Edith Schaeffer
| Edith Schaeffer | |
|---|---|
| Born | Edith Rachel Merritt Seville November 3, 1914 Wenzhou, China |
| Died | March 30, 2013 (aged 98) Gryon, Switzerland |
| Spouse | Francis Schaeffer |
| Children | Priscilla, Susan, Deborah, Frank |
Edith Rachel Merritt Schaeffer (née Seville) (November 3, 1914 – March 30, 2013) was a Christian author and co-founder of L'Abri, a Christian organization which hosts guests. She was the wife of Francis Schaeffer, and the mother of Frank Schaeffer and three other children.
Schaeffer was born in Wenzhou, China, the fourth child of George and Jessie Seville, missionaries who were serving in China with the China Inland Mission. In addition to her English name, her parents gave her the Chinese name Mei Fuh, meaning "beautiful happiness".
Schaeffer attended Beaver College in Glenside, Pennsylvania. It was there that she met Francis Schaeffer and they were married in 1935. They had four children: Priscilla, Susan, Deborah and Frank.
They were sent in 1948 to Switzerland by the Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions. In 1955 they began L'Abri, a community that welcomed people who were seeking intellectually honest and culturally informed answers to questions about God and the meaning of life.
Schaeffer's husband Francis died in 1984, but she continued to be associated with the L'Abri organisation which she and her husband founded.
Schaeffer wrote numerous books, both before and after the death of her husband. Her book Affliction (1978) explores human suffering in a Christian context. It won a Gold Medallion Award from the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association (ECPA) in 1979. Her What is a Family? (1975) compared the extended family to a mobile. Her autobiographical The Tapestry: the Life and Times of Francis and Edith Schaeffer (1981) won the ECPA award in 1982.
Schaeffer's The Hidden Art of Homemaking (1971) has been influential among women in the Christian Patriarchy movement, and has been described by Kathryn Joyce as "perhaps unintentionally, a landmark book for proponents of biblical womanhood." This book, along with What is a Family?, has been described by author Becky Freeman Johnson as a "timeless classic".
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