Peter Schoderbek

1932 - 2016

Peter Schoderbek, 83

Peter P. Schoderbek of Iowa City, IA died on January 19, 2016, after a long battle with leukemia.

A Memorial Mass will be held Saturday, February 13th at 1:00 pm at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Iowa City. The family will greet friends Saturday from 11:00 am until 1:00 pm in the church hall. In lieu of flowers, memorials may be directed to the American Red Cross or a charity of one's choice.

Survivors include his four children, Michael, his wife Colleen and their children Peter, Madeleine, and Heidi of Three Bridges, NJ; Nancy Turner, her husband Paul and their children Kathryn, Paul Jr., Amy, Robert and Jane of Salisbury MD; William and his wife Kathleen and their children Mary Hadley, Thomas and Samuel of Bend OR; and Mary and her husband Allan Hunt of Solon, IA. Also surviving is his brother Stephen of Albuquerque, NM. He was preceded in death by four brothers-John, Frank, Father Charles, and Joseph; as well as his parents Johann and Anna Schoderbek, and one grandson, William Turner, son of Nancy and Paul Turner. An infant sister, Barbara, died in Hungary preceding his parent's immigration to the USA. He was married to Clara Leitzinger of Clearfield, PA in 1958 and divorced in 1989. He was briefly married to Lillian Henry who remained his close companion until his death. Lillian provided excellent care and love for Peter over the years.

Peter was born and raised in Duquesne, Pennsylvania. He went to college at Pennsylvania State University on a football scholarship, where he was awarded second-team All-America honors his junior year. He served in the Air Force for three years as a Navigator before returning to Penn State for his Master's Degree in Business in 1958. He earned his Ph.D. from The University of Michigan in 1964 and joined the faculty at the University of Iowa. As a Professor of Management at the University of Iowa's Business School, he taught various courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels, and was author/co-author of half-dozen books and over 50 scholarly articles. He retired from academics in 1998. His consulting work with the Federal government, Fortune 500 corporations, and trade associations took him to many parts of Europe, Asia and Canada.

Peter served on the boards of MECCA, Ducks Unlimited, The United Way, Visiting Nurses Association, and was President of the Iowa City Babe Ruth League. He also coached his sons Mike and Bill in Little League Baseball for a number of years.

One of Peter's hobbies was exploring and documenting the Schoderbek family history with his brother Steve. The brothers made several trips to visit Hercegfalva, Hungary, the birthplace of their parents, collecting genealogy data and chronicling the lives of the earliest Schoderbek settlers in the "old country."

Peter was an avid hunter and fisherman. He traveled far and wide to pursue fish and game, including 29 fishing trips to Canada for Walleye, eight trips to Alaska for salmon and halibut, and fly-fishing in the Bahamas and New Zealand. His early hunting adventures involved the pursuit of pheasant and quail with his two sons. Later he joined a consortium in a Duck Marsh, and spent many fall seasons pursuing the various ducks that migrated through the Mississippi flyway. He hunted elk, deer, pheasants, turkey, quail and especially ducks - his last thoughts were "it wasn't enough". He felt that one of his biggest accomplishments was a triple on quail.

At the time of his death he felt that he had had a most fulfilling life and asked that his family and friends celebrate it as such.