A Vicksburg woman described as being totally devoted to her two sons died Thursday in a wreck that also injured her older child on U.S. 49 in Hattiesburg.

Rebecca Shaw, 54, who lived in the Bienville Apartments off North Frontage Road, was a 25-year employee at the Engineer Research and Development Center, for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and since 2005 as a contract worker with Bowhead Information Technology Service.

“Her life was just taking care of those boys,” said Mary Leist, Shaw’s former mother-in-law. “Those two boys were her heart.”

Hattiesburg police Sgt. Allen Murray confirmed that an unidentified passenger in a gold Nissan was killed in a wreck just after 5 p.m. along the stretch of highway that runs through the city and just west of the University of Southern Mississippi campus. The incomplete investigation, Murray said, shows the Nissan was crossing from a service road when it was struck by a pickup traveling south on U.S. 49. No information about the driver of the pickup was available.

Mary Leist said her grandson, Jack William “Will” Leist, 24, the driver of the car, called family in Vicksburg after the wreck. He was taken to Forrest General Hospital, his grandmother said, but was not admitted, hospital officials said.

Will Leist and his mother had gone to Hattiesburg to register him for school at USM, Mary Leist said.

Shaw’s younger son, Cullen Patrick Leist, 19, already attends USM, Mary Leist said.

Shaw also is survived by her father, William Dornbusch of Vicksburg, her mother, Pat Small of Texas; her daughter-in-law, Kari Leist; and a 20-month-old grandson, William Maddox Leist.

Shaw was a native of Vicksburg and a graduate of Warren Central High School.

“She was a good mother,” Mary Leist said, “and worked at Waterways (Experiment Station) for years.”

Funeral arrangements were incomplete under the direction of Fisher Funeral Home.