John Theodore Schmick, Jr.'s Obituary
John Theodore Schmick, Jr., aged 93 years, passed away on May 17, 2013, at Easton, MD, due to congestive heart failure. Born on February 25, 1920, at Spring Garden Farm outside Preston, MD, John, Jr., was the third child among seven of Elsie Goehringer Schmick and John T. Schmick. John, Jr., graduated in 1937 from Preston High School and in 1939 with an Associate’s Degree from Goldie Business College, Wilmington, DE. John, Jr., began a business career, but after his older sister and brother, Leona and Kenneth, joined the U.S. Navy, early in World War II, John honored his father’s request to help America’s war effort by co-operating Spring Garden Farm. During the War, outside growing season, John protected vital road, railroad, and hydroelectric structures across the Susquehanna River as a Maryland State Guard.
In 1944, John married Smith Island native and Preston teacher, Addelle Somers. In 1947 and 1948, she bore sons Alan and Donald, as John resumed his business career in vehicle sales. In the early 1950s, John enjoyed Preston’s Lions Club, as he and his young family grew active in Preston’s Immanuel Lutheran Church. By the mid-1950s, John had become an agent for the non-profit insurer, Aid Association for Lutherans (AAL). Better to serve AAL members in all DelMarVa Lutheran congregations, John and his family moved to Dover, DE, early in 1958 (and to Smyrna, in 1967). Addelle resumed teaching in 1961 and John and she were active in St John’s Lutheran Church in Dover, hosted mid-Delaware’s International Club, supported Republican Party efforts there, and traveled to AAL conventions across North America. In time, John served as president of Delaware’s association for Chartered Life Underwriters.
In 1981, Addelle retired from the Dover School District. John and Addelle moved back to Preston in 1982, where they rejoined Immanuel Lutheran Church and he rejoined the Lions. There, John retired in 1985. Over the next decade, he actively gardened, drove Addelle to 100+ Elderhostels across the U.S. and Canada, and began a second career as a volunteer. He delivered Meals on Wheels, roved as an ambassador for the Preston Lions, helped in a church thrift shop at Cambridge, served as Caroline County Republican Party Chairman and Maryland’s GOP Central Committee Chairman (as had his father), and later served as a Caroline County Election Commissioner. When Addelle died, in 2002, she and John had been married 57 years.
In a few years, John joined mid-DelMarVa’s Active Singles Club, which he came to serve as Treasurer, co-operating with its President, Judith Harris Pinsky (widow of the late Norman Pinsky). John and Judy married in 2007 at her Easton home, amidst family and friends. He resided there with her for joyful years of volunteering, socializing, gardening, and traveling. John joined Judy in the Easton Elks Club and she joined him in the Preston Lions and Immanuel Lutheran Church. After five and a half years of happy marriage to John, Judy died in February, 2013.
John’s siblings, Leona Wrightson, of Easton, Kenneth Schmick, of Federalsburg, and Edna Warren, of Baltimore, also predeceased him. John will be missed, by friends up and down DelMarVa, and survivors in his extended family. They include: son, Donald Somers Schmick, his wife, Dorothy McKinnon, and their son Jeffrey, of Atlanta; son, Alan Somers, Esq., and his wife, Carol Jeanne Gaumer, of Kennett Square, PA, Alan’s children, Joshua Darlington and his wife, Marguerite, of Chicago, and Kristoffer and Meagan Darlington, and her son, Cooper Darlington-Bai, of Detroit; John’s former daughter-in-law, Dr. Susan Darlington, also of Detroit; John’s brother, Frederick Schmick and his wife, Jeannette, of Preston, brother, the Rev. Dr. Victor Schmick, and his wife, Betty, of Richmond, and sister, Betty Shirey, of Centerville; John’s sister-in-law, Carlene Schmick, of Easton; and a host of nieces and nephews, especially including Alene Tyler Cook, of Dover, and Ronald Tyler, and his wife, Josephine, of Huntingtown, MD, who regarded John as a second father. John is also survived by a host of cousins, especially including Leon Schmick, and his wife, Martha Ann, of Preston, and William Goehringer, of Hurlock. Surviving John, too, are Judy’s sister, Alease Jenkins, of VA, and Judy’s children, Miriam Bazensky, of Baltimore, Michael Pinsky, of Napa Valley, CA, Robert Pinsky, and his wife, Suzanne, of Easton, Linda Boteach, and her husband, David, of Baltimore, and Janice Pinsky, and her fiancé, Jeffrey Haynes, of Easton.
A celebration of the life of John T. Schmick, Jr., will be held at 2:00 pm, on Friday, May 24, 2013, at Immanuel Lutheran Church, 242 Main Street, Preston, MD 21655. A viewing will be held, from 7:00 to 9:00 in the evening before, at Framptom Funeral Home, 216 North Main Street, Federalsburg, as well as one hour before the funeral, at the Church. Immediately following John Schmick’s funeral service, he will be buried next to his first wife, Addelle, in Preston’s Junior Order Cemetery. John’s family requests that no flowers be sent, but welcomes contributions in his memory to Talbot Hospice Foundation, 586 Cynwood Drive, Easton, MD 21601 or Immanuel Lutheran Church. To share memories with the family please visit www.framptom.com.
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