Hundreds attend Schaefer funeral

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By Mark Davis

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Businessman, church friend, lawmaker: They came to pay respects to former state Sen. Nancy Schaefer and her husband, Bruce Schaefer.

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Ben Gray, AJC Nancy Schaefer in the Georgia Senate in 2006.

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Nancy Schaefer ran for governor of Georgia in 1998. Here, she talks with Art Williams, president of A.L. Williams Co., during the campaign.

DWIGHT ROSS JR., AJC Nancy Schaefer ran for governor of Georgia in 1998. Here, she talks with Art Williams, president of A.L. Williams Co., during the campaign.

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The couple’s lives ended suddenly last Friday, in a way no one expected. Police say Bruce Schaefer, 74, killed his wife of 52 years while she slept. Then after shooting his 73-year-old wife, he turned the gun on himself. Their daughter found the bodies at their Habersham County home.

So on a sunny Wednesday afternoon, mourners streamed into Toccoa’s Ebenezer Baptist Church to bow and pray. And to try and make sense of it all.

Former Atlanta residents, the Schaefers were renowned for their involvement in right-to-life issues and other traditionally conservative causes; to die as they did, friends said, was nearly unbelievable.

“There were moments, in the past few days, when I said, ‘Lord, I don’t understand this,’ ” said the Rev. Andy Childs, one of two speakers in the 70-minute funeral service. Before him, flanked by carnations, rested two caskets, each draped with an American flag. A spray of roses lay on one.

Childs paused and looked at more than 300 people, including legislators who came from Atlanta to say goodbye to their former colleague, who served two terms in the Senate until her defeat in 2008. She also had been a candidate for mayor of Atlanta as well as lieutenant governor and governor.

Her husband was a retired stockbroker. They had five children and 13 grandchildren. They also had friends who are trying to understand their deaths, Childs said.

“Intense hurt,” he said, “leads to intense hope.”

The Schaefers specialized in hope, said Kay Arthur, founder of Precept Ministries International. Based in Chattanooga, the nonprofit organization specializes in teaching Bible lessons worldwide. She and Nancy Schaefer, said Arthur, had similar beliefs, hopes and politics.

“They didn’t go the way we expected them to go,” said Arthur. “But they went, and they went to God Almighty.

“Don’t think of the way they died,” she continued. “Think of the way they lived.”

They lived good lives, said Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp. Wednesday morning, he and about 30 legislators boarded a chartered bus for the 100-mile trip from Atlanta to Stephens County.

“It’s hard to understand a situation like this,” said Kemp. “And that’s not for us to speculate on.”

The service ended as it began, with a woman on a harp and her father playing the violin. They played the old standards, “How Great Thou Art” and “It Is Well With My Soul,” among others.

Their music rose in the spring air of northeast Georgia, sunny and filled with daffodils waving in the wind, as a van carried two caskets away to a private graveside service.