Karen Schmidt

Karen Schmidt (nee Wolf) was born on Oct. 12, 1937, in Plymouth, Wis., to Almond H. Wolf and Harriet Wolf, nee Dipple.

Her parents owned and ran a plumbing business and they lived upstairs. The building is now a historic landmark.

Karen went to high school in both Plymouth and Eagle River, Wis. She finished a year of college at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point and was in modeling school at the time of her marriage to Harold Schmidt on Oct. 3, 1959.

She won an Elizabeth Taylor look-alike contest and went off to New York to model clothing from the movie “Cleopatra.”

When her youngest child was ready for college, she decided she was too and entered her freshman year at UW-Milwaukee in 1986.

Upon graduating, she taught math at Ethan Allan School for Boys full time, at Milwaukee Area Technical College part time and pursued her master’s degree in education. She retired in 2005.

A true polymath, Karen was a skilled artist, sketching fashions and people and was the artist who decorated Eagle River High School’s 1955 yearbook. She studied watercolor and Japanese ink drawing. In addition to fine art, she was adept at crafts of all kinds and was a master sewer, making her own patterns and doing her own fitting. She knit, crocheted, beaded and embroidered.

Her father gifted her a baby grand accordion for her 16th birthday and she, unsurprisingly, played very well, showing a preference for polka.

As a mother, Karen shuttled her children to lessons of all kinds, instilling early the need to explore a variety of things. All three kids attended piano lessons, gymnastics, swimming, tennis and ballet (much to the mortification of Steve and Greg at the time).

She was an avid reader with interests spanning fiction and nonfiction, mysteries, romance and crime novels and would bribe her children to read with $.25 a book (which was unfunded by the $.10 penalty for using the word “ain’t”).

She was an affectionate, kind person and often a silly one, enjoying a mild prank, and she loved to laugh.

As a grandmother, the shuttling continued as she brought her two oldest grandsons to College for Kids and concerts and symphonies. She loved visiting the younger two, who are out-of-state in Maryland, and helping with the transport to summer baseball camps.

Karen is survived by her husband of 64 years, Harold W. Schmidt. She is survived by her three children, Steven (Tracy) Schmidt, Gregory (Katherine) Schmidt and Kristin Schmidt. She is further survived by four grandsons, Alec Schmidt, Brandon Schmidt, Liam Schmidt and Ronan Schmidt.

She was preceded in death by her father Almond Henry Wolf, her mother Harriet Wolf (nee Dipple) and a sister, Marilyn.

Funeral services for Karen will be held on Saturday, March 2, 2024, at 1 p.m. at St. Paul Lutheran Church, 701 Washington St., Grafton. Visitation will be at the church prior to the funeral service from 11 a.m. until 12:45 p.m.

Interment will take place at St. Paul Lutheran Cemetery in Grafton immediately following the luncheon.

Memorials to St. Paul’s Lutheran Church are appreciated.

Please see www.muellerfuneralhome.com for online condolences.