Phyllis Skilbred, age 95 of Glenwood, died Friday, March 28, 2014 at the Glenwood Retirement Village in Glenwood.  Funeral Services will be held at 2:00 p.m. on Thursday, April 3rd at Glenwood Lutheran Church with Rev. Randy Chrissis officiating.  Visitation will be from 5:00 - 8:00 p.m. on Wednesday with an Eastern Star Service at 7:00 p.m. at the Hoplin-Hitchcock Funeral Home in Glenwood.  Visitation will also continue one hour prior to the service at the church on Thursday.  A private family interment will be at Fort Snelling National Cemetery in Minneapolis.  Arrangements are with the Hoplin-Hitchcock Funeral Home in Glenwood. Phyllis was born April 18, 1918 to Palma (Olson) and Albert Knudson on a farm near Holmen Wisconsin. Looking back she remembers how she loved growing up on a farm and especially liked being around farm animals.  Phyllis said she had a "fat little pony" named Beauty that she really enjoyed. She went to country school at age six and had one other classmate.  She joined 4H when she was ten and learned how to sew which became a life-long hobby, sewing her daughter's wedding dress and much more.  She enjoyed choir, band and drama in high school and graduated among a class of twenty-three from Mindoro High School, Mindoro, WI.  After high school she went to Gale Jr. College, Galesville, Wisconsin. Phyllis transferred from Gale to Luther College, Decorah, Iowa her sophomore year and studied elementary education.  In college she belonged to "Campus Players" and participated in several plays and musicals.  She played clarinet in band.  Before graduating from Luther in 1942 with majors in history and English, she taught country school in Wisconsin to earn enough money to finish college. After graduation, Phyllis moved to Washington D.C. because she heard there were "lots of jobs there".   She first landed a job with the Hecke Company Department store in the credit department.  She soon took a job with the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, working two years as a reservations clerk for Pullman Company "because the pay was better". Phyllis met her future husband Harold while both were students at Luther College. Harold graduated with the class of 1941 and enlisted in the U.S. Navy the summer of 1941.  He was assigned to a light cruiser before being re-assigned as an original crew member of the new U.S.S. South Dakota, the most decorated battleship in U.S. history.  Phyllis finished college in 1942 while Harold was at sea. After serving three years aboard ship, Harold was granted shore leave for his final year in the service and that allowed the two to marry on August 14, 1944 in Winona, MN.  The newlyweds began their marriage in Hayward, California before moving to Minnesota where Harold became a music teacher in public schools in St. Charles, Buffalo, St. Cloud and Glenwood.  While in St. Cloud, Phyllis finished a degree in Elementary Education. Phyllis and her family moved to Glenwood in 1960.  Over the years she taught sporadically in the "title" program in Glenwood, Lowry and Brooten.  Phyllis was very active in her church, Glenwood Lutheran, where she served on the church council, library board, women's organization, church circles, clusters, Sunday school, sang in the senior choir with Harold and played in the bell choir Harold established and directed.  She was a past Worthy Matron of Eastern Star and also very active in Sons of Norway.  She also had her real estate license and worked in that field for several years. Phyllis was preceded in death by her husband Harold in 1993, daughter-in-law Sally in 2000, older sisters Eva and Vivian, her little brother Gordon, and her parents. Phyllis is survived by her three children: Lynn of Alexandria, Elaine (Douglas) Dobson who lived for many years in Salem, Oregon, but now calls Glenwood home, and David (Nancy) of Saint Paul.  She has five grandchildren, Danielle, Matthew, Ian, Emma and Sophie and six great-grandchildren, Lillian, Isaac, Jocelyn, Elyse and Elijah, and Carys as well as many other relatives and friends. Phyllis said she loved being able to stay home with her own children and wished she had had one more. In recent years she loved keeping up with the news and politics, calls and visits from her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.