Margaret L. Schudel, 93, of Ord and North Loup passed away on Friday, October 25, 2019, at the Valley County Health System Hospital.
Mrs. Schudel’s wishes were to be cremated. A Celebration of Life will be held at 2:00 p.m. on Monday, October 28, 2019, at the Mira Valley Evangelical United Methodist Church south of Ord. Reverend Dr. Jeff D. Hale will officiate. Private inurnment will be at the Hillside Cemetery at North Loup. Memorials are suggested to the Mira Valley Evangelical United Methodist Church or the North Loup Library. Ord Memorial Chapel is in charge of arrangements.
Margaret Louise was born November 12, 1925, at Callaway, Nebraska to James and Emma (Murphy) Armold. Margaret’s father was a minister, so the family moved often. She attended eight schools and graduated from Scotia High School in 1943. She continued her education at Western Union College in Le Mars, Iowa and graduated from the University of Nebraska in 1947.
During her high school and college years Margaret worked at various jobs to earn money for school. She cleaned the church and was a social reporter for the Scotia Register. During the war she worked at Lincoln’s Gas Station in Scotia and later at the Grand Island Ordinance plant building bombs.
Margaret met Maynard Schudel at a young person church social. The couple dated for two years and married a week after her college graduation in 1947. They made their home on Maynard’s home place southwest of North Loup for 64 years, until his death in 2011.
In 1966, twenty years after leaving college, Margaret returned to the University of Nebraska at Lincoln to earn her teaching certificate. This was the start of her teaching career at Walnut Jr. High in Grand Island. For 25 years, she drove 100 miles round trip, without fail to teach. She loved it!
Church attendance and service was a very important part of Margaret’s life. She was a lifelong member of the Evangelical, then EUB, then United Methodist Churches. As a teenager Margaret began playing the organ and piano for church services, she was a youth leader, VBS director and delegate to the Nebraska Conference.
Margaret enjoyed extension club activities and was active in Fortnightly, Progressive and Corner Cutter Clubs where she held leadership roles and was a 4-H Club Leader.
Her hobbies included sewing, knitting, traveling, reading, quilting and ceramics.
Survivors include two sons, Mike and Yolanda Schudel of North Loup and Matt Schudel and Robin Levin of North Bethesda, MD; two daughters and sons-in-law, Gretchen and Bill Peters of Gering, NE and Emily and Barney Wegener of Bloomfield, NM; 5 grandchildren; 3 great-grandchildren; and a sister-in-law, Janet Armold of Mesa, AZ.
She was preceded in death by her parents; her husband, Maynard; a grandson, Daniel Schudel; a sister, Florence Ko; and a brother, John Arnold.
