Schmeal, Jacqueline Andre 1938-2023

SCHMEAL, ANDRE, CORCORAN, BACKSEN

Posted By: Volunteer Transcriber
Date: 1/8/2024 at 11:58:54

Jacqueline Andre Schmeal
March 29, 1938 - December 21, 2023

Jacqueline Andre Schmeal passed away at her home in Houston, Texas on December 21, 2023. Jackie was born in Washington DC in 1938 to Floyd and Hazel Andre. They relocated to The University of Wisconsin Madison in 1945 where her father was the Assistant Dean of Agriculture, and then to Iowa State University in Ames Iowa in 1949 where he was the Dean of Agriculture. The family lived on the ISU campus in the Farmhouse which is now a museum.

Jackie attended Iowa State University and received a BS in journalism and was a member of the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority. She then attended Northwestern University and received a master's from the Medill School of Journalism. While at Northwestern she met Walter Richard Schmeal (Dick). Jackie and Dick were married in Ames, IA, in 1962. They made their home in Minneapolis while Dick received his PhD and Jackie worked for The Minneapolis Tribune. Their careers took them to Berkeley, CA and then to Houston, TX. During her career Jackie was a writer for Time Magazine as well as The Christian Science Monitor. When the farm crisis hit in the 1980’s Jackie opened a store in the Houston Rice Village called The Iowa Store. She sold American Folk Art made by Iowans to help support their families.

Jackie and Dick had a passion for learning and travel. They spent much of their time in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she founded the Friends of Folk Art in support of the Santa Fe Folk Art Museum and was on the board of The Museum of New Mexico Foundation. At the foundation she was the Development Chair from 1994-2000, the support group for the History, Folk Art, Fine Art and History Museums. Jackie’s love for her home state of Iowa never faltered. In 1997 she founded The Iowa Barn Foundation whose mission is to save Iowa Barns through matching grants. The foundation has saved hundreds of barns across the Iowa landscape.

Jackie also held numerous positions to help educate and highlight cultural understanding. Jackie was a board member of the Houston Arboretum and organized the annual Dinner in the Park fundraiser in the 1980’s. She served on the board of directors for the Rice Design Alliance for Rice University Department of Architecture from 1978-1982. Jackie volunteered with The Houston Seminar for over 30 years and served two terms as President (80-84). She served on the board for The Asia Society whose mission is to use arts, education and business outreach to spread cultural understanding between Asia and the West. Jackie also served on the Board for the Rothko Chapel from 2005-2010. She was the Program Chair and brought speakers in from around the world to discuss human rights and abuses and how to alleviate them.

She never lost her passion for writing and published three books all supporting her love for Iowa folk art and barns; Heritage on the Prairie, Patchwork (Iowa’s Quilts and Quilters), and Iowa Folk Artists.

Jackie is survived by her loving husband of 62 years, Walter Richard Schmeal, their daughter Andrea Schmeal Corcoran of Des Moines, IA (Jeff), her sister Alice Backsen (Lee) of Houston, TX, her brother Richard Andre (Janet) of Chapel Hill, NC, as well as two grandsons, Fox and Connelly, and several nieces and nephews. Memorial contributions can be made to the Iowa Barn Foundation. www.iowabarnfoundation.org

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