Jill I. Skarstad

1955 - 2017

Beloved sister, dear aunt and good friend, Jill I. Skarstad passed away in Boulder on December 10, 2017 after a long illness. Jill was born in Ellensburg, Washington and spent much of her childhood in Ogden, Utah, where she was the fourth child out of six. A lover of music, Jill played violin in school but later took up the Celtic harp and classical guitar. While her peers were listening to rock and roll, Jill was deep into folk and especially loved early pre-classical music of the Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque eras. She took a break from her studies at the University of Colorado and worked for one year in Urnaesch, Switzerland at a Rudolph Steiner children's home, where she was excited to live in a foreign culture. She then returned to CU, where she completed her degree in Cultural Anthropology. To know Jill was to know that she had a delightful sense of humor, which was sometimes a little offbeat and quirky. She appreciated a good joke or a funny story. Jill made every family birthday celebration special as she always brought streamers, horns, helium balloons, special napkins and funny hats. Christmases were always made bright as she could be found singing around the piano or making the Norwegian glogg and 24 kinds of cookies which were a tradition in her family. Jill had a special place in her heart for animals, especially dogs, and she was known as the lady with the squeaky toy in her purse for the family dogs, Toby and Woody. In summers she would often attend the Shakespeare Festival at CU and for years was a member of the Colorado Mountain Club and loved to climb the mountains nearby, including several "fourteeners". Jill spent her 30+ year career working at CU in the Nursing Department, the Chemistry Department, the Office of the President and most notably spent 24 years as a graduate advisor in the Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology. There, she guided numerous students through the maze of graduate education. A favorite and much loved aunt to her nieces and nephews, she will be forever remembered for the close relationships she formed with them. She will be very much missed by her siblings: John, Brian (Louise), Bill (Debbie), Carol and Norman (Cyndi), her nieces and nephews, Will (Natasha), John (Nichole), Sam (Olaya), Russell (Scot), Kevin (Courtney), Anna (Arnold) and Maren, her aunt and uncle, Marilyn and Wally Small, her friend Cathy Squires and her dog-nephew Kory.