Carl Schaumann Joins Jesus in Eternity

Alleluia Community, especially Aiken Alleluia, lost a very special brother on May 18, 2001. Carl Schaumann joined his Jesus in eternity. He left behind his beloved wife, Carole, seven wonderful children: Laura, David, Peter, Sara, Christian, Stephen, and John; and three grandchildren. Over four hundred people shared in his Christian wake and over seven hundred were at his funeral Mass.)


It was almost impossible to be around Carl Schaumann without being cheered or inspired. After asking you, “what’s going on?” he stood there smiling and waited for your answer. He genuinely wanted to know. He found the good in every situation. If something was broke, he knew how to fix it—which almost always took a long time. He not only helped you do a task, but he made sure you knew what you did, why you did it, and how to avoid having a problem with it in the future. Carl operated on Chinese Metric time—a term Aiken invented just for him.

Carl was special. He was a detail man. Often he would say “and I bet you didn’t know,” and tell you some amazing fact about a subject you thought you had a pretty good handle on already. If he wasn’t sure about something he’d say, “Well, let’s just check on that,” and out would come the reference book or manual. He saved every receipt. He read every bill—and found every mistake and overcharge.

Carl was the same way with his spiritual life. When driving his car, he listened to hundreds of tapes on apologetics, on his Catholic faith, or tapes from James Dobson. He loved to share what he learned from them. Once he challenged the arguments of a professed agnostic till after three in the morning...most likely saving the young man’s soul. Many a Thursday night he could be found in the adoration chapel at his church from eleven till midnight studying his Bible attentively. He took a day off from work to study the recent Alleluia consultation—and then spent five hours with his head discussing the best way to live them out. He never did anything halfway!

Carl had this same love and commitment to Carole and his children. He brought gifts and books to them from his trips. For a number of years he could be seen riding his bicycle all over Aiken with a string of kids behind him. He rarely missed a swim meet or a soccer tournament. He loved to go camping with his family; even across country to the Black Hills. They had weeks at the beach together. He took Carole on several trips; the most exotic being Thailand. He saved Marriott points and thus was able to take the family to Hawaii for two weeks. He spent endless hours working on family cars, teaching sons and daughters alike as he worked.

Carl was provident and resourceful (sometimes to a fault). He researched all of his home improvement projects. Who else would undertake making a full-size basement by digging the earth out a wheelbarrow at a time and trusting kids of all ages with shovels to pitch in and help. The remodeling job doubled the size of his house and established his reputation for being larger than life. What a man!

Carl was a worker. He was an esteemed engineer at SRS for 30 years. He held a leadership position on the Standards Committee of the national American Society of Mechanical Engineers. He was the master mechanic for the illustrious Aiken bus! (but somehow never managed to apply for his CDL.) There isn’t a family is Aiken who has not had Carl’s help in a crisis. I hear that Gary Garner has a special memory of Carl’s skills in trimming the bushes around the office at Work Party!

Carl loved people of all ages. He was as interested in the kids as he was the adults. He was a great listener, and a man of compassion. Just a month ago, while on a business trip, he went miles out of his way to visit a relative who was ill and to see a friend who is dying. He went with Jesus in his heart and a smile on his face. He was a humble and quiet giver. He gave his love, his talents, and his heart. He shared Jesus with us; he shared his family with us, he shared his life with us .We are truly blessed. We miss him very much!