Lela Leora Schmidt, February 28, 2021
Lela Leora Schmidt, 90, of Maple Creek, Saskatchewan, Canada, passed away peacefully in her sleep in the early morning of February 28, 2021. She was proud to be the wife of Arnold Schmidt, founder of Schmidt Flour Inc., whom she married at age 79.
Leora was born on a farm in Ridgetown, Ontario. She attended Ridgetown District High, Oshawa Missionary College, Atlantic Union College, and Andrews University, where she received a Bachelors Degree in Education. She had many talents and interests, and during her lifetime she worked as an elementary schoolteacher, dean of students, secretary, Bible worker, English teacher, church organist, and farmer’s wife. She spent much of her life in the United States, where she had two daughters, Sonja Lynne DeWitt and Josephine Lynette DeWitt.
Leora’s greatest love was to talk about God and tell others about him. She lived her entire life as she believed God wanted, and always tried to do the right thing, no matter how difficult. Her biggest desire was to be a blessing to everyone around her, a practice she lived out every day.
Leora was an active member of the Seventh Day Adventist Church, which she joined as a child. She tried to convert people to believe in Jesus “every day of the year,” remembers a close friend. This was her life mission, and at times her job; she worked as a Bible worker in the 1980s for the Northboro Church in the Southern New England Conference of Seventh Day Adventists. During that time, she also accepted invitations to preach sermons for area churches.
She loved to write, from the minute she first held a pencil in her hand. In her later life, this extended to writing for newspapers as well. In the 1980s she authored the weekly Pastor’s Corner for the Clinton Daily Item in Clinton, Massachusetts. When she moved to Maple Creek, her greatest passion was to write The Living Word columns for the Your West Central Voice and Maple Creek News. She was also recently published in Shalom Adventure.
Leora was an accomplished piano player and loved to sing. She was an avid gardener, growing peonies, roses, and raspberries as some of her favorites. Leora loved to travel and visited many countries with her family. When she was 70, she taught English as a Second Language in China, living there for three years with her sister Eileen Lapree. At an even later age, she journeyed into the mountains of Peru on a Maranatha trip, to teach Vacation Bible School while a church-building team raised up a new church.
A favorite past time was playing games, and she is recently remembered by the residents of Paradise Pines for her passion for a rousing game of Crokinole—played, as in the rest of her life, “by the rules.” Her passion for words was evident, as on her final night she played hangman on paper with her daughter, choosing the word “epicurean” for her last game.
In lieu of flowers, she would have requested donations to her favorite missions, Gospel Outreach (goaim.org), where she was volunteering when she met future husband Arnold Schmidt, and the Jesus video project (jesusfilm.org).
While we mourn Leora’s passing, we await the sound of Jesus’ trumpet to awake her on resurrection morning, when we’ll joyfully be reunited with her again.
Condolences may be offered to the family at www.binkleysfuneralservice.com
What Comes Next?
By Leora Schmidt
The Living Word
Gloomy news greets me all too often these days. Those of my generation, and also younger, have breathed their last earthly breath. The realization comes to me each time with stark reality that one certain event in my future looms every day closer—my demise. Just minutes before writing this I was informed that my friend of many years, Maria, had passed away in Massachusetts. Also lost in recent weeks are Dr. Irving, also in MA; Dr. Ray in Georgia, John from Nebraska; former minister Bill, in Arizona; Emil in Ohio, and former classmate Ron in Ontario, Jim in Washington, and Duwain, a family member from Alberta. Although we weren’t in constant contact with each of these dear ones, I feel grief and loss, and I know it will continue. But is that the end?
When I lived in Newfoundland, a neighbour while talking over the fence, stated with finality his strong opinion that when we died that was the end. PERIOD. He was unalterably convinced, lacking any certainty other than his own thinking! So many variant views exist apart from the foundation of the word of God that many are confused, uncertain, and fearful regarding death.
For a Bible believer there is clarity and comfort for those seeking to be right with the Lord:
What is death?
Sleep: “...lest I sleep the sleep of death.” Psalm 13:3 (Death is many times spoken of as ‘sleep’—e.g. John 11:13; Ephesians 5:14; Matthew 9:24; John 11:11-14).
Rest: “...Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord...that they may rest from their labours: and their works do follow them.” (Revelation 14:13).
What comes next?
Divine Justice: “...it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment” (Hebrews 9:27).
Resurrection: “Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming,... all that are in the graves shall hear his voice. And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation” (John 5:28, 29).
“We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality” (1 Corinthians 15:51-53).
The Scriptures teach that death is not the end for the righteous ones. There is a righteous, divine judgment—and a resurrection from death. Those who rely on the merits of Christ and His provision of forgiveness of sin and put on His character have a place prepared, an eternal future—immortal life. (See John 14:1-3; Jeremiah 29:11). For the unrighteous there will be no future, “the way of the ungodly shall perish” (Psalm 1:6).
Friend, will you anticipate with me with hope and joy the victory over death, looking for, “that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13)?