Ice sculpture at Rice Park, St. Paul, Minnesota; photo taken on the afternoon of February 13, 2000, shortly after the world learned that Sparky had passed away.
Note the flowers on Schroeder's piano. (Photo by our very own Roger Aker)
United in sorrow (page 5)
Bay Area town says goodbye to Charles Schulx
February 22, 2000
By Sam Bruchey, James Rainey
The Los Angeles Times
SANTA ROSA, California -- It was a morning dreary enough to drive Snoopy right down off his doghouse, but the people of this Bay Area suburb turned out in force anyway -- to say that the graceful and unerring hand of Charles M. Schulz extended beyond his beloved comic strip to the life he led every day.
With small stories that spoke of big emotions -- the sort Schulz made his stock in trade for nearly 50 years -- the people of Santa Rosa told of the kind, white-haired man who many simply called "Sparky."
Santa Rosa's Schulz was the grandfather who, until his death earlier this month, was the fixture at the corner table at the local ice rink he owned. He was the businessman who quietly let a girls youth group skate for free. He was the shy fellow who offered the occasional quip. He was the guy who liked to bet small at the local golf course -- no more than $3 a round.
And he was the homebody who prized a good chocolate chip cookie and whose creation, Snoopy, liked to binge on root beer.
So his family made sure those treats were on hand in abundance at a news conference that followed the memorial at the Luther Burbank Center for the Arts.
Sallie Keyser, a graphic artist, said she saw Schulz only once in person, at a benefit. But she brought her daughters, 10 and 5, to the memorial so they would know that the cartoonist who created Lucy and Pigpen also supported the symphony, library, a housing development and a training center for dogs for the disabled.
"He was special to me and to everyone here in Santa Rosa. He belonged to all of us here," said Keyser. "Even though he kept to himself, you really felt his presence wherever you were in town."
Those who couldn't fit into the 1,500-seat auditorium Monday, stood in the lobby and watched on big-screen televisions as family and friends recalled their local hero. By the end of the hour and a half program, it seemed everyone had known Schulz, even those who conceded that they had barely caught a glimpse of him at the post office.
After the service, 27-year-old Jody Banovich of Santa Rosa said she remembers Schulz at the ice rink's corner table, beside the fireplace. The 77-year-old had once conceded that he had his own athletic cross to bear -- like Charlie Brown's unceasingly futile attempts to kick the football. Schulz was still looking for his first hole-in-one on the golf course.
"He would sit there and watch me skate," Banovich recalled with a smile. "He said I would be better off sticking with golf."
That was Schulz, said his friends, family and barest acquaintances -- keenly attuned to life's small vagaries but never laughing at his audience. Always laughing with them.
But he wasn't just an old softy. Ask the guys who traded elbows when he and his hockey mates, the "Red Barons," took the ice.
"He was the most competitive guy you could ever meet," said Mark Cox, who played goalie on the team.
Schulz was never one to put on airs, despite his immense wealth and income estimated at $30 million a year from the "Peanuts" marketing juggernaut.
Ulysses van der Kamp, 32, met Schulz when he first started work as a waiter at the "Warm Puppy" coffee shop in the ice rink. Van der Kamp had worked in a French restaurant and -- not knowing that Schulz was a cheeseburger and tapioca sort of guy -- served him a plate of meatloaf with an herb garnish. Schulz ordered the fancy addition off the plate, van der Kamp recalled.
A couple of weeks later, the waiter had a small thrill when he opened "Peanuts" to find Charlie Brown serving Snoopy his usual dog chow, topped with a decorative flag.
"I don't think there was anyone else in the whole world except for the two of us who knew exactly what that was about," said van der Kamp, smiling.
The memorial service was mostly celebratory, a tone that Jeannie Schulz, the cartoonist's widow, insisted on in her opening remarks.
Behind the Schulz family in the front row were gray-haired golf buddies and children clutching stuffed Snoopy toys.
There were testimonials from cartoonist Cathy Guisewite and from tennis legend Billie Jean King, both friends. One of Schulz's grandchildren played a hymn on the piano, bringing tears to many in attendance. And daughter Amy Johnson described the central place the "Peanuts" comic strip had taken in her father's life: "Dad did not draw to earn a living," Johnson said. "He lived to draw."
When the tributes were over, Santa Rosa emerged into a day of rapidly spreading sunshine. Three World War II-era airplanes flew overhead in the missing-man formation, a tribute to a regular guy who had served through Europe as an infantryman.
Jeannie Schulz said her husband would have been amazed by all the attention, just as he had been with the outcry that greeted his decision in November to discontinue "Peanuts" because of debilitating colon cancer.
"He could not know the extent of the impact he had made. I believe that's what these last months have been about," Jeannie Schulz said. "My comfort comes from knowing that he fully received the love and appreciation that poured out to him."
Schulz was buried last week just down the road in Sebastopol.
Friend Richard Dwyer, who traveled to Hollywood to see the cartoonist's star unveiled on the Walk of Fame, said Schulz was always happiest back in Santa Rosa.
"He would say, 'Richard, I will go anywhere in the world ... as long as I can be home by noon.' "
Fellow cartoonists had surprise planned for Sparky
Award now will be given posthumously
February 22, 2000
By Chris Smith
The Santa Rosa Press Democrat
Though they're a tight and sociable bunch, the syndicated cartoonists who turned out for Monday's public tribute to Charles "Sparky'' Schulz had hoped not to get together until May.
And they very much hoped to see Schulz then, too.
Well before Schulz fell ill with cancer, members of the National Cartoonists Society secretly plotted to present him the group's highest honor -- the Milton Caniff Lifetime Achievement Award. The honor was to be bestowed at the fraternal organization's annual Reuben awards banquet May 26-28 in New York City.
"A big reason we chose New York is that Sparky loves the city," said Daryl Cagle, president of the fraternal organization. He and a dozen or so cartoonists and Jeannie Schulz met for dinner Monday night at Santa Rosa's Hungry Hunter restaurant.
The cartoonists society, whose members regarded Schulz as the superstar of their trade, decided the year 2000 was the ideal time to honor him because it marks the 50th anniversary of "Peanuts."
Though Schulz was unaware of the plans for a surprise award presentation, he regularly attended the Reuben banquet and in recent weeks told people close to him he hoped to make it to the May event. News of his unexpected death on Jan. 12 was especially sad and shocking to his fellow cartoonists, who say they were proud to count him as one their own.
"The cartoonists look at Sparky differently than most people," Cagle said. He and others at the dinner Monday night said Schulz was a master and a mentor whose praise could send a young cartoonist walking on air.
"I think you can see from the group that he was genuinely beloved," Cagle said.
Now that Schulz is gone, his colleagues have decided to present the top award posthumously.
"It will work as a memorial," Cagle said after an impromptu open-mike session in a banquet room at the restaurant.
Among the cartoon artists who shared recollections at the private gathering Monday night were Mel Lazarus, creator of the "Momma" and "Miss Peach" comic strips; Jeff Keane, assistant creator of "Family Circus"; "Cathy" creator Cathy Guisewite; "Luann" creator Greg Evans; "The Norm" creator Michael Jantze; "Baby Blues" creator Rick Kirkman; "Mutts" creator Patrick McDonnell; "Bizarro" creator Dan Piraro; and "Top of the World" creator Mark Tonra.
The cartoonists thanked Guisewite for representing them well in her earlier remarks to the crowd at the memorial celebration at the Burbank Center for the Arts. Guisewite said one reason cartoonists so loved Schulz was that his star status never kept him from being a true friend to others whose passion was drawing funny pictures.
"He made us feel we were never alone," she said.
Friends, fans come from far and wide to pay respects
February 22, 2000
By Tobias Young
Santa Rosa Press Democrat
Andrew Bartlett never met Charles Schulz.
Yet the 33-year-old Connecticut native donned a bow tie and took a detour from his cross-country driving tour of America to pay homage to the "Peanuts" creator in Santa Rosa on Monday. He held tightly to a slightly bedraggled Snoopy, a stuffed friend he's had around since age 2 and who sits in his passenger seat during the long drive.
"I just wanted to say goodbye," Bartlett said.
Bartlett was one of about 2,500 people who turned out to honor Schulz and his family of characters, including Snoopy, Charlie Brown, Lucy and Linus.
The crowd filled the auditorium of Santa Rosa's Burbank Center, overflowed into the lobby, and then poured over into the parking lot -- despite a never-realized threat of rain -- where a jumbo screen broadcast the memorial live to more than 200.
The fans and friends ranged from celebrities such as tennis legend Billie Jean King, to neighbors, to a contingent of fellow cartoonists, to young skaters at Schulz's ice rink in Santa Rosa.
Everyone had a story.
But in the thread of each tale emerged the picture of a hometown hero, a humble man despite his riches who rooted for the underdog, explored common insecurities and made an impact on his community and the world before he died in his sleep Feb. 12 at age 77.
Larry Terbush, 55, bicycled from a few blocks away to pay tribute to Schulz. He never met him, yet he felt a strong affinity.
"We all loved him," Terbush said. "Charles Schulz was part of the fabric of the country."
It was a diverse crowd of people who turned out to show their respect for Schulz. From the very young, clutching Snoopy dolls, to teen-agers who learned to skate at Schulz's Redwood Empire Ice Arena in Santa Rosa, to elderly collectors who had been reading "Peanuts" since childhood.
Some dressed in their best suits and dresses. Others came in jeans and cowboy boots, work clothes, and even a nurse's uniform, as a hospital employee attended on a break from work. Many wore their Snoopy and Woodstock shirts, ties, pins, necklaces or carried their Snoopy stuffed animals.
Scores of people came because they had met him, shook his hand, bought him a cocoa, talked with him about war experiences and skated at his ice rink, a venture that operated as a loss for the hockey- and skating-loving Schulz.
Others flew in from out of state for the day, and from as far away as Switzerland.
Children sprawled out on the lobby floor of the Burbank Center, watching Schulz's family and friends pay tribute to their hero on screens broadcast from the auditorium. Others filled the windows and doors into the auditorium, standing 10 deep, to watch the event live, with close-ups on the lobby televisions.
Eyes of fans moistened with tears as Schulz's grown children said goodbye to a father who made each one feel special.
Outside, the rain held off and the sun shined through clouds to warm the crowd that was watching via the jumbo screen.
Anne Yokum of Santa Rosa brought her stepson's Snoopy to the event and remembered her experiences serving Schulz dinner at a local French restaurant. She said he was always gracious, and a pleasure to be around.
"I wouldn't come here if it was a rock star or any other celebrity," Yokum said. "He had no ego."
A few people admitted they weren't big fans of "Peanuts." They read it when they could, but simply adored Schulz and what the native Minnesotan has done for Sonoma County and his hometown of Santa Rosa.
"I just loved the man," said Francine Goodson, of Santa Rosa. "I'm a New Yorker, and he brought the ice with him from Minnesota to his skating rink. To be able to go skating anytime I wanted, in the summer even, was such a gift."
Perhaps the greatest tribute was from Schulz's own colleagues, a circle of friends that include a who's who list of cartoonists who turned out in force to say goodbye to their mentor.
Milling in the lobby after the ceremony, several cartoonists said they were greatly influenced by Schulz, who served as an informal ambassador to the world for cartoonists.
A partial list of at least a dozen cartoonists at the memorial includes "Zits" ' Jerry Scott, "Luann's" Greg Evans, "Mutts" ' Patrick McDonnell, "Cathy's" Cathy Guisewite, "Family Circus's" Bill Keane; "Momma" and "Miss Peach's" Mell Lazarus, "Farley's" Phil Frank, "Wee Pals" ' Morrie Turner and the Chicago political cartoonist Bill Mauldin.
"It's still hard for me to believe he's dead," said Turner, a friend of 37 years. "He was god for all the other cartoonists."
In one word, Lazarus said Schulz's gift to the world was introspection, explored within the confines of a four-panel daily strip.
Reps. Lynn Woolsey, D-Petaluma, and Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, paid their respects.
"It's hard to give up our security blanket," Woolsey said. "Charles Schulz provided people of all ages a way to laugh and cry at their vulnerabilities. He will be missed."
Carole Cooper and her kids said they knew Schulz as a neighbor for 15 years, seeing the family dogs, Drop-Shot and Tommy, more often than the Schulzes themselves.
"Sparky might have been a very complex person, and that came out in his characters," Cooper said. "But he was just a very down-to-earth person. I think in Sonoma County he could lead the life he wanted to. People respected his privacy."
Husband and wife Fay Blair and Linda Mishikawa of Bennett Valley said they admired Schulz for his contribution to the country and his humble nature.
"I think of him being our hometown hero," Mishikawa said. "He is someone so much to look up to."
The tribute was meant to be a celebration of Schulz, but some couldn't help being somber.
Carol Seymour of Santa Rosa said she came because she was so impressed that Schulz "took depression and grief and turned it to good" and that, at the end of a career that fulfilled a childhood dream, died with his strip.
Maegan Loredo-Pavioni, 11, standing in line for the event almost two hours early, said she bought Schulz a hot cocoa during one of her many skating excursions to the rink. His death brought tears to her eyes, the Santa Rosa girl said.
"I was very sad," she said. "But I'm glad he didn't have to suffer."
Her friend, Airanne Waite-McGough, 11, said she liked how Schulz would sit at his table in the ice rink, as was his custom, talking to people like a regular person instead of acting self-important.
Wendy Arnold of Fremont was there with her 10-year-old daughter, Melissa, who sported a Snoopy cap.
Arnold said she's been collecting "Peanuts" plates, Christmas ornaments, music boxes and other items for 20 years. She and her daughter got to the shuttle-bus stop at Empire College at 7:15 a.m., almost four hours before the service was to start, to make sure they got a seat.
"I thought to myself, `I'm not going to miss this,' " Arnold said.
A somber Shelby Carvalho, 10, of Santa Rosa, came out of respect for the man who built the arena where she practices figure skating, and who always treated her kindly.
"This has been hard," said her mother, Debbie Carvalho. "He watched her skate and drew her a special Snoopy figure."
"Snoopy's been around longer than I have, so I grew up with him my entire life," said Tim Gega of Rohnert Park, who brought his 10-year-old son.
Dick Wolff of Middletown, for 28 years a goalie on Schulz's hockey team, the Santa Rosa Diamond Icers, said the turnout, even with the threat of rain and mandatory use of public transit for most people, was a tribute to Schulz.
Some connected with Schulz through a shared religion, saying he was a Christian who led by example, without need for preaching.
Friends throughout the day said Schulz lived up to his own image in Charlie Brown, often rephrasing the famous line, "He's a good man, Charles Schulz."
Farewell to "our hometown hero"
2,500 gather to remember revered cartoonist Schulz
February 22, 2000
By Chris Smith
The Santa Rosa Press Democrat
Their message was clear when 2,500 people met Monday in Santa Rosa to remember the doleful optimist whose comic strip resonated in heart strings around the globe: You were a good man, Charles Schulz.
A dropped pin might have been heard as the crowd at the Burbank Center for the Arts digested golf buddy Dean James' description of Schulz as "a gentle genius and most complex personality."
Other speakers -- including Schulz's children and friends Billy Jean King and "Cathy" creator Cathy Guisewite -- affectionately recalled a world-famous yet approachable man who for a half century mined the human psyche and forged his discoveries into more than 18,000 comic strips clipped, saved and passed about because they hit home.
Heads nodded as a longtime friend, Dr. Robert Albo of Oakland, suggested that it's a universal experience to read a strip about the luckless Charlie Brown or a member of his foiled but undeterred gang and sigh, "Good grief. That's me."
TV cameras carried the images from the LBC around the globe as some of the people who knew Schulz best agreed that all he ever wanted to do was draw funny pictures. Several speakers hailed the coincidence of him dying February 12th, the night before newspapers delivered his last Sunday "Peanuts" strip.
Schulz, 77, had been tired all day but still speaking of things he hoped to do when he went to bed about 9:15 p.m. that night at this home in the foothills north of Santa Rosa. He died not long after drifting off to sleep.
Though the Schulz family friends who organized the public memorial were prepared for an overflow crowd of 5,000 or more, most of those who attended were accommodated in the LBC's main theater and lobby. A few hundred stood in the south parking lot and watched the program on a large video screen.
Though showers had been forecast, the weather cooperated with the public send-off for Schulz, who was buried in Sebastopol on Wednesday after a private family service with military honors. Monday's celebration ended with low-altitude passes over the Burbank Center by three World War II-era war planes.
Schulz's wife, Jeannie, spoke briefly, thanking the public for joining her family in honoring a man who drew prayers and get-well wishes from around the world after he was diagnosed with cancer in November.
"I was always aware that Sparky belonged to the world," she said, "and these last few months have made that more obvious."
Sonoma County children clutching Snoopy plush toys came to the memorial along with personalities who included "Today Show" weatherman Al Roker and longtime friend and sports figure Joe Garagiola.
One of the celebration's more poignant moments came when Chuck Bartley, a 40-year friend and confidante, recounted a conversation he had with Schulz about three weeks before his death from complications from colon cancer.
Bartley said he told his ailing friend, "Sparky, if I were as sick as you are I'd probably have three or four people praying for me." He reminded Schulz, whose speech was impaired by strokes that hit after he was diagnosed with cancer in mid-November, that millions of people around the world were praying for him.
"He looked up at me and said, `Then why am I dying?' "
Bartley told the hushed theater he had no good answer for his friend.
"I think it was God's plan that Sparky and the strip die together," he said.
There were mournful and solemn elements to the service: Floral arrangements bordered the stage. Prayers were said. One of the cartoonist's 18 grandchildren, 16-year-old Stephanie Johnson of Utah, was dressed all in black as she sat at a piano and played a moving rendition of the hymn, "Sweet Hour of Prayer."
But there was laughter, too. And frequent reminders by speakers that there's much to celebrate in the life of a man who wanted since age 6 to be a cartoonist, who became the widely acclaimed king of his trade, and who continued to do what he loved until he was almost 77 years old.
"Today is not a day to mourn," said one of Schulz's three daughters, Amy Johnson of Utah. She said all the good that came to Schulz, and all that poured from him, grew from a Minnesota boy's desire to draw pictures.
"He never aspired to fame and fortune. They were byproducts of his dedication to his strip," Johnson told the people sitting in the theater pews and standing in the lobby and south parking lot.
"Dad did not draw to earn a living," she said. "He lived to draw."
Johnson noted also that her dad not only achieved his dream, but along the way managed to meet his demanding, self-imposed standards of quality and morality.
She remembered Schulz telling her on two occasions that he had a sacred responsibility to maintain the moral wholesomeness of "Peanuts" and that he wouldn't blame God for striking away fingers should he ever "do anything that could be mistaken as raunchy or crude."
A second daughter, Meredith Hodges of Colorado, said, "My father, without really knowing it, lifted my horizons and enlivened my soul."
Some of the people who traveled farthest for the memorial were fellow cartoonists who revered Schulz and were uniformly amazed that, despite his global stature, he acted within their fraternity as just one of the gang.
"The world has lost the most beloved cartoonist of all time," Guisewite told the crowd. "Every single cartoonist who followed him tried to copy something from him."
Guisewite told a story about what she called the greatest moment of her professional life.
She said she was working to produce a "Cathy" strip when the phone rang. It was Sparky Schulz, the father of the modern comic strip and the undisputed grand master of the trade.
"He said, `This is Sparky. I can't think of anything today.' "
As Guisewite told it, she was dumbstruck to think that Schulz could be struggling for an idea for a strip, and moreover that he was on her phone confessing it.
"I said, `What are you talking about? You're Charles Schulz!' To which he answered, `I'm just like you. I can't think of anything either.' "
Guisewite said it was charming that Schulz really did have insecurities just like lesser cartoonists and everybody else, and he wasn't too taken with himself to admit it.
Though his colleagues revered him as almost a god, Guisewite said, "He wanted us to reassure him that everything was OK, that he wasn't too much of a failure."
She mused that Schulz was just like all the cartoonists he inspired, except perhaps for the fact that he also produced TV shows and a hit musical and scores of books and countless licensed products, and he donated to myriad good causes millions of dollars "that he could have spent on therapy." For a cartoonist, Guisewite added, Schulz also held himself to daunting standards and was an incredible perfectionist.
"He worked in handsome slacks and nice sweaters, and never got ink on himself," she said to the appreciative chuckles of the crowd.
Several speakers said one of the things that distinguished Schulz was the way he transcended gags and spoofs and infused his "Peanuts" characters with all the strengths and weaknesses, wisdom and folly, optimism and hopelessness that he recognized in himself.
Relatives and friends said he read voraciously and drew observances of human nature from the deep conversations he relished. His wife said he was forever "asking questions that probed beyond the usual safe subjects."
Recalled tennis legend King, a longtime friend of Schulz, "He wanted to know what made me win."
The tribute lasted nearly two hours, ending with a reception that served up chocolate chip cookies, Schulz's favorite treat, and root beer, the beverage that Snoopy always quaffed after an aerial battle with the Red Baron.
Fran Murphy of Santa Rosa left feeling satisfied that Charles Schulz will exist as long as Charlie Brown and his pals remain relevant and able to tell people something about themselves.
