Albert & Ilse Schaler Funds

Albert and Ilse Schaler established two permanent endowments that reflect two different aspects of their long, oftentimes difficult, yet very successful lives. The first, the Albert & Ilse Schaler Fund, was funded through a charitable gift annuity and will provide general operating support to two organizations that provide basic needs for Rhode Islanders: the Rhode Island Community Food Bank and Amos House.

The second, the Ilse & Albert Schaler Fund, is funded through a bequest and recognizes the couple's appreciation for culture. Mrs. Schaler, an accomplished artist and music teacher, recalled how her parents emphasized the arts when she was growing up in wartorn Germany in the 1940s. This fund will support the Coleman Center for Creative Studies at the Newport Art Museum and music education for both adults and children, as well as health care for Rhode Islanders.

Albert Schaler was born in Munich in 1924. Although his parents never left their homeland, Mr. Schaler and his sister immigrated to England in 1939 where their mother's brother lived, and in 1940, he moved to New York City where he obtained his high school diploma and attended a school for machinists.

"Then, I accidentally went into the jewelry business," he told us in a 2006 interview. He answered an ad in the New York Times for a "lathe hand" at a factory on West 45th Street, where he apprenticed with an elderly Hungarian goldsmith.

In 1945, he took a job with a costume jewelry manufacturer based in Rhode Island that had a repair shop in New York. That same year, when the chief designer moved from New York to Rhode Island, Mr. Schaler came with him.

He continued to work numerous jobs wherever the work took him. During this time, he met his future wife, Ilse Spilling, through mutual friends. Born in Nuremberg, Germany, her early education there included an emphasis on art, music, and drama. She emigrated to the United States in 1950 and pursued the arts, earning a certificate in teaching early music from the American Recorders Society.

In 1957, with a small inheritance, Mr. Schaler opened his own company in Cranston, A.M. Schaler, Inc., which supplied castings for jewelry makers. Three years later, the Schalers married. As her husband was growing his business, Mrs. Schaler started an early music group in Providence and gave private music lessons, mostly on the recorder, to individuals interested in medieval and Renaissance music.

After nearly 20 years running A.M. Schaler, Mr. Schaler sold the company in 1976. Already a board member of the Manufacturing Jewelers and Suppliers of America (MJSA), he was asked the following year by the organization to start a school for people wishing to enter the business. After a few detours, Mr. Schaler began working at B.A. Ballou, an East Providencebased company where he was in charge of jewelry manufacturing; he retired in 1989, remaining with the company as a consultant and director until 2004, just shy of his 80th birthday.

Another important aspect of the Schalers' life was their involvement in the Jewish community. Mr. Schaler served on the board of Temple Beth El in Providence and they were members of Touro Synagogue in Newport.

The endowments they have created at the Foundation will help Rhode Islanders both with the necessities of life and with participation in the arts. It's a fitting legacy for Albert and Ilse Schaler.