Orville C. Schumacher

Orville Schumacher was newsworthy from the moment of his birth: “The little arrival is fortunate in having alive two great grandfathers, two great grandmothers, two grandmothers, and one grandfather,” reported his hometown newspaper. Orville figured that with all these longevity genes, he should live to at least 100 and he planned all kinds of travels for well beyond that. He didn’t quite reach his goal, dying just short of 95 while cruising in the Hawaiian Islands last month.

Not many people get the chance to complete everything on their “bucket lists” but Orville came close.

Orville was a child of the Depression. When the Civilian Conservation Corps dug up the streets in his home town to install sewers, he dug up his family’s chicken yard to install tin can sewers. (One can only wonder what the chickens thought of that!) He entered his teens as the United States entered World War II. Days after graduating from high school, he enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps and boarded a train bound for the West Coast and the Marine training base at Camp Pendleton.

Orville ended up, that first time in the Marines, in Tientsin, China, as one of the last of the renowned “China Marines.” The China he experienced was in economic and political turmoil after years of occupation by the Japanese – but typical of Orville, he appreciated it as a place where people managed to create beauty with whatever they had on hand. He brought home a lot of “art” made of discarded beer cans.

Once back in the States Orville used the GI Bill to enroll in junior college and to ponder his future. He didn’t get to ponder long; the Marine Corps called him back for service in Korea. This time Orville served in the Baker Bandits (sometimes referred to as Korea’s Band of Brothers) during a period when the Bandits were fighting in some of the most desperate battles of the Korean War.

Finally home, Orville finished his college career at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, earning a master’s degree in broadcast journalism. Then followed several years at radio stations in California -- reporter, writer, announcer, program director, station manager – you name it, he did it.

In the early 1960s, Orville decided to take a break from broadcasting and see Europe “on the cheap.” He was a “guest worker” in Germany, working first in a flour mill and later in a bakery making strawberry tarts. Between those jobs, he traveled the length and breadth of the continent. “Oh, yes, I was there. Do you want to see my picture?” It was a family joke. One picture per country.

At some point, in some European hostel, someone asked Orville if he had ever considered working for the federal government. He hadn’t. But the idea was planted and when he returned to the States he took the necessary exams, passed, and headed off to Washington, DC. How he ended up at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farm Index magazine – and laughing at the blonde who popped up from a typewriter -- can only be ascribed to Fate. “Oh, goodness, I am going to marry her,” he thought. And he did, a year later.

Now began the years of kids (a son and daughter), houses, dog, cats, Little League, crafting (wine, pine cone wreaths, candles), and summer vacations in the Green Hornet (a huge Oldsmobile VistaCruiser with three banks of seats and an infinite capacity to haul ant-infested palm fronds, exploding champagne bottles, driftwood, and similar items accumulated on road trips).

And eventually, retirement – and the emergence once again of a new Orville.

During the years of kids, a dollhouse kit had been purchased but never opened. With time on his hands, Orville opened the kit. From that point on, there was no turning back. Houses, room boxes, teeny tiny electrified chandeliers which eventually earned him the rank of Artisan in the International Guild of Miniature Artisans – there was nothing he couldn’t make.

Traveling was still a passion – but now he took pictures – lots of pictures – as inspirations for his miniature chandeliers, mansions, castles, fantasy lands.

Orville will be much missed by the family and friends he leaves behind -- his wife of 56 years, Geraldine (the blonde of the typewriter), son Eric, daughter Victoria, grandson Griffin, brother Willy, sister-in-law Joyce, nieces and nephew Karen, Kathy, Debbie and Mark, and the many friends in his “real” and “miniature” worlds who shared his love of life and enjoyed his creations.

In lieu of flowers, contributions in Orville's memory can be made to Redeemer Lutheran Church of McLean, VA, or to the Marine Corps' Toys for Tots.