Maria Del Refugio Scheidler

Maria del Refugio León de Scheidler, a plainspoken, hospitable soprano for whom the Catholic faith, devotion to Mary and the raising of family were a way of life and generosity was a defining virtue, died August 27 of complications after cardiac arrest at Ascension St. Vincent Hospital in Indianapolis. She was 84.

Maria’s life’s work was her home, her husband, their eight children and prayer. These were not quiet, interior pursuits as she practiced them, but a vibrant wellspring of caregiving and relationship — an extension of her deepest values and an expression of her soul.

“She was the mirror of God, because she reflected the infinite love of God to all those around her,” said a sister, Alicia León. “For her, it was never an obligation but an offering.”

Born in Mexico City on December 17, 1936, Maria was the second child and eldest daughter of Maria del Refugio Lomelí Sánchez and Dr. Alberto León Pérez, an epidemiologist and graduate of the Harvard School of Public Health then serving as Technical Supervisor of the federal Department of Public Health in Mexico. The Leóns grew prodigiously over the years, adding seven more children of whom much was expected in religious formation and education. The family lived in a beautiful Art Deco home with a walled garden in the Mexico City neighborhood of Lomas de Chapultepec. Maria became a second mother to her siblings, preparing meals, leading household chores and making sure children were ready for school, Mass and other important occasions. Their affectionate nickname for her — Quiquis — would be taken up by family and close friends for the rest of her life. “She was very happy and loved to sing and thereby brighten life with her family,” recalled a brother and godson, Guillermo León.

Quiquis loved reading, sewing, cooking and weaving and dreamed of being a dancer, but of these talents her musical gifts would become most central to her life. She excelled at piano, a fact disguised from one teacher by her nerves until he showed up unexpectedly at the family home and heard her playing alone. A favorite club, Dios y Montaña, took her twice up the summit of Popocatépetl, Mexico’s second-highest mountain, and cultivated in her a love of nature — especially mountains and seashores — and of hiking, skiing and playing in waves. She would later share these pleasures with her own family during vacations all over North America.

Her parents sent her to a German-language school, Colegio Alemán de la Ciudad de México, Alexander von Humboldt; she then studied chemistry at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. After completing her bachelor’s and master’s degrees, she worked in her father’s laboratory, where he researched and developed medicines.

At the home of family friends she met James Scheidler, a young American medical student who was volunteering at an orphanage in Cuernavaca under the supervision of Dr. León. The attraction was immediate. Asked essentially to sing for his supper, Jim chose “Black is the Color of My True Love’s Hair,” and by the time he returned home to continue his studies at Indiana University that fall, the couple were engaged. They married on June 9, 1962, in Mexico City and later honeymooned aboard a six-week cruise of the Mediterranean with Jim’s parents, Matthias and Kathleen Scheidler, Jim’s two brothers, a sister and sister-in-law.

The couple followed Jim’s medical career to Dallas, rural South Dakota and back to Jim’s native Indiana, where they settled in Indianapolis. “I guess we already knew that our children would be the most important part of our lives,” Jim said. The decades ahead would be decorated and furnished by her creativity, her ability to create beauty and comfort even out of the simplest materials, and she delighted in making puppets, doll clothes, piñatas for birthdays, costumes for her children to dance in at fiestas, whenever the hefty responsibilities of meeting their more basic needs allowed.

Together with her husband, Quiquis raised eight children in a foreign land and learned to speak its language, but even after nearly 60 years in the United States of America never quite mastered certain idioms or shook the accent that draped her every word in music and feeling. And, in humor: Out on a shopping trip, she would make one more stop at a favorite store because “it’s in the way.” Rallying the family for chores, an outing or a moral lecture, she would summon emphatically “ALL de kids.” Her heartfelt attachments to her birth family and her Mexican heritage led to long roadtrips to Mexico City for annual summertime visits, and to cultural contributions to her American hometown. She once created hundreds of mini-piñata kits for a hands-on exhibit at The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis.

She loved to open her home and host people. She loved to feed them. Sunday brunches with family; a monthly Gourmet Group the couple co-founded in the 1970s; the parties of the choir they sang in at Saints Peter and Paul Cathedral: Quiquis produced everything from light snacks to massive feasts on demand. She wanted her family to be an example of the way things should be done. She aspired to perfection. She aspired to holiness. She wanted everyone to love Jesus as much as she did. Hospitality, she felt, was one way to get them there.

She had a gift for every child at Christmas, and again at every birthday. She was prouder of nothing more than her 44 grandchildren and 5 great-grandchildren. In caring for them, she lived defiantly, brushing aside all physical and spiritual exhaustion, the late nights and early mornings of cooking and cleaning, washing and folding, contending in her later years with a bad hip (“I am crooked,” she would say) but determined to live her values. “Being there” was one of them, especially for baptisms, first communions, confirmations, weddings, professions of vows and the welcoming of newborn children The only thing that would cause her to miss a child’s sacrament was another child’s sacrament — and the impossibility of bilocation. Conceding such natural, human limitation pained her.

She loved to narrate the airport adventures occasioned by all of this travel. These stories were full of breathtaking cliffhangers, close calls and miracles of the Holy Spirit — and her own bravado against the faintest hint of obstruction or bureaucracy. She was the terror of ushers. She always found a way for everyone to sit together, no matter the size of the group.

She loved fur, especially the shapka and mink coat she wore throughout the winter. In the summer, it was often cream suits and heels. Pearls. Even when mowing the lawn. And she would play, and take kids fun places. Listening was not necessarily a strength. Every choice was a moral matter. Coke not Pepsi was an article of faith she drilled into her children with nearly the same fervor as biblical commandments.

To say Quiquis was faithful is to understate the point. There was always a rosary or chaplet, a novena or other cherished devotion, to pray. Always someone to pray for. Always an evil to be rooted up and out through prayer. “Ees de devil,” she’d say. A daily communicant, she and Jim were ready when Sister Mary Ann Schumann and Monsignor Joseph Schaedel established Indianapolis’ first Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration at their home parish of St. Michael in 1989. Sunday nights at 7 p.m. became part of their prayer routine. In later years, they hosted a Monday night prayer group devoted to the needs of the city. Another small faith community, the Cenacle, prayed especially for priests on Tuesdays.

Maria Scheidler was preceded in death by her parents; two brothers, Alberto and Eduardo, both of Mexico; and one son, Rev. David J. Scheidler, CSC, of Notre Dame, Indiana. She is survived by her husband and seven children and their families: James (Mizan) Scheidler of Seattle; Maria (Michael) O’Rourke of Indianapolis; Edward (Ann Marie) Scheidler of Lake Forest, Illinois; Elsa (Dominik) Hoffmann of Fishers, Indiana; Alicia (John) Nagy of South Bend, Indiana; Alex (Nicole) Scheidler of Granger, Indiana; and Rita Lyden of Lakeville, Indiana. Survivors also include six siblings and their families: Rosalinda León Lomelí of Mexico City; Rev. Julio León Lomelí of Tula, Mexico; Beatriz (Genaro) León de Pérez Rocha of Mexico City; Maria Eugenia León Lomelí of Mexico City; Alicia León Lomelí of Königstein, Germany and Guillermo León Lomelí of Cologne, Germany; as well as two sisters-in-law, Eleanor McNamara of Indianapolis and Ann Scheidler of Chicago.

The viewing will take place Friday, September 3, 6 to 8 p.m., at Flanner Buchanan – Washington Park North, 2706 Kessler Blvd., Indianapolis. Funeral Mass on Saturday, September 4, 10:30 a.m. at St. Michael the Archangel Catholic Church, 3354 W. 30th St., Indianapolis.

The family wishes to thank the physicians and nurses of Ascension St. Vincent as well as those paramedics and others who cared so skillfully and tenderly for Maria and Jim during their recent illnesses.

Donations in Maria’s memory may be made to the Pro-Life Action League, 6160 N. Cicero Ave., Suite 600, Chicago, IL 60646.