10/18/2025
James Lee Schaepe, M.D.
James Lee Schaepe, M.D. died on October 17, 2025 in Peabody, MA. Jim was born on November 30, 1931 in Ilion, NY, the son of Lilly Mae Schaepe Holmes and D.H. Schaepe. During high school he played violin in the school orchestra, competed in track, and accomplished hurdles records in meets along with holding several part time jobs including selling Fuller brushes and delivering the Saturday Evening Post to help support his family. After graduation from high school Jim went to Hamilton College in Clinton, NY, but left before the end of the first semester and joined the Navy, spending a year of that time in Japan which he loved. While in the Navy he received training as a corpsman and then as a laboratory technician, skills he used to work his way through Johns Hopkins University and Albany Medical College, from which he received his M.D. degree in 1962. While in medical school he sang in and directed the medical school glee club. In June of 1962 he married his wife, Marguerite (Peg) Burke Schaepe. Following medical school he did a self-designed Family Practice residency at Genesee Hospital in Rochester, NY, from 1962 to 1965. During this time two of his three sons, Christopher James Schaepe and Steven Burke Schaepe were born.
Following his residency he went back to his home town of Ilion, NY to practice medicine, joining a group of two physicians there. While in Ilion, his third son, David Michael Schaepe was born. He left Ilion for Delmar, NY in 1968 where he had a solo practice of family medicine while affiliating with Albany Medical Center to try to get a residency in family practice started. That effort being unsuccessful, in 1972 he accepted an offer to practice full time as an outpatient physician at Mary Imogene Bassett Hospital in Cooperstown, NY, furthering his quest to get acceptance of Family Practice as a specialty and encouraging them to start a family practice residency.
In 1975 he moved to Worcester, MA after being offered a position in the department of family practice at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center there. Again, frustrated with the environment and lack of acceptance of family practice as a specialty in the general medical sphere, he left and became Medical Director of Norton Company in Worcester, MA, practicing occupational medicine. He had medical specialty boards in both family practice and occupational medicine.
In 1988 he moved to Newburyport, MA and joined the multispecialty medical group of Pentucket Medical Associates in Haverhill, MA, doing urgent care there for several years. Following that he transitioned to part time work in occupational medicine at Lawrence General Hospital in Lawrence, MA, from which he retired in 2010 at the age of 78. In 1999 he and his wife moved from Newburyport to Lake Attitash in Amesbury to a lake front home which they had renovated, and where they enjoyed many years of memorable times with family and friends. In 2014 Jim, with his wife, moved to Brooksby Village, a continuing care retirement community in Peabody, MA, where he made several new friends and found wonderfully compatible golfing buddies along with a relaxed and carefree lifestyle.
Jim was broadly read and was a lifelong learner. Jim played violin from the time he was a child, and after being discharged from the Navy studied violin at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, MD. Realizing that he would probably starve as a concert violinist, Jim enrolled in Johns Hopkins University where he always noted he was admitted because when the dean of students asked him why he wanted to come there he just said he had a lot of curiosity. To put himself through Hopkins, going full time, he used the GI Bill along with working full time as a laboratory technician before entering medical school, which he funded with part time work as a laboratory technician and with loans.
Jim was a member of several community orchestras over the years, the last being the Merrimack Valley Philharmonic Orchestra. He also played for several years in music trios. He was an athlete; he loved tennis and golf, which he was passionate about, and played both all his adult life. He also enjoyed bowling, and in the continuous quest to better his games he was always trying new approaches, telling his family or anyone else who would listen that he’d just found out what he’d been doing wrong - though in reality the latest finding was never the true fix.
Over the years he and his wife enjoyed travel, vacationed often in Vermont and after leaving Lake Attitash and moving to Brooksby Village, enjoyed time at their RV on Lake Waukewan in Center Harbor, NH.
Jim leaves his wife of 63 years, Marguerite (Peg) Schaepe, his sons, their wives and his grandchildren: Christopher and his wife Jennie Chiu of Los Altos Hills, CA and their children Michael and Genevieve, Steven and his wife Karen of Newburyport, MA and their children Trevor and Julia, David and his wife Lara VonWaldenburg of Chilliwack, B.C. and their children Kiah and Sasha, and a great grandson Roa Litman. He also leaves other family members with whom he shared so many wonderful times over the years: his brother William Schaepe and his wife Patricia Neri, and his sister Nancy Flanagan; his brother Herman Schaepe predeceased him. He also leaves brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law and their spouses - Lynn and Gary Moreau, Roberta Burke and Daniel and Judy Burke. He also leaves nieces and nephews, as well as many close friends - some from many years past and some from his time at Brooksby.
Funeral services will be held at Paul C. Rogers & Sons at 2 Hillside Avenue in Amesbury, MA and burial will be at Union Cemetery, Amesbury, MA. These will be private, for close family only. In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation to the Brooksby Village Resident Care Fund (attention Philanthropy, 300 Brooksby Village Drive, Peabody, MA 01960).
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