William "Bill" F. Schuler

William F. Schuler

       “Bill”

William F. “Bill” Schuler passed away peacefully on November 19, 2025 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania at the age of 97. Playful, gentle, kind, and relentlessly optimistic, Bill had the incisive mind of an engineer and the hands of a craftsman. For many years Bill worked as a prototype machinist—making tools and parts for industrial employers, often from his own “back-of-the-envelope” designs. But his friends and family knew him as the man who could fix almost anything that was broken—and if he couldn’t fix it, maybe he could make you a new one. Bill built the family’s home in La Habra, California by himself, where he lived for 65 years, and set up his own machine shop in the garage. In his spare time, when he was not tinkering with his lathes and milling machines, Bill fixed cars, painted copies of the Old Masters, carved duck decoys, built furniture, and helped his neighbors when they needed a handyman.

Bill Schuler was born on May 27, 1928 in the “rural Belvedere” section of East Los Angeles, the fifth child and middle son of Floyd Edmond Schuler, a Los Angeles Transit streetcar motorman, and his wife Alvetta Ellen Davenport Schuler. Bill grew up diligently tending to chores, watching matinee Westerns and reading comic books; but his love of working with his hands began when he was a youth, learning carpentry and carving airplane models from scratch. At Garfield High School in East Los Angeles, he excelled at the high bar in gymnastics and was a leader of the JV football team. Bill’s family moved north of Los Angeles before he could graduate, but he chose not to accompany them; instead, he enlisted in the U.S. Army on his 18th birthday and went to Japan as a Private First Class and rifleman in the 7th Cavalry Regiment of the 1st Cavalry Division. He was assigned to guard detail at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo, and was a member of an Army exhibition football squad that traveled around Japan.

After his return from Japan in 1948, Bill left the Army and married Irene Marquez, whom he had met at Garfield High School, on January 6, 1950. He worked for several manufacturers, sometimes holding more than one job at a time, before joining Pacific Tube Company, a steel tubing manufacturer in the City of Commerce, and training as a machinist. There he developed a reputation for hard work and innovation, frequently outsmarting the company’s engineers with improved designs for the production floor. He was eventually promoted to foreman of the machine shop, and retired with his pension after a little more than 30 years. He almost immediately went back to work, however, ultimately as the lead machinist for American Microwave Technology (AMT) in Brea, California. After retiring from AMT, Bill continued into his 90s to accept commissions to make tools and parts in his garage, including some bespoke parts that ended up on the Space Shuttle. Bill moved to Pittsburgh at age 95, and was still cracking jokes and walking briskly until shortly before he passed away.

He and his wife Irene, who passed away in 2010, were a perfect team: she always had the ideas and the design sensibilities, and he always had the desire and the ability to execute them. Their home was a credit to their partnership. To his children and grandchildren, he was an easy-going, patient teacher, a gleeful playmate, and a quick-witted purveyor of unexpected puns and wordplay. Until his final days, he loved to pepper his chatter with a select rotation of Japanese and Spanish phrases that he had mastered over the years. In Pittsburgh, his caregivers and neighbors will remember him for his bright black eyes and ready smile, and for being the happiest guy you could meet on any given day.

Schuler is survived by his daughter Nancy Loesch of Marina del Rey, California; son Ron and his wife Kerstin, of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; grandchildren Nicholas Loesch and Tiffany Loesch, and Tiffany’s partner Travis Vance Elliot; great-grandchildren Ryder Loesch and Liam Vance Elliot; and his nephew Steve Marquez, Steve’s wife Monica, and their daughter Monique. In addition to his wife Irene, he was predeceased by his parents and all of his siblings: Marie Kerekes, Alice (Johnson) Reynolds, Fern Aten, Ted Schuler, Dorothy Schuler, John Schuler, and Francis Merrill.

A memorial service will be celebrated at Memory Garden Memorial Park, Brea, California, on Friday, January 2, 2026 at 10:30am. A Pittsburgh celebration of life will be announced at a later date. Bill’s family is most grateful for the comfort, care, and friendship he received at Vincentian Schenley Gardens in Pittsburgh. Memorial contributions may be made to the Los Angeles STEM Collective (https://lastemcollective.networkforgood.com/) or Vincentian Charitable Foundation (https://vincentian.us/donate-now/). Arrangements entrusted to the Brusco-Falvo Funeral Home, Inc., Mt Washington (412-381-2323). www.bruscofalvo.com

 

To send flowers to the family or plant a tree in memory of William "Bill" F. Schuler, please visit our floral store.