Wife of Francis Schaeffer was twice an ECPA Gold Medallion author

Edith Schaeffer, author and wife of Francis Schaeffer, died at her home in Gryon, Switzerland, on Easter Sunday, March 31. She was 98. 

Born Nov. 3, 1914 to missionaries in China, she married Francis Schaeffer in 1935. The two moved with their three daughters in 1948 to serve as missionaries in Switzerland, where they founded L’Abri (French for shelter) Fellowship International. 

A best-selling author like her husband, who died in 1984, Schaeffer’s more than two dozen books include Affliction (Revell/Baker Publishing Group), The Tapestry: The Life and Times of Francis and Edith Schaeffer (Word Books) and Christianity Is Jewish (Tyndale House Publishers). Affliction and The Tapestry won the Gold Medallion award from the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association in 1979 and 1982, respectively.

The Schaeffers’ son, Frank Schaeffer, memorialized his mother in a letter titled “Goodbye Mom, Edith Schaeffer 1914-2013 RIP” on his blog. 

“Mom treated everyone she ever met well, spent more time talking to ‘nobodies’ than to the rich and famous, who flocked to her after her books were published and became best-sellers,” he wrote. “Through my experience of being a father of three and grandfather of four, I’ve finally been able to test mom’s life wisdom and spiritual outlook and found out that she was right: love, continuity, beauty, forgiveness, art, life and loving a loving, all-forgiving God really are the only things that matter.”

Besides her son, Schaeffer is survived by three daughters, Prista Sandri, Susan Macauley and Deborah Middelmann; 15 grandchildren; 35 great-grandchildren; and two great-great-grandchildren.

A public memorial service was held April 19 in Gryon. Later in the year, there will be a public graveside service in in Rochester, Minn., where Schaeffer will be laid to rest alongside her late husband.

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