Paul F. Schneider | Peco representative, 72

Paul F. Schneider, 72, of Collegeville, a service representative for Peco Energy Co., died Thursday at Reading Hospital of a stroke.

Mr. Schneider grew up in Sharon Hill, the youngest of nine children. He graduated from St. James High School in Chester and served in the U.S. Army Reserve.

In 1955, he went to work in the mailroom at Peco in Philadelphia. He earned a bachelor's degree at night from Villanova University, and eventually became a business representative for Peco, serving residential builders from the Peco office in Ardmore and later Plymouth Meeting. After retiring in 1990, Mr. Schneider was a real estate agent for Century 21 Alliance in Collegeville for 10 years.

Since 1961, he had been married to Barbara Vetter Schneider. They met at Mercy Fitzgerald Hospital in Darby, where she was a student nurse and he was a patient. He joked that "he took a turn for the nurse," their daughter, Stephanie Hackash, said.

They volunteered with Meals on Wheels and enjoyed their grandchildren and vacations abroad, and had traveled cross-country by train.

Mr. Schneider was a train buff, golfer, and fan of the Reading Phillies and the Reading Royals, an ice hockey team.

In addition to his wife and daughter, he is survived by sons Paul, Mark, and Brian; three sisters; and two grandchildren.

A Funeral Mass will be said at noon today at St. Eleanor Roman Catholic Church, 647 Locust St., Collegeville. Friends may call from 11 a.m. Mr. Schneider was on the church hospitality committee and regularly volunteered to wash the stained glass windows. Burial will be in Calvary Cemetery, West Conshohocken.