Roberta L. Cascairo

Roberta (Schroeder) Cascairo, daughter of the late Albert Clarence and Rhoda (Ross) Schroeder, was born July 18, 1940, and left her earthly body on October 10, 2022, at age 82.  Roberta fought courageously and gracefully over the past three years against an incurable cancer.  She died in her home, peacefully, under the loving care and attention of multiple family members and hospice workers.

Roberta taught first grade at Bowerman School in Springfield, Missouri, for 30 years, before retiring.  She had obtained her Bachelor’s Degree at Evangel College in Springfield, Missouri, and a Master’s Degree in Education at Drury College in Springfield.  She met Joseph Anthony Cascairo in 1964, when Lori Cascairo, Joseph’s oldest daughter, entered her first grade class.  Joseph’s wife, Eva Lee (Lane) Cascairo, was an active volunteer at the school.  In 1965, Lori’s brother, Mark Anthony Cascairo, entered Roberta’s first-grade classroom.  Early the next year, Eva Lee Cascairo died from terminal cancer.  On August 19, 1967, Roberta married Joseph Cascairo and embraced his three children, Lori Lea, Mark Anthony, and Joni Lynn Cascairo, as her own family.

Roberta was a dedicated teacher, wife and mother.  She also maintained a very close relationship with her four siblings, Milas Schroeder, Gary Schroeder, Gerald Schroeder and Geraldine (Schroeder) Shaeffer, who remained in Colorado where the family had been raised on an orchard.  Her father, Albert Clarence Schroeder, was a coal miner and a farmer.  Roberta’s mother, Rhoda Minerva (Ross) Schroeder, was a homemaker on the orchard, where the children did much of the work.  It was a close-knit family with a strong religious foundation.

Roberta left her home in Colorado to attend college at Evangel College, in Springfield, Missouri.  She maintained close friendships to numerous classmates whom she met during her college years.  In most recent years, Roberta has been a member of Aldersgate United Methodist Church in Nixa, Missouri.

Roberta was preceded in death by her parents, Albert Clarence Schroeder and Rhoda Minerva Schroeder, and by her husband, Joseph Anthony Cascairo, who died on July 12, 2011.  Roberta had faithfully cared for her husband in their home in Nixa, Missouri, through a protracted illness prior to his death.

Roberta is survived by her three children, Lori Lea Lane, Mark Anthony Cascairo, and Joni Lynn Rainwater, and also by her four siblings, Milas Schroeder, Gary Schroeder, Gerald Schroeder, and Geraldine Shaeffer.  Roberta has 10 grandchildren, 20 great grandchildren, and 1 great-great grandchild.  Many other family members and friends will miss her, though they all acknowledge Roberta’s fervent desire “to depart and be with Christ,” and to be freed from her dying body.

Celebration of Life Services will be at 3:00 p.m., Sunday, October 16, 2022, in the chapel of Fraker Funeral Home, Inc., 1131 State Hwy. A, Marshfield.

For those desiring, memorial contributions may be made to Least of These or Convoy of Hope, and left in care of Fraker Funeral Home, Inc., P.O. Box 85, Marshfield, MO 65706.