Mourners Say Goodbye to William Donald Schaefer

About 1,300 people filed through Baltimore City Hall to pay final respects to William Donald Schaefer, the former mayor, governor and state comptroller who died last week at age 89.

Residents stood in line single file for about a half block between metal barricades that funneled people from Fayette Street into a side entrance of City Hall on Tuesday afternoon.

From there, mourners walked to the first floor rotunda, where Schaefer’s body laid in repose.

Councilman Robert Curran, D-District 3, who was waiting between the metal barricades, said he’d been in City Hall preparing for Wednesday’s hearing of the Baltimore City Council’s Judiciary and Legislative Investigations Committee.

Working on a furlough day was the best way Curran said he could think of to honor Schaefer.

A steady flow of people filed into City Hall throughout the early afternoon Tuesday to say goodbye to the man who held its highest office for four terms between 1971 and 1986.

Police officers monitoring the line estimated that it was a 30-minute wait.

Cornell Thomas Sr., 58, who was serving jury duty, took his lunch break to say goodbye to Schaefer.

Thomas said he bought his first house on Oakford Avenue in the late 1970s through a Schaefer-created program that allowed people to purchase a home for $1.

“He made people want to invest [in Baltimore],” Thomas said.

Larry Johnson and his wife Karen Johnson came from Halethorpe to bid farewell to the fiery tempered mayor.

Larry Johnson, 63, is a member of the National Rifle Association, and ardently opposes gun control laws.

He said he twice remembers approaching Schaefer to voice displeasure with legislation Johnson believes undermines the Constitutional right to bear arms.

Both times, once on Pratt Street, once in the State House, he said Schaefer listened to his opinions.

“I hear you. I understand what you’re saying,” Johnson said Schafer told him.

Richard Grason, 66, is a huge Baltimore sports fan.

Grason credits Schaefer for helping to keep the Orioles in town by fighting to use state funds to help build Oriole Park at Camden Yards and for laying the groundwork to replace the Colts with the Ravens.

“He was like a monk. Like a religious monk dedicated to Baltimore,” Grason said. 

A Mass will be held at 11 a.m. on Wednesday at Old St. Paul's Church, and Schaefer will be laid to rest at in a mausoleum he purchased for himself and his former girlfriend, Hilda Mae Snoops, who died in 1999.