Antonio, in 1993, while Ly finished out her teaching career and they planned their Hill Country retirement.

In 2000 they broke ground at their property in Guadalupe Ranch Estates on the North Fork of the Guadalupe River. The first and biggest building (beside the house) was his spectacular shop. He used the shop to create all the cabinetry, much of the furniture in the house, beautiful boxes with intricate dovetails, wine stands, and joker boards, among other things. Once he finished building his house, he built several other houses in the neighborhood. He went all in on the carefree Hill Country living. He was a member of the Hunt Volunteer Fire Department and had a stint as the president of the homeowners’ association.

Rob’s grandchildren learned to swim in the Guadalupe River and to drive before they could reach the pedals, first with a tractor and then Muck (a 4-wheeler named after Bob the Builder’s sidekick), and eventually an old Ford Bronco that Rob kept running. They also got to shoot guns, kill their first deer, and listen to Pop tell the same stories he told Susan and Jack about growing up on his farm and the shenanigans he got into with his pet wolf and characters like Dickie Dunlap, Gene Fatzz, Lulu Schwartz, and Jojo Heinz. Ly and Rob graciously hosted many friends, family, and neighbors in their home over the years. Rob and Ly will be remembered by those same loved ones for posterity as their beautiful home will stay in the family and will continue to provide new memories for many, as Ly and Rob would want.

Rob is survived by his daughter, Susan Cook, and her husband, Keith, of California; his son, Jack Scoskie, and his wife, Dane, of Louisiana; his grandchildren Connor (25), Piper (23), Colby (22), Peyton (21), Sean (17), and Hope (16); and his older sister, Barbara Pipines, and younger sister, Gloria DeWitt.

The family will host a small celebration of life during the week of Thanksgiving, 2026.

https://www.wrightsfuneralparlor.net/obituary/Robert-Scoskie