Miriam Schumacher; Law School Trustee
Miriam Schumacher, who took over Southwestern University at her husband’s death in 1944 and developed it into one of the largest accredited law schools in California, has died at age 89 in a West Los Angeles convalescent home.
Mrs. Schumacher, widow of John J. Schumacher Sr., who founded Southwestern in 1911, had officially retired in 1967 but remained a school trustee emeritus.
She met her husband after taking secretarial training, one of five business and law programs Southwestern then offered. After his death she saw the school through the lean economic times of World War II, when potential lawyers were in the armed forces, and the subsequent flood of would-be attorneys attending Southwestern on the GI Bill of Rights.
The independent, nonprofit school now has an enrollment of 1,050.
Mrs. Schumacher, who died Friday, is survived by a son, John J. Jr., four daughters, Nancy Gibbs, Miriam Hoffman, Gretchen Gibbs and Carolyn Schumacher, a sister and 15 grandchildren.
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