Rev. D.R. Schaeffer, Lutheran minister and social worker

The Rev. Donald R. Schaeffer, 85, a former Lutheran pastor in Montgomery County and social worker for the City of Philadelphia, died of heart failure Oct. 6.

He died at the Lutheran Home at Topton, a retirement community in Berks County to which he moved from his Roxborough home in 2005.

"He came full circle," his daughter Donna said, because the Topton site was where he grew up, when it was the Lutheran Orphans Home.

Born in Pottstown, he grew up as the only child of a single mother who worked at the orphanage. "She died in a car accident when he was 5 years old," his daughter said, so after the accident, "he truly was an orphan."

After high school graduation, he volunteered for military duty during World War II.

As an Army Ranger, he landed on the beaches of Normandy and, his citation shows, earned a Bronze Star for unspecified operations on or about Dec. 2, 1944.

In 1949, he earned his bachelor's degree in liberal arts at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, and he graduated in 1952 from Philadelphia Theological Seminary.

Pastor Schaeffer served at Reformation Lutheran Church in Reiffton, Berks County, from 1952 to 1954; St. John's Lutheran in Lock Haven, Pa., 1954 to 1957; First Lutheran in Selinsgrove, Pa., 1957 to 1962; and Grace Lutheran in Hatfield, 1962 to 1972.

After he retired from that last pastorate, Pastor Schaeffer was employed in the Philadelphia prison system, as a social worker at Holmesburg for two years.

From 1974 to 1984, he was a social worker for the child protection agency of the Department of Human Services.

In 1978, his daughter said, "I remember him talking about standing vigil at the MOVE site in Powelton" during the group's standoff with police.

Besides his daughter, Pastor Schaeffer is survived by his wife, Lucille; son Eric; another daughter, Victoria Land; and three grandchildren.

A memorial service will be at 4 p.m. Nov. 22 at the Yellow House Inn, Routes 562 and 662, Douglassville, Berks County.