Ralph Allen "Skip" Adams

February 20, 1930-August 5, 2021

Ralph Allen "Skip" Adams, a civil engineer and loving husband, father, grandfather, great-grandfather and uncle, met his Lord and departed family on August 5, 2021, in his hometown of Houston. He was 91.

Known to nearly all only by his nickname, Skip is survived by his wife of 48 years, Bobbie Rucker Adams; brother Peter Bent Adams of Grantsville, MD; sister Mary Adams Harrington of Brattleboro, VT; sons Robert Allen Adams of Phoenix, Russell Todd Phillips of Houston and Troy Don Phillips of Fort Worth, and daughters-in-law Karen Kay Meyer Phillips of Houston and Mary Jane Self Phillips of Fort Worth.

Additional survivors included grandsons Christopher Levy Adams and wife Mariana Adams of Cape Coral, FL; Justin Allen Adams of Phoenix; granddaughter Elizabeth Abigail Phillips Wilson and husband Aaron Wilson of Houston; granddaughter Zoe Alexis Phillips of Salisbury, NC; great-grandsons Declan Allen Adams, Christopher Maxwell Adams, Kaden Christopher Adams and Benjamin Noah Adams; great-granddaughters Lily Malia Adams, Avery Lynne Adams and Kaia Cassie Adams; niece Barbara Allen Adams MacKie and husband Robert MacKie; nephew Thomas Theodore Adams and wife Linda Adams.

He was preceded in death by his parents, Ralph Adams and Laura Hildreth Allen Adams, sons James Lyman Adams and Richard Wood Adams, and first wife Frances Louise "Biddy" Lyman.

Born February 20, 1930, in Arlington, MA, Skip grew up an avid downhill skier and competed in football and track at Concord (MA) High School, where he graduated in 1948. He spent three earlier years in Central America after father Ralph, also a civil engineer, took a role in construction of the historic Panama Canal.

The Adams family returned to New England to an Allen family farm in Concord. The fall after high school, Skip attended Vermont Academy, near Windsor, preparing for a year to enter Ralph's rigorous alma mater, Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH. He played one year (1949-50) on Dartmouth's freshman football and track teams but settled more into his engineering studies and bonding tightly with his Class of 1953.

Historically, '53 became Dartmouth's most prestigious and benevolent class, and the No. 53 in football has been reserved for an outstanding student-athlete through each team cycle to this day. Skip later served on the '53 Alumni Council, as treasurer of the Houston-area Dartmouth Club, and helped coordinate/conduct prospective Dartmouth student interviews.

Skip completed his master's degree at Dartmouth's Thayer School of Engineering in 1954. From there, he served two years in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in three states, receiving an honorable discharge in '56 as a first lieutenant and platoon leader.

He married Frances "Biddy" Lyman in 1954. They had three sons, Robert, James and Richard, before her passing in 1967. He remained close to her family in Crowley, LA, for many years, even after remarrying.

After the service, Skip returned to the Boston area and spent eight years in heavy construction. Among his major projects were dormitories at Brandeis University, the Massachusetts Turnpike extension, Callahan Tunnel, and a dry dock in Quincy, MA.

In 1964, Skip moved his family to Del Rio, Texas, to assist in the Amistad Dam construction on the Rio Grande – a massive, 50/50 undertaking shared by U.S. and Mexico contractors. It was a career-making project that led to later stints in Houston as a civil estimator, supervisor, manager and area manager, one of his last firms being Parsons-Gilbane in petrochemical construction.

With Frances's passing in 1967 and Amistad's completion in '68, Skip moved his sons to LaPorte, near Houston. He met Bobbie Rucker Phillips in 1972 at a mixer for the group Parents Without Partners (she had two sons younger than his three). Prior to their wedding in 1973, Skip's middle son James was lost in an auto accident. The blended family lived four years in Pasadena, Texas, before starting anew at the Castlerock Road two-story in far North Harris County in 1977.

In 1982, Skip took a leap of faith and entered custom home construction. He worked tirelessly to keep the venture afloat, but Houston's energy recession and a bottomed-out housing market made it unsustainable. If anything, Skip had the versatility, optimism and faith to claw his way back.

He commuted to and from the Washington D.C. area, testing market opportunities there while working at a hotel. His youngest son's mounting private college tuition in the mid-1980s further tested his and Bobbie's resolve, but Skip could always find Plan B.

By 1989, he was back in Houston full-time. Consulting work in construction management/technical areas picked up. Skip later contracted mini-storage facilities in various Texas cities. He moved into forensic engineering, preparing and testifying in construction law cases for plaintiffs or prosecutors.

In retirement, Skip turned to his now-late father-in-law Vernon Tuck to learn ins and outs of the property auction business. To date, Skip's last company, BAS Adams Properties, LLC, lives on.

Skip's youngest son by first wife Frances, Richard Adams, passed away in 2013.

To his grandchildren and great-grands, Skip was some version of Papa or Paw-Paw who never said no. With his hands and engineering acumen, he built Pasadena's most intricate treehouse, a Bradley GT sports car that rivaled the Batmobile, a driveway drainage system, mobile storage for a figure skating team's scenery – just a few among life's thousand or so technical mysteries he solved.

Skip also picked up where his uncles Henry and Lawrence Adams left off to finish their family geneology. It traces to 1638 and renegade glove maker George Adams, who was put on trial for purchasing contraband leather from Native Americans.

Though not by birth, Skip proclaimed himself a Texan for life and returned to New England only to visit family, his beloved Dartmouth or to ski. He lived long enough to see the Big Green return to football prominence in the Ivy League, caring little to not for ice hockey. Whataburger was always tops, and tacos al carbon had to be on a Tex-Mex menu. After 50, he took up roller blading and racquetball.

For nearly five decades, he was Bobbie's partner in parenting, traveling, spoiling, celebrating, overcoming, laughing, loving and living a big life. They danced to the 1972 Bobby Vinton song, "Every Day of My Life" and took painstaking care of each other.

Dad, Pops, Papa, Paw-Paw, thank you for everything you were to all of us. We miss you, your kind nature and works, huge smile and laugh, vast appreciation of simple pleasures and selfless love for us all. See you, again, someday.

The memorial for Ralph Allen "Skip" Adams is scheduled for Monday, August 30, at St. Martin's Episcopal Church in Houston, at 2 p.m. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made to the Tunnel to Towers Foundation or to St. Martin's Episcopal Church.