Hello Karen, I am sorry for your loss...please be gentle with yourself. 
The Hyman family moved from Reading to Baltimore about 58 years ago. It took many years for us to think of ourselves as Baltimorean's.   One of the challenges was that most of our family lived in Reading, and we were very attached to all of you. 
Our family called this group “The Reading Gang." Who made up this “gang??”
Uncle Max, Aunt Rose, Uncle Herb, Aunt Ricky, Uncle Marty, Aunt Dotty, Craig, Nancy, Penny, Karen and we then added Francesca. You are, and always will be, “The Reading Gang.” You are our family….at 68 years it is hard for me to realize how fast time has passed. 
It has been a lifetime. 
Before we left Reading for Baltimore, I can remember going to Aunt Rose's and Uncle Max's store many times with my family….everybody  busy in the dining room talking…. it was my invitation to help myself to the candy...what great fun… free candy… nothing better…!! 
My Dad always had a strong relationship with Aunt Rose. She loved and cared for my Dad in a special way.  That relationship connected him to Uncle Herb and your Dad. It made them more than cousins….they were more like brothers. 
This picture of our family is like a big mosaic.  Some of the individual pieces may have been a little rough at times, but in the end, the big picture is beautiful.  It is our life, it has taken me many years to see this beautiful picture.
Uncle Marty was a piece of that big picture. He had a unique style…..very consistent.  Karen, there was no question, that he loved you and was a great Dad.   The words your husband read and you wrote for his service were beautiful. They gave me a deeper insight into your Dad's life and the relationship you shared. 
Very beautiful. 
I remember Sunday afternoon's .nothing better than everybody getting together…..the normal inter-actions between family members and then a political argument would break out …. voices would rise… your Dad arguing with my Dad about some political point that seemed like life or death at the time….how great it all was…and how fortunate we were able to observe these events…. these events… ever so subtle… affect and determine who we are today. 
That was our family. How terrific it was then and how great it is today.  
A key member and founding member of the Reading gang, Martin T. Schneider, has past. One less member. We all will miss him in our own special way. 
Travel easy Uncle Marty. I will miss the pictures.

Marty was always the adventurer in our family. I remember when he was about nine and I was twelve, he said he knew where we could pick apples at an orchard at the top of Mount Penn. So off we trekked to the orchard on the mountain. We did not bring bags, so we climbed a tree and stuffed the apples on each side of our knickers. When we got about three apples on each side, the eighty-year-old farmer, with a dog older than he was, yelled, “What are you doing?” Marty and I jumped from the tree and broke the world's record for a hundred-yard dash, with six apples in our knickers, into the woods.
There was a local movie, the Strand, that had a cowboy picture, a serial, a travelogue, and coming attractions, which lasted from one to four-thirty on a Saturday afternoon. Marty would ring “No Sale” on the cash register, take out a quarter, and yell, “I took a quarter, you saw me take it so it's not stealing,” and run out the door. Fifteen cents was for the movie and ten cents for a hot dog at the bar on the corner. The hot dog included mustard, ketchup, onions, and chili sauce.
We always did things together—vacations in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware; Moodus, Connecticut; Niagara Falls, Canada; Las Vegas, California, Florida, Death Valley, and the Grand Canyon. You name it and Marty knew where the best sightseeing places were.
He had a cushy job in San Francisco with the Coast Guard in World War II. He volunteered for dangerous duty on a ship carrying supplies to the islands in the South Pacific.
Marty always had something going, he was a barrel of fun to be with. I shall miss him deeply.

Uncle Marty always had hope; that's what I liked best.  He took me to shoot bottles with a BB gun, even though I couldn't aim straight with my pencil to paper. And, even when I missed pulling the trigger, he truly believed and had me believe that someday I would hit those bottles.  
He also gave me training in water safety when he took us to the river to use his friend's boat.  The boat had a leak, so we spent our time with cups and pails emptying the boat as it filled.  He never for one moment worried that we would sink.  And, we did not.
Uncle Marty taught Karen to be brave and, so, in turn, I learned to weather the insects, etc. that came upon us.  One time at French Creek,  Karen asked me to pull a leech from her foot.  When I asked what a leech was, Karen replied that they suck blood.  I stood on the top of a small hill and screamed.  Karen very quietly pulled the leech off herself, showing me that you can defend yourself in the wild.
Uncle Marty taught me to be brave in a car.  On the way to Karen's rehearsal dinner, Uncle Marty kept hoping that we'd make our arrival on time because his tire had a leak and he wasn't sure if we'd get a flat.  We made it to the dinner without a problem.
When I think of Uncle Marty I think of hope, family, love, and support.  I will miss my uncle.

Marty was wonderful with children. He'd come at them with his arms outstretched, talking nonsense in a squeaky voice and they'd shriek with laughter as he lifted them up and swung them around. Growing up, you felt the anticipation of seeing him. He radiated strength, energy, and happiness. And he was a very funny and vivid storyteller. The tale of his survival aboard a ship full of gasoline during a Pacific typhoon was a perennial classic. He loved driving, he loved the countryside, he loved America, and he loved women. I was lucky enough to take two transcontinental trips with him, visiting the Canadian Rockies, the coasts of Washington, Oregon, and California, National Parks and monuments, the Shiloh battlefield. More recently, Dad, Marty, and I took weekly drives around Berks County, where there are always new roads and hamlets to discover. He took pleasure in everything, the farms and woods and lakes, even places he'd seen dozens of time before. He once said to me that “when I go,” the best tribute I could give to him would be to visit Chimney Rock in Maryland and look out at the vista. Sadly, I won't be able to but I hope one of the family will one day.

Karen, Aaron and Randy -- I'm so sorry to hear of your loss. In the decades I've been friends with you, Karen, you've always spoken with incredible love and affection for your dad, and the terrific times you've shared with him. It's hard to lose family members, especially when then start to decline on us as both of our fathers have been doing. I hope that you'll be able to get past this time of sorrow and remember all the good times you had with your dad over the years, particular the trips you took. I read his obit online and have seen the photos posted here, and he certainly had a full life...and boy was he a handsome dude. Congrats on inheriting his genes!

Martin T. Schneider: A Life of Enthusiasm and Love 

When he was in the US Coast Guard during World War II, Uncle Marty, part of what newsman Tom Brokaw has called the "greatest generation," had a photo collage put together to send home to Reading, which is entitled, without any irony, "Moods of Marty."  The collection of portraits of Marty is remarkable, not only for its exercise in self-admiration, but also for its singularly unique way it captured who Marty was, what kind of man he was, how he saw himself, and also how the many loved ones in his life saw him--as father, son, brother, uncle, husband, companion, friend. 

In several shots Marty is posing in his uniform, strikingly handsome and full of the confidence the men of that time had, even as they went off, as he used to put it, to "clobber that stinker Hitler." In some he is clean shaven; in others, he has a beard. But the interesting shots show him shirtless, wearing a loin cloth, almost a wild man and heir to his middle name--the "T," we were always told, that stood for Tarzan. 

That was the uncle we always knew, the one we looked forward to seeing when we made our yearly visit to Reading. Marty had a bow and arrows that we would use, when he wasn't looking, in his backyard. He had golf clubs, which resulted, on one occasion, with an errant golf ball going through the very angry next door neighbor's stained glass window. He spent hours driving from glass store to glass store trying to find the right pattern to replace the window I had Inconveniently shattered with my first successful chip shot. Other times, he would take us target shooting with his .22 rifle, but usually after dragging us along on a few sales calls to sell one more washing machine. 

Uncles are like fathers without rules, and Marty was the perfect uncle for the same reason he was such a good son and brother: he was generous with his time, the mark of someone who actually demonstrates how much he cared for those he loved. He would drive anywhere to see a relative, to bring Rose and Max to Boston for a visit, to take us to French Creek, or anywhere he could get you to, providing there was a way to bypass any highway with tolls.  

He loved cars, and not just in the way that normal people do. He would, as I said, drive anywhere on a whim, just like he and Uncle Herb were still doing until recently on their regular trips to Florida. But his love for cars and speed went beyond that, as those who saw his antique car collection know well, his beautiful Hudson and LaSalle reminders of times gone by when life was elegant, fancy, and fun. 

He also showed that generosity often by traipsing to car auctions to buy one of us a car, rarely expecting or receiving repayment, and we appreciated that, even when, as often happened for some reason, radiators exploded just as we were crossing the Pennsylvania border on our way home, or, as happened to him in New York City one time, the roof on his new convertible wouldn't close during a sudden rain downpour. 

He was always threatening, as he did to Hitler, to clobber you, or strangle you, and expressed disbelief when you threw a  baseball through Max's store window, or the infamous golf ball through stained glass, but you always knew that he was always willing to forgive transgressions because he wanted to give pleasure, and be fun, and to show you love. 


When we were little, Marty would send letters to us, but not just a simple letter in a plain envelope. Marty was creative and artistic and his envelopes were intricate, decorative masterpieces of humor, cartoon characters speaking to "King Richard" and entertaining and delighting us with their wit. It was another way he demonstrated his generous spirit in a way that so many of us are no longer generous--with our time. It's easy to send a quick email, or text message, or a gift in the mail. Marty went beyond that, giving the most personal and the most valuable gift: his time and attention. 

The photo collage from his Coast Guard days is the perfect snapshot of Marty's life and how we knew him all these years and how we remember him now. He is the strong, muscular patriot going off to war selflessly, just as Herb and Herman did, and doing what he had to do without question, and without qualms or fears. The preposterous poses of him in loin cloths or other native attire perfectly capture his wild and manly spirit, and the gusto with which he grabbed life and enjoyed being who he was, and bringing that same energy and excitement to our lives when we were with him. He was shockingly handsome then, strapping, eager to face life and start over after the War, back home in Reading with his brother, sister, and parents. 

He could be late, and sometimes frustrating with his high energy, but he was more often larger than life and positive and endlessly eager to please and do for others, and in the end that is the measure of the person we remember now, a man, to paraphrase Hamlet, whose like we shall not see again. 

Goodbye, Uncle Marty, on your long road trip in our memory.

When "Old Blue Eyes" sang, I Did It My Way, he truly was talking about Uncle Marty.  His zest for life was contagious and our childhoods were rich with the making of memories.  He left no stone unturned (honestly, how many stones did he collect??) and no rock unclimbed. Remember our trips to Chapel Rocks, Karen?  Watching your fearless Dad climbing those boulders was amazing.  I know he always thought of himself as Tarzan but in his heart, he was Rocky.  Speaking of Tarzan, how about swinging on the rope at Yummy's bungalow?  Or trips to Switerra Park??  Karen, thank you for sharing your dad with us.  I always smile when I think of him and I know he is smiling down on his family, too.  The world is a better place because Uncle Marty was here.

Growing up with Karen I've known 'Dad' for a long time. I always thought he was a handsome devil, and she was luckiest kid at school to have a dad who cared about her no matter what he did or where he traveled. She was a very important part of his life. He never failed to send her something created from his heart filled with words of love for her no matter how old she was.  So many other memories fill my heart at this time, most importantly how he always made me feel loved…as if I were part of the family even tho I could never be. That was his way, his heart was filled with love. When I think of him I will always see that smiling face under the ever present ‘nautical' cap, he was always so dapper.  And always ready with a hug!  I could say so much more, about his creativity with the camera, all the beautiful slides and pictures of all the places he visited, about his passion for his rock collection over the years, and how proud he was of his LaSalle, how he could have been the next Errol Flynn.  Needless to say the sun is shining less today with 'Dad's' passing.  Time will tick by every day and every day the memories of our time with 'Dad' will help us keep a smile on our faces.

So very sorry to hear the news about Uncle Marty's passing.  He left a trail of great memories…his own…and the one's we all get to share.  I was just talking to my husband last night about the fact that my child-hood was not heavy on friends.  We had such a large, close-knit family, that they become our circle of friends.  The Reading family was a huge part of that.  Uncle Marty always entered the room with so much energy and excitement.  We always knew when he had arrived!!  He will be missed.

We will all miss Marty's great passion for life, his enthusiastic personality, his homemade and heartfelt greetings and messages in the mail, and his ability to make you feel like the most important person in the world whenever he met you.  Marty Schneider will be greatly missed, but will live on in our hearts forever.

I was saddened to hear the news of your father's passing. I pray that your family feels God's comfort and knows that he is showering light on your life and will guide you all through the days ahead. Please take care.

OBITUARIO

Martin T. Schneider

9 abril, 1921 – 11 septiembre, 2014

Auman's Inc. Funeral Home

Muestre su apoyo

Comparta Un Recuerdo

Comparta
Un Obituario

Obtenga actualizaciones

Servicios