John Paul (JP) Schneider

     John Paul (JP) Schneider, 61, of New York City and Georgetown, Maine, passed away of cardiac arrest at his home on March 27, 2025. He was born in Philadelphia on May 16, 1963, the son of Gertrude (Trudi) Schweikhard Schneider and John (Jack) Caterson Schneider.

     JP moved from Woodstown in South Jersey to Farmington, Maine at age three, graduating from Mt Blue High School in 1981. He was a dedicated band member (playing trumpet, just like his father) and theater kid (wowing his audience as Professor Harold Hill in The Music Man). He earned his BA in Math from the University of Maine at Farmington and MEd while teaching in New York.

JP spent his first post-college years working at a variety of Maine restaurants, including The Whistling Oyster in Ogunquit. He spent a year in Germany, becoming fluent in the language, and loved visiting family there throughout his life. In his mid-twenties, he joined sister Claudia in NYC, working at Ralph’s Italian Restaurant and walking miles around the city soaking up its history and diversity. At the age of twenty-seven, he began a thirty-one years adventure at the alternative high school City-As-School, teaching math and mentoring students as they explored career paths through workplace internships around the city. He never gave up on struggling students (just said “they’re not quite cooked yet”), was on call for advisees day or night, and coached stressed parents through tough times. He provided students and staff daily bagels, and his famous mashed potatoes and baked goods for school events.

     During the pandemic, JP returned to Maine to live with and care for his father, teaching online until he retired to remain in Georgetown. The last five years of his life were joyfully devoted to Jack. The two shared an unbreakable bond made of love and laughter, care of home and grounds, Thai takeout and oysters on the half shell, Antiques Road Show and Forensic Files, Latin music and Gregorian chant, and the constancy of long friendships in Maine and beyond.

     JP cared for and encouraged everyone, friend and stranger alike. He never passed an unhoused person without offering a smile, a held hand, a sandwich and financial assistance. He happily helped community members with house checks, rides and support for shopping and medical visits. JP’s compassionate listening ear, enveloping bear hugs and twinkle-in-the-eye laugh will be missed by the great nephews he so cherished and by all who knew him.

     JP was preceded in death by his mother Trudi in December of 2018. 

     JP will be lovingly remembered by sisters Claudia Schneider and her husband Ed Campbell and Annelisa Schneider and her husband Philo Calhoun; niece Elisabeth Ruby Hobbs and her husband Shaun Pidcock; great-nephews Miles Hobbs-Pidcock and Brigham Hobbs-Pidcock: and numerous cousins from his mother’s family in Germany.

     Memorial donations in JP’s memory may be directed to the Georgetown Working League and Fire Department, and to the Bath Area Family YMCA, where he was a devoted member and substitute instructor of the adult swim group.

     A Celebration of Life for JP and his beloved father Jack will be held on Sunday, October 12, 2025 at 2pm at the Topsham Grange, 47 Pleasant Street in Topsam, Maine. The family looks forward to celebrating their beautiful lives with you.

Online condolences may be shared at Daigle Funeral Home at https://www.daiglefuneralhome.com.