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12/10/09
Saying Goodbye
Filed under: General, Birding & Outdoors, Rutherford & NJ
Posted by: Ken @ 7:19 am

An Ivory Gull takes flight (click on photo for more views):

Ivory Gull departs 20091208

A beloved uncle departs
Click on image below for YOU TUBE SLIDE SHOW:




We lost a dear friend and uncle this week. My late Dad’s younger brother, Father Dan Schneider, passed away peacefully at Maryknoll, New York, where he was ordained a Catholic priest over 64 years ago. He would have been 92 later this month. As an 8-10 year old child, I remember visiting him at the seminary, feeding the pigs and chickens (in a sustainable farm on the grounds, now long forgotten), and, in a hedgerow next to the lawn, finding a Chipping Sparrow nest that was constructed entirely of horsehair. Dan was the first graduate of our High School to become a priest, and I swelled with pride at his first Mass in our little stone church in Rutherford, New Jersey. He spent years as a missionary in Korea, and I wrote letters to him, addressing him as something like “Tan-Ya Sawn Sin-Poo.”

Happily, he was back in the USA to perform our marriage ceremony nearly 50 years ago, to baptize our first child (who is also his first grand-niece) and to be with us when we buried our youngest child. He loved being outdoors, he loved cookouts, and he embraced us all in his love of life.

I’ll never forget the time when Father Dan visited us when we lived in Dallas. We all drove out to a local park to roast hot dogs. When the charcoal had heated up, we reached for the franks– and realized we had left them home! Unflappable, Dan told the children how much he liked mustard sandwiches. We toasted the buns and spread them with mustard, and everyone thought they were great!

The arrangements for his funeral were uncertain, so we booked flights for a six day visit to New Jersey, planning to stay with my brother and his wife on Great Bay, not far from the Brigantine Unit of Forsythe NWR. As luck (or Providence) would have it, an Ivory Gull, a rare species from above the Arctic Circle appeared at a marina in Cape May. Since the funeral was delayed until the last day of our stay, we had time to find the gull. How Father Dan would have enjoyed our account of this synchronicity.

Rest in Peace!

Father Dan (L) with my late Dad at the church in Las Trampas, New Mexico. See this story about Dad. The two brothers often engaged in deep theological discussions over bourbon on the rocks:


2 Responses to “Saying Goodbye”

  1. Ken Says:
    December 10th, 2009 at 9:46 am J. Daniel Schneider SCHNEIDER Father J. Daniel Schneider, M.M., born in Columbus, Ohio, died on Saturday, December 5, 2009 at St. Teresa’s Residence in Ossining, N.Y. He was a Maryknoll priest for 64 years. Visitation and funeral will be held Friday, December 11 at 10:30 a.m. at Maryknoll, Ossining, NY. Ordained to the priesthood on June 10, 1945, Father Dan’s first assignment was to The Field Afar, now Maryknoll magazine. He served as Business Manager of the magazine until 1949, when he became an assistant in Maryknoll’s public relations. After studying the Korean language and culture at Yale University, (1955-56) Fr. Dan served as assistant pastor and pastor in two parishes in Korea. In 1958 he returned to the United States to serve as director of the Society’s public relations efforts (1958-62). Fr. Dan returned to Korea (1963-1967) to further his studies in the Korean language and offer pastoral service. He was named Superior of Maryknoll’s Korea Region in 1967. Recalled to the U.S in 1972, Fr. Dan did mission education in St. Louis, Mo., parish work at St. Elizabeth Catholic Church in Kansas City, MO and ministered as team priest for Catholic Marriage Encounter and Catholic Engaged Encounter. Fr. Dan also served as spiritual director for 15 years to the Korean Catholic Community of the Greater Kansas City area, first at St. Elizabeth Church and later at Holy Cross Catholic Church, Overland Park, Kansas. Retired in 2001, Fr. Dan moved to Maryknoll headquarters in Ossining, NY. A graduate of St. Mary’s High School, Rutherford, NJ (1935). He earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy, and banking and finance from Fordham University in New York City (1939) and entered Maryknoll. He is survived by his siblings, Jean Rogers of Rutherford, Joseph Schneider of Hillsdale, N.J., John Schneider of Powhatan, Va. and Jerry Schneider of Rutherford; and many O’Shaughnessy cousins. Memorial donations in Father Schneider’s name may be made to the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers, P.O. Box 302, Maryknoll, NY, 10545. Published in The Columbus Dispatch on December 10, 2009
  2. Katherine Carnegie Says:
    December 13th, 2009 at 8:31 am Ken I am sorry to hear of the loss of your uncle, but I am sure that he is in a much better place and is keeping an eye on things from above. Here is a poem that I liked when my mother died it is by Henry Scott Holland.

    Death is nothing at all,
    I have only slipped into the next room.

    I am I, and you are you,
    Whatever we were to each other, that we are still.

    Call me by my old familiar name,
    Speak to me in the easy way which you always used.

    Put no difference in your tone,
    Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.

    Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes we enjoyed together.
    Play, smile, think of me, pray for me.

    Let my name be ever the household word that it always was,
    Let it be spoken without effect, without the trace of shadow on it.

    Life means all that it ever meant.

    It it the same as it ever was, there is unbroken continuity.
    Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight?
    I am waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near,
    Just around the corner. All is well.

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