Sharon Schuman, a concert violinist, political activist and retired university professor in Eugene, died Wednesday, April 23, when a driver lost control of his car for as-of-yet unknown reasons and hit her while she was running at Amazon Park. She was 79.

Schuman was born Sharon Avonette Johnson, the youngest of six children, on Feb. 11, 1946. Her impoverished parents worked as live-in caretakers on a wealthy estate in San Rafael, California, says Schuman’s daughter, Rebecca Schuman, of Eugene. “They had very little,” she says of her mother’s family. “She slept in a crib until she was nine years old. And she experienced abuse.”

Sharon transcended her childhood with the help of music and literature, her daughter says. An aunt gave Sharon a violin when she was nine, and a high school English teacher later introduced her to reading novels and poetry. Sharon practiced violin religiously and received a scholarship to study music at Stanford. “She arrived there a complete hayseed, knowing nothing about anything,” Rebecca says. “And then, in her sophomore year, she met my dad.”

The two undergraduates found each other on a study abroad program in Florence, Italy, Rebecca says, adding that an excess of chianti may have been involved on the night the couple got together. Sharon gave up drinking after that night, but the pair remained inseparable. 

She and David Schuman soon moved in together, to the chagrin of their parents, and got married years later in a backyard ceremony — Sharon wore “a  scandalously short mini dress,” Rebecca says — only after they graduated. He would go on to study law at the University of Oregon, became a judge on the Oregon Court of Appeals and later taught as a professor of constitutional law at the UO. She taught literature as a professor at Willamette University and later the UO.

The couple would have two children, Rebecca, who lives in Eugene with her daughter, and her brother, Ben, who lives in Austin, Texas, with his family.

After Rebecca was born, Sharon took up jogging, following the jogging craze of the 1960s and ’70s. She took to running every day and ran her first marathon, in Eugene, in 1982. In 1996 she qualified for the Boston Marathon and ran it in 4:14. “She was a very serious runner,” her daughter says. “She did the Butte to Butte religiously every year for 44 years.”

It was her childhood poverty that drove Sharon’s unrelenting dedication to social causes, Rebecca says.

“When she saw a wrong that needed righting, she did not ask for permission. She just jumped in.”

One of those causes was the Fanconi Cancer Foundation (formerly the Fanconi Anemia Research Fund) created by the late UO President Dave Frohnmayer and his wife, Lynn Frohnmayer, to find a cure for the disease that took three of their daughters. “She wasn’t just on the board,” Rebecca says of Sharon’s efforts. “She didn’t just raise money. She went to scientific conferences to see what progress was being made.” 

Lynn Frohnmayer says Sharon, who she describes as “a fierce advocate for this cause,” over the years raised more than half a million dollars for her foundation by soliciting donations from friends and family members and playing the violin at more than two dozen house concerts. 

Lynn says she and Sharon knew each other socially through the years that their husbands worked together at the University of Oregon and the Justice Department. It was starting in 1996, when Sharon became Amy Frohnmayer’s violin teacher, that the two women saw each other more regularly and grew close. Lynn says Sharon was deeply fond of Amy, who had Fanconi anemia, and accepted the invitation to be on the foundation’s board. In addition to raising funds, Lynn says, Sharon “did a deep dive” into the disease and attended many symposia featuring hundreds of scientists from around the world. “She sat with me in the front seats and she avidly took notes and soaked in the science,” Lynn says.

She notes that it wasn’t just the Fanconi Cancer Foundation that benefited from Sharon’s seemingly abundant energy. “She was a dynamo,” Lynn says, “and she had deep concern for the problems in our community.”

Sharon also strongly supported FOOD For Lane County, Rebecca says.

All the while she was making music. Sharon played regularly as a concert violinist. She was one of the founding members of Eugene’s Chamber Music Amici. She performed with the Oregon Bach Festival, with Eugene Opera and with the Oregon Mozart Players.

She played benefit concerts to raise money for causes. She was a longtime member of the Eugene Round Table, and served on boards of Square One Villages and the Mozart Players.

“I think we’re all heart broken,” Lynn says. “And those of us who knew Sharon well are just devastated by this senseless loss.” 

David Schuman died after a bicycle collision in Eugene in 2019. Sharon Schuman is survived by her two children and three grandchildren. 

A memorial service is set for Monday, May 5, at noon at Richard E. Wildish Community Theater, 630 Main Street in Springfield — the home of Chamber Music Amici. An open house reception and celebration of life is 2 pm to 7 pm the same day at PublicHouse, 418 Main Street, Springfield.