Marylanders — hands on their hearts, crisply saluting or wiping away tears — lined streets and gathered at landmarks to bid personal farewells to William Donald Schaefer Monday afternoon, as the former mayor and governor was taken on one final trip by motorcade through his beloved Baltimore."His heart was in the city, and I wanted to say goodbye," said Bronwyn Mayden, who watched from Lexington Market, near her office at the University of Maryland School of Social Work, where she is an assistant dean.
It was an oft-repeated sentiment along the 14-mile course that served as a partial rewinding of Schaefer's life, one largely lived within the boundaries of a city that bears the legacy of his terms in office.
For two hours, the motorcade traveled to some of the spots nearest and dearest to his heart, from his childhood home in West Baltimore to the Inner Harbor, from Camden Yards to Corned Beef Row, from Federal Hill to Little Italy. Along the way, he would be feted by music — by players from the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra to those from the Baltimore Colts turned Baltimore Ravens Marching Band — and heralded with signs, some handmade with messages of gratitude, others old campaign posters, yellowed and faded.
Most touching to the former aides and friends who had choreographed the tour, though, were not the landmarks that he had a hand in building, but the people who gathered along the motorcade route or waited at the stops. Some were fellow politicians he had worked or battled with, some were advocates who represented neighborhoods or causes, most were simply Baltimoreans who came out for one final show of support.
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| Photo by reporter Julie Scharper via Twitter Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake leads Schaefer's casket into City Hall. |
"It was all the people he loved and who loved him," said Lainy LeBow-Sachs, Schaefer's longtime aide, who received multiple flowers and tributes on his behalf. "And that's what he was all about — people, people, people."
The day began in Annapolis, with Schaefer lying in state at the State House for several hours. Then the motorcade, led by motorcycle police and carrying some of Schaefer's closest friends, made its first stop at his childhood home, 620 Edgewood St. in West Baltimore, where a Maryland flag was flying from its porch.
There, a warm and welcoming crowd applauded as the cars approached, waved signs and offered up pots of Schaefer's favored African violets — the kind of scene that would be repeated as the group criss-crossed the city.
