TOCCOA - A former Georgia senator who was killed by her husband before he took his own life was remembered Wednesday as a tireless advocate and pioneer for families and children.
The hundreds who gathered to mourn Nancy and Bruce Schaefer at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Toccoa were told to remember not how they died, but how they lived as a devoted couple who were loving parents and grandparents, committed to serving others.
Nancy Schaefer, 73, was shot to death last week by her husband, Bruce Schaefer, 74, who then killed himself.
Schaefer represented a northeast Georgia district in the state Senate and served two terms. A resident of Atlanta for more than three decades, she was a former candidate for mayor of the capital and was also GOP nominee for lieutenant governor in 1994.
In 1986, Schaefer founded a nonprofit foundation, Family Concerns Inc., which opposed abortion and advocated the display of the Ten Commandments in public buildings. Ralph Reed, former head of the Christian Coalition, met Schaefer in the 1980s, worked with her in politics and was among the attendees at Wednesday's funeral.
"Nancy was a great woman who was a pioneer in the pro-family movement," Reed said. "Her impact was felt far beyond the borders of Georgia."
Many of her one-time Senate colleagues also attended Wednesday's funeral service. It was cast as "a new beginning" on the funeral program, which bore a picture of the smiling couple in happier times on the front cover and a collage of family memories on the back cover.
The Schaefers' pastor, the Rev. Andy Childs of Ebenezer Baptist Church, recalled a loving couple whose marriage of more than five decades had been overshadowed by the horror of last week's events. Much of his address during the one-hour ceremony also attempted to sort through the mourners' feeling of shock and loss, to offer solace amid feelings of anger and grief and to shift the focus to the exemplary life of Nancy Schaefer.
"She wasn't driven by the culture, but by her conviction," Childs said. "There were many times that Nancy Schaefer's voice was a lone voice. She was willing to speak the truth when the truth was uncomfortable."
Motivational preacher Kay Arthur of Precept Ministries International of Chattanooga, Tenn., who delivered Nancy Schaefer's eulogy, called her a woman of beauty and faith who took a stand for families.
"They didn't go the way we wanted them to go," Arthur told the grieving family. "They didn't go the way we expected them to go. This is a hard day to understand."
Tuesday
June 3rd, 2025
10:19AM
