Terri Schiavo Memorial Held at Church Where She Grew Up 
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
April 16, 2005
Southampton, PA (LifeNews.com) — The Philadelphia area Catholic church Terri Schiavo grew up in held a memorial in her honor Friday night. Terri’s childhood friends joined her parents, bother and sister and more than 600 people to pay tribute to the disabled woman who died after a 13 day starvation death.
"Terri will live in all our hearts forever," old friend Diane Meyer said during the service.
"I remember stuffed animals, … giggles, … keeping secrets, … going to the mall, … crying at the E.T. movie," Meyer said.
Another friend, Sue Pickwell, says she was "blessed" to be able to call Terri her friend, according to a Philadelphia Inquirer report.
Meyer told Florida courts during the legal battle between Terri’s parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, and her estranged husband, Michael, that Terri never would have wanted to die from starvation.
After viewing a documentary on Karen Quinlan, another disabled patient who was the center of a national euthanasia debate, Terri said courts and doctors wouldn’t know what Karen wanted.
"Where there’s life, there’s hope" Terri told her friend.
The service was held at Our Lady of Good Counsel Church and the Schindlers sat in the front row with Terri’s brother and sister, Bobby and Suzanne, along with other family members.
Some 800 people attended a mass in Florida officially put together by the Schindlers.
Rev. Clemens J. Gerdelmann referred only slightly to the protracted legal battle, according to the Philadelphia newspaper.
"The decision to end a life should never be taken lightly… . It is within mankind’s power to decide if someone who dies, but we can never exonerate ourselves of the responsibility to choose rightly," he said.
Terri was born and raised in the Philadelphia suburb of Huntingdon Valley and graduated from Archbishop Wood Catholic High School. She met Michael while attending Bucks County Community College in suburbs of Philadelphia.
Michael has cremated Terri’s body, over the objections of the Schindlers, and he will bury her remains at a burial plot he owns in the Philadelphia area. He is required to tell the Schindlers where, but not until after the burial service.
Michael’s brother Scott told the Inquirer that no arrangements had been made. No one from Michael’s family attended the service.
