Ernest Hemingway once said, “The echoes of beauty you’ve seen transpire, resound through dying coals of a campfire.” The campfire of Phyllis Scruggs-Soldo went out last month, after a long battle with Leukemia. And yet, family and friends continue to warm themselves next to the coals of her memory.

Phyllis Scruggs was born Oct. 2, 1940, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, as the second of three children to Janice Twilla Saunders and Tremont Herschel Scruggs. Her mother was a homemaker and later worked in the school cafeteria before becoming a hair stylist. Her father managed a supermarket in the Midwest, and later was the produce manager at the Coronado Safeway (now Vons).

Much of her professional career was spent in partnership with her husband Nicholas Soldo, an anesthesiologist, working together at t

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