Emma Laura Schaefer

     Emma Laura Schaefer was born on 5 December 1885 at Hepburn Township, Lycoming County, Pennsylvania.¹ She was the daughter of Jacob Thomas Schaeffer and Sarah Elizabeth Ulmer. Emma Laura Schaefer married, at age 24, Arthur Albert Schade, age 24, son of August Friederick Schade and Clara Pauline Messing, on Thursday, 4 August 1910.² Emma Laura Schaefer died on 24 November 1962 at South Dakota at age 76 years, 11 months and 19 days.³ She was buried in the Blooming Grove Cemetery, located in Hepburn Township, Lycoming County, Pennsylvania.
     Taken from Arthur A. Schade: His Life and Ministry, self published in 1992, written by Sarah M. Elsesser (his daughter):

Mrs. Schade was born on December 5, 1885, the identical date on which her husband was born, she in Lycoming County, near Williamsport, Pennsylvania, he in the vicinity of Herring, Kansas. Her father was the Rev. Thomas J. Schaefer and her mother was Sarah Margaret Schaefer, born Ulmer. She emanates from an ancestry which settled in Pennsylvania 1812 onward, making the journey from Philadelphia to Williamsport, a distance of approximately 140 miles, on foot. There they cleared the dense forest and established a sort of a colony of the Dunkard Faith. Her father grew up on the farm, attended normal school, sa was the tashion those days, and became a country school teacher. After being married and establishing a family on the farm, he helt the call to become a Minister of ther Gospel and attended an academic and theological school in Rochester, New York. After graduation he accepted a missionary appointment to South Dakota and became minister of Baptist churches in Parkston and a neighboring town. They lived in the city of Yankton at the time of his death from typhoid tever in February 1895.

The widow moved back to Lycoming County, Pennsylvania, and supported the family through farming operations. Emma, the second oldest of the five daughters, followed her father in attending Normal School and becoming a country school teacher. After three years she decided to dedicate her life to Christian work and entered the Baptist Christian Training Institute in Philadelphia. The summer before she entered, Arthur A. Schade accepted an invitation to serve as assistant pastor of the country church to which she belonged, the Hepburn Baptist Church in the Blooming Grove Valley, becoming acquainted with Emma Schaefer. The acquaintance developed into a courtship and resulted in their marriage on August 4th, 1910, after Arthur had completed his theological course and Emma her training course.

The Schades pastored three churches over a period of eighteen years, 1910 to 1928, seven years in Cincinnati, Ohio, four years in Kankakee, Illinois, and seven years in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. After another for years during which time Arthur held a position as Secretary of Young People's Work and Christian Education, they moved to Rochester, New York, where he held a position as professor at his alma mater, the Rochester Theological Seminary, for a period of twelve years.

The Schade couple moved to South Dakota January 1, 1946, where Arthru served as the Executive Secretart of the South Dakota Council of Churches. During this time he came across the tragic need for retirement and nursing homes to minister to te needs of the aged. On January 1, 1951, they moved to the town of Faulkton, South Dakota, where Mr. Schade held the position of administrator of the newly built Hill-Burton, Faulk County Memorial Hospital. At the same time they rented what had served as a hospital for a period of thirty-five years, the old Morse Home, and opened a nursing hime with a view to getting first-hand experience in the operation of such a facility. Mrs. Schade was the hostess and superintendent in one person. It was during this period that they cnceived the idea of retirement homes after the pattern of the David M. Dorsett Home. Having developed the plans for the home, it finally found realization in the first of the Pioneer Memorial Manors, the David M. Dorsett Home.

The availability of the Dorsett Legacy for the construction of a home for the aged in the city of Spearfish led to their moving to Spearfish in the fall of 1954, where they labored together to secure the funds for the construction of the home. She was receptionist and a sort of housemother until her health necessitated her complete retirement. She was still able with her husband to take a trip abroad during the summer of 1960 in recognition of their golden wedding anniversary. Since that time her condition slowly became worse until the summer of 1962, when she became a patient in the nursing home.

She expired peacefully on November 24, 1962, in the Dorsett Home at the age of 76 years, 11 months and 20 days, and is survived by her widowed husband, with whom she labored so intimately in such a wide range of service to their generation: three sons, Arthur Thomas, born on Christmas morning 1911, a very important person in the Electronics Division of General Electric Company, Liverpool, New York; Rev. Paul Gerhardt Schade, Chaplain in the United States Air Force, presently stationed at Wright-Patterson Air Base, Dayton, Ohio; Robert August Schade, born on their seventh marriage anniversary, connectied with Republic Steel Works, and living in Youngstown, Ohio; two daughters, Emma Clara Klein, wife of Rev. Ernst E. Klein, minister of Old Cambridge Baptist Church, Cambridge, Massachusetts; and Sarah Margaret Elsesser, wife of Rev. Alex Elsesser, minister of the Community Baptist Church, Manchester, Connecticut; and seventeen grand-children.

Mrs. Schade was blessed with an amiable disposition and knew the secret of living harmoniously with people. Her husband pays her the tribute of never in all her public relationships or family relationships having given occasion for tensions of any kind.

Interment is to take place in the ancestral burial ground where her ancestors of several generations are resting, the burial ground of the Dunkard log meeting hose dating back approximately two centuries, located some nine miles from Williamsport, Hepburnville Townhip, Lycoming County, Pennsylvania. A memorial service to be held in the Spearfish Congregational Church with the Rev. Westwood in charge, and in the Dunkard Church, Blooming Grove, witht he Rev. Arthur Weisser, minister of the Andrews Street Baptist Church, Rochester, New York, officiating.