Lorraine Schaeffer: Sept. 29, 1933 – Oct. 6, 2012

 

PHOTO BY EWA MCCULLOCH 50-year Topanga resident Lorraine Schaeffer will be remembered during a concert at Topanga Library by the SoCal Recorder Society on Nov. 10 at 3 p.m.

Lorraine Schaeffer was born in New York, the youngest of three children. Her father, Max, had emigrated to the United States as a young man, from Russia. Lorraine obtained her liberal arts B.A., with a minor in mathematics, from the University of Iowa (where both her siblings were then living). She was married briefly in her twenties and had no children. She moved to Topanga more than 50 years ago, and worked as a computer programmer for various employers, retiring eventually from TTI of Citicorp a few decades ago.

In retirement, Lorraine devoted herself to improving her skills in the visual arts and music. She took many classes at Santa Monica College and Pierce College, in activities as diverse as etching and engraving, oil painting, and photography, and she maintained a lovely and well equipped art studio in her home. One of Lorraine's teachers at Pierce College remarked on her generosity in encouraging other students. She also learned to play the recorder, and greatly enjoyed performing with her recorder group.

Lorraine loved all animals, domestic and wild. She bred and raised a number of Great Danes and then Salukis. She adored her horse, whom she rode in the State Park for years, often with her nephew Andy. Over the years, she had a goat and various beloved cats, and she enjoyed the many bird species she attracted to her feeders.

Lorraine was treated successfully for breast cancer almost thirty years ago, but she was very recently diagnosed with an incurable form of pancreatic cancer that is not uncommon for people with the BRCA gene, which also afflicted Lorraine’s sister, Barbara, who died of breast cancer in 1986. Their brother, Maury, died in 2010, at age 86, after living in Topanga since 1978. Lorraine is survived by her sister’s three daughters, all of whom live in Australia; her brother’s two sons and daughter, who live in California and Hawaii; and by her sister-in-law, Virginia Norwood, of Topanga.

MEMORIAL CONCERT NOV. 10

The Southern California Recorder Society, directed by Lorraine’s recorder teacher, Inga Funck, will give a concert in memory of Lorraine, at the Topanga Library on Saturday, Nov. 10, 2012, from 3 to 4 p.m.