Jessica A. Schuler, former owner of Sunnyfields Inc., a Bare Hills gift and wedding registry business, died Aug. 28 of heart failure at her Peoria, Ariz. home. She was 78.
The daughter of Lester Helfrich, a Dow Chemical Co. plant manager, and Myrtle Helfrich, a store owner, Jessica Ann Helfrich was born in Baltimore.
She was raised in Anne Arundel County at Sunnyfields, her family's Glen Burnie farm, and graduated from Glen Burnie High School.
Her mother established an interior decorating and antiques business in 1947 in a tenant house on the family farm. As the business expanded, she moved it to its current location on Falls Road in Bare Hills to be closer to her client base in Roland Park and Guilford.
Mrs. Schuler worked for a decade as the upper-school librarian at St. Paul's School in Brooklandville.
After her mother's death in 1984, she took over operation of Sunnyfields with a son, David Schuler, and transformed it from an interior decorating and antiques firm to its current focus on wedding registries and gifts.
She retired in 2014 and sold the business to Delbert Adams Construction Group LLC, also located in Bare Hills, which has continued its operation.
Upon her retirement, the former Owings Mills, Stoneleigh and Timonium resident moved to Peoria, where she was active as a volunteer with Meals on Wheels and the Kiwanis Marketplace in Phoenix.
Mrs. Schuler enjoyed traveling by train. In June, she boarded a Via Rail passenger train that operated over the Canadian Pacific Railroad from Vancouver to Toronto, then traveled by bus to New York City, where she visited family before returning home.
A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday at the St. Paul's School chapel, 11152 Falls Road, Brooklandville.
She is survived by two sons, Steve Schuler of Towson and Michael Schuler of Bozeman, Mont.; two brothers, George Helfrich of White Sands, Ariz., and Thomas Helfrich of Bellevue, Ill.; and five grandchildren. Her son David died in 2012. Her marriage to Bruce Schuler ended in divorce.
—Frederick N. Rasmussen