James Schuerger

James Schuerger, born in 1932, leaves his much loved wife of 60 years, Kathleen (Byrne).  Jim and Kathleen would look at each other sometimes and ask "How did we get so lucky?"  He took delight in his children James B. (Sarah), Ann Staley (Chris), and Michael (Corey Yaklin), and in his seven grandchildren, Heidi Gonzales (Juan), Kelsey Foti (Anthony), Alex Schuerger; Kevin, Katherine, Patrick and Thomas Staley; and two great-grandchildren; Cameron Nail and Francis Foti.  Jim was the dear brother of, Richard (Virginia), Thomas (Louise), Mary Ann Zitello and the late Jerome and George.  He was a friend of Bill W.

He was born in Lakewood, Ohio to Richard and Rita (nee Dennerle) Schuerger, fourth child (third boy) of six.  He attended St. Clement grade school and went to Cathedral Latin high school, graduating in 1950 as class president.  His activities at Latin included sodality, debate, football, and track.

He entered seminary for the diocese of Cleveland, beginning with two years at St. Charles College (then called minor seminary) in Cantonville, Maryland, followed by two years at St. Mary's (major seminary) in Cleveland.  He spent two more years at the North American College in Rome, before leaving seminary studies, prior to ordination.

After a few years of working as an electrician, he finished a BA at John Carroll University with a major in English.

He worked for almost fifty years as a teacher.  He taught English and Religion at Gilmour Academy for ten years, with some time as counselor.

Degrees in counseling and research followed, first MA, then PhD, from Kent State, and a job as research assistant professor in Raymond Cattell's laboratory at the University of Illinois, where he directed a large behavior genetics project.  He continued working on this project for another ten years after leaving the University of Illinois to take a position at Cleveland State University.

At the university level, he continued as teacher, counselor and researcher.  He taught courses in psychological testing for more than thirty years, at both undergraduate and graduate levels.  In addition, he conducted professional workshops on psychological testing numerous times, often featuring occupational applications.  Over the course of his career, he had more than a hundred publications on topics in psychological measurement.  He is the author of the Adolescent Personality Questionnaire, and contributed chapters to several books.

He enjoyed all of it, and particularly the interactions with graduate students, some of whom became fast friends.

A  private Funeral Mass will be held, and will be live streamed for the public, on Sunday, January 17th at 9 AM, by logging on to www.OLPchurch.com.

In lieu of flowers, interested persons may contribute to the James M. Schuerger Scholarship at Cleveland State University.