Sarah Schneider

1937 - 2018

Sarah Schneider

Grand Ledge - Sarah "Sally" Mead Schneider, died on October 2 in Grand Ledge, Michigan after a long and difficult decline due to several strokes and dementia. She was 81.

Sally was a lover of art, classical music, literature and John Rawls' Theory of Justice. She was an excellent cook, weaver and knitter, a lover of nature and a close and thoughtful observer of life. She was born in Worcester, MA to Darwin and Dorothy Mead, the first of three children and lived in Waterville, ME, Scotia, NY and South Bend, IN, while growing up. Her father, a chemist, physicist and professor and her mother, a librarian, both instilled in her a life-long love of learning.

Sally graduated from South Bend Central High School in 1955 and from DePauw University in 1959. She worked at the Rochester Institute of Technology before pursuing PhD studies in psychology at Penn State University. At Penn State she met fellow graduate student John Schneider to whom she was married for 20 years, they moved to Norman, OK, Okemos, MI and finally East Lansing, MI where she spent the next 40 years. With the birth of their first child Sally turned to raising her three children and pursing many interests and volunteering her time to and skills to several causes. Sally returned to school in 1983 and earned a Masters of Social Work at Michigan State University; she then worked at Sparrow Hospital as a social worker for 20 years, mostly in the dialysis unit and served on the Sparrow Hospital Ethics Committee into retirement. Over the years she volunteered her time to children, the environment and organizations supporting a more just world, including counseling at Planned Parenthood, educator the Greater Lansing Unitarian Universalist Church and as a board member for MICHUCAN (advocates for single payer healthcare in Michigan).

She is survived by her three daughters, Betsy, Anne and Rachel Schneider. Her sister and brother-in-law, Betsy and Jim Pifer, her grandchildren, Madeleine, Viktor, Kasper and Ozzie, her sister in law Elizabeth Kreider, and nieces and nephews, Kathy Pifer Spease, Andy Pifer, Christopher Kreider and Sarah Kreider. Her younger brother, David Mead, died in 2009.

Donations in Sally Schneider's memory can be made to The East Lansing Public Library, Planned Parenthood, MICHUCAN or the Sierra Club.

A memorial celebration of Sally will be held on February 2 at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Greater Lansing.