Edith Schaeffer Obituary -from her son-in-law Ranald Macaulay
EDITH SCHAEFFER : 1914 - 2013
Every
generation produces individuals who seem larger than life. Like meteors they
blaze into life and become something of a wonder to those looking on. ‘What
remarkable talents,’ we say, ‘what energy, what achievements’ This is what Edith
Schaeffer was like and for 17 years Rochester was her home.
Like many coming
to the Mayo Clinic the reasons for her arrival were hardly auspicious. Her
husband, Francis, had just completed filming in Switzerland for his second major
documentary series called, ‘Whatever
Happened to the Human Race’. At the end of a gruelling day on the slopes near
their alpine home, his dramatic weight loss over the previous week led Edith to
telephone a medical friend at Mayo to seek advice. ‘Get him here as quickly as possible’
he said. So on the 9th October, 1978, Edith and Francis arrived in Rochester. Within hours
he had been diagnosed with lymphoma and put on chemotherapy. It was to be the
beginning, for Edith certainly, of a long association with the city and its
people. Happily, Francis responded well to treatment and continued to be active
and influential throughout the world for another seven years. By then Edith had
moved their home from Switzerland
to Rochester
and it was there, on the 15th May 1984, that she heard his last quiet
words… “from strength to strength” – taken from the sentence ‘they go from strength to strength till each appears before God in Zion’ in Psalm 84:7. Her days as the wife of one of the
world’s most significant evangelical leaders in the 20th century had
come to a close.
However, her
surprise at finding herself living in Rochester
was hardly her last! She seemed to specialise in surprises in fact. The next one
came within weeks of her husband’s death and through what had been the major
part of her life’s work, namely L’Abri Fellowship. She and her
husband had founded this Christian work in Switzerland in 1955 and one of its half-dozen
branches (now ten world-wide) had moved from California to Rochester to provide,
amongst other things, practical support for them in their medical need. Not
long after the funeral in Rochester
came the new surprise - a Steinway grand-piano no less. This was a gift to
L’Abri in memory of Francis Schaeffer and it held pride of place in her gracious
living room. But the surprise contained yet another surprise and one which opened
up a new chapter in her life. For what she quickly realised was that the actual
piano involved, discovered not far from Rochester incidentally, had been
manufactured the same year as her marriage – and came into her home the 6th
July 1984, 49 years exactly after the very day she and Francis had their
wedding - 6th July 1936! This piqued her already vibrant curiosity.
So the next time she was in New York
she arranged to call at the Steinway factory. Quite unexpectedly she found
herself in the midst of a red-carpet-welcome and all because the company’s
senior piano-voicer, Franz Mohr, had for many years been one of her avid readers
and admirers. The visit began a lasting friendship and even resulted in a new book
called ‘Forever Music’. Amongst other
things it was a paean to the wonder of God’s creation. It also provided her
with a medium to express one of the leading characteristics of her life, namely
her delight in anything and everything beautiful. She herself was a beautiful
woman and always dressed impeccably. When she provided meals it became an
occasion not just for good food but for a ‘work of art’ – hence the title of
another of her books, ‘Hidden Art’.
But ‘Forever Music’ also described how
God works into our individual lives – in this case via the biography and
conversion of Franz Mohr himself. This in turn led to a concert with the
Guaneri Quartet in Alice Tully Hall at the Lincoln Centre, NY, and to personal
friendships with some of the world’s most illustrious musicians like Rudolf
Serkin, Vladimir Horowitz and Yo Yo Mah.
Her ongoing
life continued to be part of the ‘Rochester L’Abri’ for more than a decade and it
enabled her to put her gifts of teaching, hospitality and creativity to good
use. Many, for example, were the musical soirees in her living room around the
Steinway. She spoke regularly at the annual Rochester L’Abri Conferences in
February. But she also served as an international Trustee of L’Abri until 2001
making a grand total of 46 years within the life of the Fellowship. She also
went on with her writing. Already she had completed nearly a dozen books, some
of which, like ‘The L’Abri Story’, ‘The Tapestry’, and ‘Christianity is Jewish’ had sold almost as successfully as her
husband’s – as they still do. The scope of her activities went well beyond Rochester, though, both within the United States
and abroad. For example, she had been instrumental in the formation of the
Francis Schaeffer Foundation based in New York
and Switzerland and also in
the Francis Schaeffer Institute in St.
Louis, an adjunct of Covenant Theological Seminary.
Her speaking itinerary was extensive.
Then
followed another major surprise when she returned, now aged 80, to the very place
in China
where she had been born. Once again she found herself the subject of an
official red-carpet welcome laid on, believe it or not, by the secular city
dignitaries! The third and last of three daughters born to missionary parents,
she was only five when they returned to the United States. Like all her
memories, however, her recollections of China remained vivid and these she
put into a children’s book bearing her Chinese name ‘Mei Fuh’.
For all her
fizz and sparkle, however, and despite frequent displays of energy and
creativity, even in old age, which left her younger colleagues in L’Abri breathless,
the time came for her to return to her beloved Lac Leman in Switzerland.
There she lived in a flat in a small lakeside village beside Vevey where she
and her husband had spent many happy years. In due course she needed more care
and one of her daughters, Mrs Debby Middelmann, with her husband, Udo, graciously
provided a home in the mountains not far from where she and Francis had first
founded L’Abri Fellowship in 1955. There, after a long decline in health, she
died on the 29th March 2013 - aged 98.
It was a
long and remarkable life – truly meteoric. But when all is said and done the
best thing about Edith was who she was as a person: she never became big-headed
because of her successes; she was always generous (even to a fault!); she consistently,
and however inconveniently, treated all who came within her ambit with a
gentleness and love both radiant and deeply genuine. In short, she was ‘real’ -
a true Christian lady whose first desire was to glorify her Maker and Saviour. What
she and her husband took as their life-long goal was to try to demonstrate and
declare to all they met that the Bible really is true and that the
Judaeo-Christian God is a kind and gracious Saviour to those who come to Him. She
never swerved from that object. Nor, right until the day she died, did she ever
flinch from the costliness of that call. She obeyed the apostolic summons to ‘present your body as a living sacrifice to Christ’
(Romans 12: 1). And now she is with Him. Hallelujah!
***********************
A funeral service is to take place in
Gryon, Vaud, Switzerland at 2pm on the 19th April. Then, since it
was their joint wish to be interred together, Edith’s body will be buried beside
her husband’s grave, in Rochester
Cemetery at 1pm on
Thursday the 25th April.
Her son-in-law and pastor, Udo Middelmann, will officiate on both occasions and
all are welcome.
On the 11th May there is to be a
larger Memorial service in Rochester led by Larry
Snyder, who until recently directed the Rochester L’Abri. The Rev. Jerram
Barrs, of the Francis Schaeffer Institute in St. Louis, will be the speaker. All details
to be found on the L’Abri website - www.labri.org/rochester
Ranald Macaulay MA Cantab ------
Ranald@christianheritage.org.uk --------
The Round Church,
Cambridge.
1374 words
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