The Rev. Francis Schemel, Jesuit priest
The Rev. Francis Schemel, a Jesuit priest who taught high school at what is now Loyola Blakefield, died Aug. 4 at his order’s community house at Georgetown University in Washington. He was 93. No medical cause of death was available.
Born in Archbald, Pa., he attended the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Scranton as a pre-med student.
He entered the Society of Jesus at the Novitiate of St. Isaac Jogues in Wernersville, Pa., in 1946. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Woodstock College in Maryland, a master’s degree in humanities from Bellarmine College in Kentucky and a degree in sacred theology, also from Woodstock. He was ordained a priest in 1958. He taught German at then-Loyola High School from1960 to1968. Hewas moderator of the school’s mothers’ club and also led student overseas tours.
He later was a minister at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome. He also served as a minister and treasurer at New York’s Woodstock College.
In 1975 he was named minister of the Leonard Neale House in Washington, then also as minister and treasurer of the Carroll House. In 1984 he was named to an administrative post at Georgetown Preparatory School in Bethesda, then became Georgetown University’s campus minister. He remained at that job for 30 years.
“Everyone grows physically, and that’s something we can’t control,” he said when asked to state his life’s work, according to the Jesuits’ Maryland Province. “We grow intellectually through life experience and our jobs. I am here to help people grow spiritually.” A funeral Mass was offered Aug.9. Father Schemel leaves no immediate survivors. to help relieve fluid buildup on her brain.
Still, when the day of her graduation from Irving’s MacArthur High came, Ms. Tatro insisted on walking across the stage like everyone else to collect her diploma. The effort earned her a standing ovation. Her mother, Mary, said Ms. Tatro was “a wonderful kid.” Music made her happy, especially Elvis, Prince, Michael Jackson and New Kids on the Block.
Her laptop was her outlet to the world. She spent hours in her room, tracking down old classmates from her high school yearbook, cultivating Facebook connections and corresponding with them via email.
One of those people was former MacArthur classmate Yareli Esteban. The two hadn’t been close in school; back then, special-education students were separate from the other kids. But when Ms. Tatro reached out, asking her former classmate to pay a visit, Ms. Esteban did so. The two clicked.
“She never complained about her situation,” said Ms. Esteban.
“She was just glad she could help other people. She knew that because of her they could get services they might not otherwise have had.”