Frank Schaller helped keep his family, friends and community on track

Editor’s note: Each Sunday, The Herald-Mail publishes “A Life Remembered.” Each story in this continuing series takes a look back — through the eyes of family, friends, co-workers and others — at a member of the community who died recently. Today’s “A Life Remembered” is about Franklin Joseph Schaller, who died on May 27 at the age of 77. His obituary appeared in The Herald-Mail on June 1.

Frank Schaller managed to keep a lot of things running right on track.

Whether it was taking care of family and friends, serving his Smithsburg community as a Lion or his tireless work with the Hagerstown Model Railroad Museum, he always had a full head of steam.

“Whatever it was that he had a passion for, he was all in,” daughter Shannon Smith said.

Son Joel Schaller admired his dad’s sense of humor and “knowledge on an array of different topics.”

“He was just a good, loyal friend,” fellow model railroad enthusiast Jeffrey Jones said.

Schaller regarded his Smithsburg community as “the center of the universe,” Jeffrey said, noting his work with the Lions Club.

“Whatever Frank did he gave it 100%” Jeffrey said.

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They all said that he had an amazing wit, sarcasm and ability to crack a joke or tell a story on the spot.

“He had that up until the end, too,” Shannon said.

And he had a clever catchphrase.

“When you’d ask him, ‘How are you doing today?’ he’d say, ‘fine as frog hair,’” Joel said.

“I happen to be a lover of puns and I definitely get all that from dad,” he said. “He loved to tell a joke or use a pun, a "dad joke," I think, is what they’re called now.“The fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

Family vacations included trips to places like Niagara Falls, New York, Gatlinburg, Tennessee, and Disney World in Florida.

During an Ocean City vacation when Shannon was a child, Schaller bet her that she couldn’t do a pushup in the sand.

His timing was perfect.

“So, I’m down doing my pushup and that’s when the wave came in and got me,” she said.

When she was working at the Williamsport Post Office he once came by for a visit, knocked on the back door and loudly announced, “pizza guy!”

“And I was like, ‘Dad, don’t you ever tease about food with postal workers,’” she said with a laugh.

Wife Bonnie said that although she was a little older than Frank, they had known each other their entire lives because they both grew up in Smithsburg and attended Trinity Lutheran Church there.

But it wasn’t until sometime after he graduated from Smithsburg High School in 1962 that they began dating while he was working at Landis Tool Co. in Waynesboro, Pa., and she was a medical secretary.

Her friend wanted to meet his friend, so they all four went out on a double date.

“And I thought, ‘well, not too bad,’” she said with a grin.

It worked out for everybody.

Frank and Bonnie married in March of 1967, and their friends followed suit in October of that year.

Bonnie was the organist at Trinity Lutheran at the time. Her organ teacher played for the wedding, and her piano teacher sang.

The newlywed Schallers lived in an apartment in Hagerstown and then briefly with his parents until their lifetime home in Smithsburg was ready to move into.

They enjoyed 55 years of marriage together with all its ups and downs.

“My theory is if you have a perfect marriage you’re not living right,” she said, joking.

Bonnie has fond memories of family vacations and trips — by train of course — to visit Joel when he was living and working in California.

Those are among Joel’s fondest memories, too.

And that day in 1992 when Joel left home for a summer job portraying Goofy at Disney World he got a phone call from his dad, who was at work at the time, that had a lasting impact.

“I just remember him telling me how proud he was of me,” he said. “That just hit me good.”

Ironically, as a boy, Joel had his picture taken with Goofy during a family vacation to the theme park.

“Who knew that years later I would be putting on the costume myself?” he said.

Joel played a host of other characters at Disney World over the years ranging from Davy Crockett to the beast in “Beauty and the Beast.”

His subsequent career in the entertainment industry included a stint at Trans Continental Records, where he worked with “boy bands” such as 'N Sync.

“Mom and Dad always supported whatever realm or passion we wanted to explore,” Joel said.

Shannon said her dad was proud of her career as a postal worker, and that it meant a lot to her when he came to see her perform as the keyboard player and vocalist for her rock band, Reaction.

Schaller’s membership in the South Mountain Rod and Gun Club drew extended family members to its oyster feeds, prompting mini family reunions.

As a Lion, he was recognized for his dedicated service with the Melvin Jones Fellow Award named for the organization’s founder.

As a first responder, he served with the Smithsburg Volunteer Fire Co. for 61 years and with Community Rescue Service in Hagerstown for nine years.

He also belonged to Elks Lodge 378 in Hagerstown, the Western Maryland Railway Historical Society and the Smithsburg Historical Society.

A devout Christian, he was a lifelong member of Trinity Lutheran Church and also belonged to Washington Square United Methodist Church in Hagerstown and St. Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Greensburg neighborhood of Smithsburg.

In addition to his employment at Landis Tool, over the years he worked for Pangborn Corp., Eastern Products, Rohr Industries Inc., AC&T and Fairchild Aircraft.

Schaller had a reputation for being a natural leader and helping newcomers get settled in at work and in the clubs and organizations he served with.

When he was a firefighter at Fairchild, he helped out a new co-worker who was intimidated by teasing from the crew.

“And he took him under his wing and made sure that he knew the ropes, knew what to do and how to handle the jokesters,” Shannon said.

Jeffrey had a similar experience back in 1987 when he got involved with the Hagerstown Model Railroad Museum at age 19.

“He was a very friendly person who encouraged younger people in the hobby,” Jeffrey said, “and he used to take me on road trips to visit other model railroad clubs in the area.”

Later, when Jeffrey was building his house near Antietam Station in Sharpsburg, Schaller would drop by to check on him during breaks from his own work helping to fix up the former train station as the museum’s new home so it could move there from the Hagerstown Fairgrounds.

“Even though Frank was not my father, the fact that he was so thoughtful to come and check up on me from time to time is one thing I’ll miss dearly,” he said. “He was like a father, mentor, friend and uncle rolled up in one.”

Schaller was committed to fixing up the station to get it ready for visitors from the public, pledging as a retiree to spend three days a week working there and challenging Jeffrey and the other younger members to do the same.

“He said, ‘I expect you to come down and help us old men paint this place,’” Jeffrey said, “and when he said it, I said, 'I’m not gonna argue with him.'”

“I know that feeling,” Shannon said with a laugh.

Schaller's interest in railroads included, of course, real trains and running his handcar with a friend pushing and pulling the levers to make it go on real tracks.

“He was totally into trains, it didn’t matter what scale,” Shannon said.

Her son, Corey Snyder, picked up his grandfather’s passion for HO-scale model trains and joined him in working on their annual Christmas layout together.

Schaller had an extensive personal collection of model trains, and was very meticulous about painting his engines in Western Maryland Railway trim.

He was as passionate about what he drove as he was about the Western Maryland Railway.

Everyone knew that Schaller was a die-hard Ford man, and that if you drove anything else you might hear about it.

He once grumbled about having to ride to a medical appointment in Shannon's Jeep, but he then softened a bit and offered that it "wasn't too bad."

"And I said, 'Now you're opening up,'" she said.

Schaller sometimes had a model train layout in his basement, but mostly worked on the museum's big layout at the train station in Sharpsburg.

He worked on the museum's show and swap meet held twice a year at the Washington County Agricultural Education Center on Sharpsburg Pike. The Lions Club ran the food concession for the event.

As the years went by and aging and health issues including heart surgery started to catch up with Schaller, he wasn’t able to spend as much time at the station or do as much there as he used to, but he even recently helped supervise an improvement project.

Strokes in October and January affected his mobility.

Shannon, who caught the photography bug from her dad and loved to take pictures of sunsets, had a special moment with her camera one recent evening after he passed.

“And I just thought, ‘Dad, I would just love to have a sign that you’re still around,’ and that sunset color just changed beautifully,” she said. “And I was like, ‘that’s all I needed.’“That was pretty cool.”