Alfred 'Fred' Schneider

ALFRED "FRED" SCHNEIDER

Cedar Rapids

Alfred "Fred" Schneider, born in 1931 in Vienna Austria, passed the morning of May 20, 2018, around 7:30 a.m., peacefully at his group home in Scottsdale, Ariz. Private services will be held in Arizona on Sunday, May 27. A second interment service will be held later in Iowa. Details will be provided at a future date.

Surviors include his children, Judy Schneider, Lisa Fetter, John Swehla and David Schneider.

He was preceded in death by his wife, Nancy Schneider.

Fred was born in Vienna in 1931 to Frederick and Margaret Schneider into a comfortable life with his older brother, Paul. Shortly after Anschluss by Nazi Germany, the family escaped to the U.S. via passage booked on the Normandy by Fred Klein, "Uncle Fred," who ran a large furniture store from Detroit. Through the efforts of Uncle Fred, over 35 persecuted Austrians were liberated from Nazi Germany.

Fred grew up in Detroit and excelled at mathematics and all things electrical in nature. After graduating from high school, he was drafted in 1952 and served in the U.S. Army Signal Corps, where he learned radar technology. After some years working at various companies, Fred went back to college and earned his BSEE from Wayne State. Fred married Susan Elizabeth Orr a few years later and had two children, Judy Schneider and David Schneider, before divorcing about 17 years later.

After that event, Fred designed one of the first built-in test systems for radios on Navy fighters and was hired by Rockwell Collins radio in Cedar Rapids. It is there that he met Nancy Jackson. They later married in 1977 and our family grew to include John Swehla and Lisa Fetter and their families. They moved to Scottsdale, Ariz., and lived there for the remainder of their lives.

Our special thanks to the love and care of Chris and Linda Ozarchevici for our father in his last years.

Fred is survived by his loving children and grandchildren, Jackie Stiles, Jordan Fetter, Boris Goetz, and Amy and Kimberly Schneider.

He will always be remembered for his generous heart, determined nature, inquisitive and sharp mind, love of travel and all things sweet.

In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to the American Parkinson Disease Association or American Cancer Society.