Edith Nalle Schafer

Edith Nalle Schafer, a writer, landscape designer and keen observer of her milieu, died peacefully on October 15, 2025 at Ingleside at Rock Creek in Washington, DC. She was 94 years old.

An avid reader and writer from an early age, in 1953 Edith was awarded the prestigious Prix de Paris, granted to a college senior to work for a year at Vogue magazine in Paris. Her winning essay was on the importance of blue and green, a topic that did not interest her much. After Paris, she moved to New York City, NY and worked for Macmillan Publishers.

She met John (Jack) Schafer on a dock in Northeast Harbor, Maine, and they were later married. He was starting his legal career at Covington and Burling, and they moved to Georgetown, where she lived for the next 60 years.

Born in Chestnut Hill, PA, Edith attended Chatham Hall, Vassar College and graduated from Bryn Mawr College. In her mid-life, she went back to school at George Washington University and earned a degree in landscape design. She wrote for local Georgetown publications, volunteered with the Georgetown Garden Club, and was instrumental in creating Garden Day, a fund-raiser featuring local gardens. She was also involved in the Literary Committee of the Cosmos Club, enjoyed the lunchtime birding table at the Club, helped run an educational program at the Smithsonian, and sat on the board of Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington.

She wrote and published four books: Our Remarkable Memory (1988), Aspects of Georgetown (2004), Literary Circles of Washington (1993) and Gardens of Georgetown (2015).

She is survived by her three children, Alison Schafer, John Schafer, and Nancy Schafer, and five grandchildren, who all miss her. Services are to be private.