Ruth Scheer Memorial Service
January 10, 2022 (death January 4, 2022)
Obituary: Ruth Dieffenbacher Scheer entered her heavenly home on Jan. 4, 2022, after 95 years of glorifying her Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, here on this earth. She was born on Dec. 13, 1926, to Clyde and Edith Dieffenbacher and learned to play her accordion before she was ten. She graduated from Wichita North High School in 1944 and from Wichita University in 1948 with a major in English and with minors in French and Music. In 1947 she married Harold Scheer and began to fulfil her quest to raise a large family that would bring honor to the Lord.
Music filled their lives as each child was taught to play the piano and one other instrument. The family performed together as “The Scheer Delights,” producing Christmas shows and operettas that Ruth wrote herself. She was an accomplished writer, composer, and poet with many publications in each category.
Ruth was preceded in death by her parents, brother Daniel, and husband Harold. She is survived by her ten children Valerie Sullivan (husband, Brian), Dana DeKalb (husband, Jim), Kendall Scheer (wife, Joyce), Kimberly Parker (husband, Phil), Laurie Little (husband, Rocky), Brick Scheer (wife, Shelley), Allison Peterson (husband, Stacy), Shannon Bohall (husband, Craig), Tibb Scheer (wife, Kim), Tanya Deiter (husband, Greg), her Puerto Rican son Ivan (wife, Nellie), 33 grandchildren, 44 great-grandchildren, numerous friends and a huge legacy of optimism, energy, and love for life at its fullest.
Welcome: We are gathered here today to pay tribute to a very special lady, Ruth Scheer, and to the Savior in whom she trusted. I have personally known and appreciated Ruth for over 49 years, and I count it a special privilege to be involved at this celebration service. Her ten children and the rest of her large family want you to know how much they appreciate the love you have shown them by being present for this service today. We want this to be a true celebration of a life well lived.
Scripture reading: A psalm of joyful worship is a good place to begin to celebrate Ruth’s life. Listen to the 100th Psalm from the familiar KJV:
Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands.
2 Serve the Lord with gladness: come before his presence with singing.
3 Know ye that the Lord he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.
4 Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name.
5 For the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations.
Prayer: Father, joyful worship was so much a part of Ruth’s life. She served you with gladness. She came before you with singing. She entered your presence with thanksgiving and your courts with praise. She passed on your truth to the generations that followed her. Thank you for the blessing that was ours to know her. We are better off because she touched our lives.
May you grant peace and comfort to this large family, as they have now lost both Harold and Ruth. May the wonderful memories that are theirs provide joy in sorrow and strength for tomorrow. May these children and grandchildren and great grandchildren continue the legacy that has been left to them–of faith in God, love for each other, and service to their community. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.
Message: The Proverbs 31 woman is an amazing person. She is a woman of noble character, a godly woman, a wonderful wife, an amazing mother, an entrepreneur, an efficient homemaker, a fine cook, a seamstress, a real estate agent, a woman of wisdom, and that’s just for starters.
While I have known a few women in my life who approached some of this woman’s accomplishments, I suspect most are tempted to ask: Is this gal for real? “Doesn’t she ever kill her vines by watering them too much? Doesn’t she ever sew the sleeves on wrong when she makes her children’s clothes? Doesn’t she ever get mad at her husband? Do all her children rise up and bless her, answering “Yes, Mother”?i I suspect Ruth herself would be embarrassed that I chose this text for her service.
And frankly I doubt if the author had a specific woman in mind when he wrote this. In fact, he himself asks in the first verse we read, “A wife of noble character, who can find?”
The epilogue of Proverbs is an acrostic poem, though that is not readily obvious in our English Bibles. There are 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet, and these 22 verses start with those letters in sequence. Verse 1 starts with an (A) in Hebrew, verse 2 with a (B), verse 3 with a (C), and so forth. What we must not overlook is that poetry uses figures of speech and is not always a literal description. If you read some of Ruth’s own poetry you will find the same thing. Her boys aren’t quite as great as Ruth makes them out to be, but they are fine characters.
But I want to choose four key aspects of the Proverbs 31 Woman which I see exemplified in Ruth Scheer’s life. These are what I would call “paradigm qualities” of the godly woman.
First, the Proverbs 31 woman values relationships, especially family relationships. She enjoys intimacy with and trust from her husband. She clothes her children well, feeds them well, and, most importantly, knows them well. Yet she doesn’t focus all her attention on her own family. She has a heart for others–for those she works with, for those who work for her, and for those who are poor and needy.
For Ruth relationships were extremely important. Some of you have known her for decades. You know her as a woman who loved deeply and was extremely loyal to her friends. But you also know that her family was her very life. She had 2 girls and a boy, 2 girls and a boy, 2 girls and a boy, then Tanya. The girls told me it took two of them to take care of one brother. But Ruth dearly loved each one. She knew every grandchild and every great-grandchild by name—all 77 of them. I sometimes struggle with the names of just the seven God has blessed me with!
Ruth’s commitment to children is most evident in the principles behind the literature she produced for them. Her own words describe her goals:
To keep the innocence and sense of wonder in childhood,
To keep the sparkle and spontaneity of delight in discovery of God’s
wonders.
To beget appreciation for good and gentle things as well as compassion for
hurting things.
Could we ever use more of that commitment today!
Second, the Proverbs 31 woman uses the mind God gave her. Our tendency is to focus on all this woman does (which is truly amazing), but I am even more impressed with how she thinks. There are a number of references in the chapter to her thinking about the future, organizing, anticipating, seeing consequences and arranging for them ahead of time. It says she “considers” a field and thenbuys it, indicating that she’s decisive but not impulsive.
When winter comes she doesn’t worry or panic, because she has already made provision for her family. Furthermore, when she speaks, she speaks with wisdom, and faithful instruction is on her tongue (verse 26). Whether teaching her children or mentoring younger women or participating in the affairs of her community, this woman is intellectually curious and willing to make full use of the gifts God has given her.
Ruth had an exceptional mind and she used it to the fullest. Her children’s books, her anthology of over 500 pages of poetry, and her musical compositions are truly amazing accomplishments that demonstrate a creative mind and an industrious spirit. You would have to read her full obituary to grasp the extent of her community involvement and charity work, culminating in her being named Kansas Mother of the Year and AKDA Woman of the Year. Frankly, she almost makes the Proverbs 31 woman seen like a slouch!
Thirdly, the Proverbs 31 woman has a joyful outlook on life. Verse 26 says, “She can laugh at the days to come,” or as one translation puts it, “She smiles at the future.” This woman is confident that things will work out because she’s done her best and believes in herself. Why? Because she knows God created her, gifted her, loves her, and provides for her. When a person has that confidence he or she can smile at the future.
One of the most striking things about Ruth to me was her positive outlook on life, right to the end. “Can’t” was not even a word in her vocabulary. If you put your mind to it, you could do it with God’s help! Jan and I took her home from our S. S. Class just 3 Sundays ago. There were no complaints about her health or about the preparations for another Christmas season with dozens of relatives scheduled to come to her house. When you asked her how she was doing she always said, “I’m just fine.” She smiled at the future and she had no fear of death, because she knew her eternal destiny.
Fourthly, the Proverbs 31 woman fears the Lord. I quote verse 30 again, “Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the LORD, she shall be praised.” What makes a woman (or a man, for that part) most successful in life is this deep respect for God and His ways.
Ruth was a woman who feared the Lord. She knew Jesus as her own personal Savior. She eagerly came to church nearly every Sunday, and stayed for her beloved Moriah Class, even during these many months when Covid was rampant. She was ready to meet her Lord.
I want to return to the question in Proverbs 31:10, “A wife of noble character, who can find?” Well, Harold found one. But the better question is, “How do women like this come into being?” And the answer is that they are both made and born. As a woman gets right with God through faith in His Son, He molds them and makes them into the image of Christ. But in another sense, they are born—i.e., born again by faith in Christ.
Do you realize the impact Jesus can have on a woman’s life? I close with this brief but powerful essay by Dorothy Sayers:
Perhaps it is no wonder that women were the first at the cradle and last at the cross. They had never known a man like this man. There has never been another like Him: a prophet and a teacher who never nagged at them, who never flattered or coaxed or patronized, who never made chauvinistic jokes about them, … who took their questions and arguments seriously, who never mapped out their sphere for them, … who had no axe to grind and no uneasy male dignity to defend….
They were… drawn to someone who, because of his love for them, conferred strength and dignity upon them and made them people of wisdom and kindness.ii
Friends, Jesus is able to do this for you, no matter who you are–woman or man, old or young. But first we have to acknowledge, as Ruth did many years ago, that we have fallen short of God’s standards but that He sent His one and only Son Jesus to become one of us, to live a perfect life, to die a sacrificial death in our place. Then we need to put our faith and trust in Him, to accept His forgiveness, and to become His follower.
Prayer: Father, thank you for the privilege of knowing this good woman, Ruth Scheer. Thank you for the impact she had on my life, on this church’s life, on her community, and especially on her children, grandchildren, and greatgrandchildren. They are who they are today largely because of Ruth and her dear husband, Harold. We honor their memories; we lift up their examples.
Thank you for being our loving Father. You know we are grieving, just as Jesus grieved when his dear friend Lazarus died. But our grief is not without hope, for Jesus is coming again, and the dead in Christ will be raised to new life in new bodies that are imperishable and glorious, and so we will ever be with You. Thank you in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Hymn: Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee