The Last Stop?

Chester L. Schneider, M.D., was born in Philadelphia, PA in 1922. As he states, I came to know Christ as my Savior at age 12 and believed, at age 18, that God led me into full-time Christian service. This was implemented by graduation from Wheaton College (IL) in 1943 after God’s further leading was toward medical missionary service. Shortly after graduating from medical school in 1947, I married a young lady I had met at Wheaton. We served Christ for 19 years in rural Alaska, I as a medical missionary. I followed those years with embarking on the residency-trained, full-time practice of clinical psychiatry for 22 years in suburban Philadelphia. Retirement came at age 73 in 1995. My wife and I moved into a retirement community near Lancaster, PA. Then came the urge to chronicle those years with two non-fiction books: MY ALASKA YEARS, published in 2001, followed two years later by THE MAKING OF A CHRISTIAN PSYCHIATRIST, both autobiographical. For decades previously, I had been annoyed by the way we humans, Christians included, could be so thoughtlessly glib in so many things we, I included, both did and said. This resulted in WHADDYA MEAN BY THAT? containing 26 question-titled chapters aimed at stirring the thought patterns of readers. So now, well into my eighties, comes the urge to write a novel. THE LAST STOP? focuses on a God-honoring farming family and their diversities, leading ultimately to life in a retirement community. Many of the couple’s experiences there reflected many of my observations during the twelve years my first wife and I lived in such a place. Travel with me as I depict life’s experiences of this farm family.