IN MEMORIAM: Margaret H. Schneider, 73;
Teacher, Curator, Active In Opera Founding
FLY CREEK – Margaret H. Schneider, 73, teacher and museum curator active in the early years of Glimmerglass Opera, passed away surrounded by her family Feb. 4, 2016, at Bassett Hospital following a battle with cancer. She was 73.
Born Nov. 24, 1942, in Salem, Ore., Maggie was the daughter of William and Eileen (White) Gentzkow. Maggie graduated from North Salem (Ore.) High School with honors and from the University of Oregon in 1963 with a B.A. in history and education. Maggie left Oregon in her early 20s to travel through Europe and North Africa. In Florence, Italy, she taught at the American International School, where she lived for five years.
In 1969, Maggie moved to Cooperstown where she taught in the school district. She earned a master in museum studies in 1982 from Cooperstown Graduate Program.
While living in Cooperstown, she met her former husband Charles Schneider, the first Glimmerglass Opera conductor, and took on many supportive and creative roles in the company while raising their children and, together, restoring two historic homes.
Later in life, she served as a museum curator at the Mission Mill Museum in Salem, Ore., where she created a permanent exhibit on textiles entitled “The Finishing Room”. She was also director of Education at the Arizona Historical Society in Tucson and Phoenix.
From 1988, Maggie taught middle school and high school history and English in the Salem-Keizer (Ore.) School District. By the time of her retirement, she had taught for 30 years
At 66, she fulfilled her lifelong promise to her former students to join the Peace Corps after retirement, and served as an educator in Macedonia from 2008 to 2009, creating reading clubs and working alongside the teachers to create a more progressive, project-based classroom. Since her death, countless former students, colleagues and friends from Macedonia have written to say what a difference she made in their lives.
Four years ago, Maggie moved back to Central New York and settled in Fly Creek, to be near friends and family, and revel in the region’s historic significance, which fueled her passion for historic preservation.
She would often turn off onto country roads just to explore where they went and see new landscapes, photographing along the way. She volunteered to restore stone walls in France. She designed and had built, from the ground up, a timber frame house on Orcas Island, Wash., while living in a 10 x 10 micro cabin.
Maggie was an ardent gardener and she created English Gardens in every home she had. Her garden in Fly Creek will live on as a memorial to her love of flowers.
As she fought the cancer, Maggie was blessed with one last beautiful summer and fall, and to witness the birth of her newest grandchild.
Maggie is mourned and survived by her children and beloved grandchildren: daughter Megan Schneider-Ajakh and husband, Ahmad, and their children Arianne and Charles of Cooperstown, and son Dana Schneider of Webster. She is also survived by her three brothers, Bill Gentzkow, Gary Gentzkow and wife, Barbara, and Michael Gentzkow and wife, Kathy, and their families.
A celebration of Maggie’s life and scattering of her ashes will be scheduled for late spring in her garden; a ceremony on the Oregon coast will follow in the summer. In lieu of flowers, please make contributions in her name to the Lung Cancer Research Foundation, 155 East 55 Street, Suite 6H, New York, NY 10022, and Sierra Club, 85 Second Street, 2nd Floor, San Francisco, CA 94105.
The Connell, Dow & Deysenroth Funeral Home in Cooperstown is serving the family.
