Karen Bybee died peacefully at home on Friday morning August 21, 2015. Her funeral service will be a sung Eucharist at 11:00 a.m. on Saturday, October 10, 2015 at The Episcopal Church of the Transfiguration, 14115 Hillcrest Road, Dallas, Texas 75254 on the northwest corner with Spring Valley. It will be followed by interment in the church's columbarium and a reception at the church. The family prefers donations to the Scleroderma Research Foundation, 220 Montgomery St. #1411, San Francisco, CA 94104, www.srfcure.org, in lieu of flowers for anyone so inclined. Karen Kummer Bybee, P.E., was born Christmas Eve in 1946. She started in private school and then went to public school in Lake Worth, Texas, where she graduated in 1964. In high school, she examined various religions and convinced her family to convert from Baptist to Episcopalian. The family enjoyed many summer vacations in the Florida panhandle where her father loved the white sand beaches. In the summer of 1963 she attended a National Science Foundation summer science program in Austin. Her roommate there became a lifetime friend. She was also always close to her mother's sister's daughter from Farmers Branch and Carrollton. She married Hal H. Bybee, Jr. in June 1968. She joined the Otis Engineering subsidiary of Halliburton in late 1969 with a fresh bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from The University of Texas at Austin. In 1973, Karen took maternity leave to give birth to a daughter, Alice, in January. As Alice grew up, Karen was a youth group sponsor and altar guild member at church and a volunteer trail guide at the Plano school district Outdoor Learning Center. Karen was also an avid gardener, cook, reader, and collector of art and antiques. She enjoyed vacationing in the Florida panhandle, New Mexico, Boston where Alice got her first degree, and San Francisco where Alice lives and got her second degree. Karen spent her Otis career doing petroleum engineering mathematics and software support in Carrolton for subsurface safety valves, artificial lift, and other two-phase flow applications. Her parents died in 1980 and 1982. She left Halliburton in 1994 and joined the Society of Petroleum Engineers staff in early 1997 as a technical editor for the Journal of Petroleum Technology (JPT). There she would read half a dozen reviewer-selected technical papers each month and write two-page summaries of them for publication in the JPT to help keep members from having to order full papers based on their title or conference abstract and, after working through twenty or so pages of equations, discover that the paper did not apply to their problem. Karen retired in the summer of 2011 partially due to the arthritis symptoms of the autoimmune disease scleroderma, partially to protect the household order from her husband who had retired six months earlier, and partially to prepare for the October wedding of her daughter at a beautiful vineyard in California. She was then blessed with a granddaughter, Zoe, in September 2012. In November of 2012 she was diagnosed with esophageal cancer. Because of the scleroderma, the oncologists could not offer any treatment for the cancer other than periodic transfusions to make up for blood loss from the tumor. By the end of May, 2015, the cancer had spread and she chose to have hospice care at home. In the end, death came peacefully as she slept the morning of Friday, August 21, 2015, with nurses, husband, and pet dog, Molly, at her side. Karen was most thankful for having almost three years to get to know and spoil her granddaughter and see her daughter and son-in-law buy a home just north of San Francisco (where they each work in graphic design) in Marin County with lots of room and excellent schools for Zoe. Karen is survived by her husband, daughter, son-in-law, granddaughter, 98 year old mother-in-law, husband's brother-in-law and his family, and numerous aunts, uncles, and cousins descended from her Kummer and Ewart grandparents from West Helena, Arkansas, and descended from her husband's Bybee and Lipscomb grandparents from Austin and Bonham, Texas. Arrangements are under the direction of ARIA Cremation Service and Funeral Home 19310 Preston Road Dallas, Texas 75252 214-306-6700 2011-Alices Wedding 1968- Karens Engagement Portriat Wedding Announcements Karen - 2013 Taken at a Neighbors party.