Inez Jean Schamber
1927-2025
After 98 wonderful years, the Lord welcomed Inez Jean Schamber home on Sunday, October 26, 2025. Inez was born in Stockton on October 11, 1927, to Ray and Verona Normington. She was raised and lived in Stockton and Lodi.
Inez attended Trinity Lutheran School in Stockton, Lodi High School, and San Jose State, where she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in education and a minor in music. Music was central to her professional and personal life. Inez was an accomplished pianist, having been taught by Mary Amelia Fuller of Stockton, the same piano teacher that taught her four children to play the piano. For more than three decades, she served as the organist at Immanuel Lutheran Church of Stockton and taught piano lessons to scores of students. Inez was the musical accompanist and later the director for the choir at Immanuel Lutheran Church and sang in the choir at St. Peter Lutheran Church of Lodi. She played the piano for social hours at Valley Gardens in Stockton. Pleasurable hours were spent playing her spinet piano at home, often making guests wait at the door to ring the doorbell until she finished playing a hymn or a sonata.
Inez was a devoted mother to her children. She nurtured her children to value the importance of education and celebrated their academic milestones and successes. All of her children acquired graduate degrees or credentials. She encouraged them to explore a variety of interests that would round out their personal development, from mastering the piano and participating in the school band to engaging in science competitions, memorizing lines for school dramatic performances, delving into family history, and taking part in speech and debate tournaments.
For many years, Inez volunteered as a Braille transcriber for the Lutheran Braille Workers and taught Sunday school at Immanuel Lutheran Church. Her hobbies included gardening, golfing, traveling, reading for pleasure, and playing bridge. During the 1980s and1990s, she spent many hours playing pinochle with her mother and aunts at Lodi Lake Park on warm spring and summer days. After living in Stockton for 70 years, Inez moved to Lodi in 2021, and enjoyed walking her dog, Abbie, to the house in Woodbridge where her grandmother, Nora Rouse, lived for many years.
Inez was married to Arnold Robert Schamber for 58 years, until Arnold passed away in 2007. Her brother, George Normington, died in 2013. She is survived by four children, Dr. David Schamber (Denise) of Lodi, Dr. Jon Schamber (Dr. John Campion) of Stockton, Jane Kennedy (the late Steve Kennedy) of Pleasant Hill, and Robert Schamber of Lodi; four grandchildren, Melissa Schamber, Lindsay Goldstone (Jason), Kelly Kennedy, and Matt Kennedy; two great grandchildren, Dylan and Kennedy Goldstone; sister-in-law, Joan Normington; and nieces and nephews.
SERVICE:
Friends and relatives are invited to attend her memorial service at St. Peter Lutheran Church, 2400 Oxford Way, Lodi, on Saturday, November 15, 2025, at 11:00 a.m. Internment is private at Cherokee Memorial Park, Lodi.
In lieu of flowers, remembrances can be sent to St. Peter Lutheran Church.
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Cherokee Memorial is honored to serve the Schamber family.