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The Rev. Edwin Austin Schell, one of the leading lights of preserving United Methodist history, died Nov. 25.

A memorial service, celebrating his life and ministry, will be held Saturday, Dec. 3, at 1 p.m. at Lovely Lane UMC, 2200 Saint Paul Street in Baltimore.

Schell was the executive secretary emeritus of the Commission on Archives & History and United Methodist Historical Society of the Baltimore-Washington Conference.

He suffered a fall Monday and was taken to St. Agnes Hospital where his condition worsened on Thanksgiving Day and he died early Friday morning. 

Schell was encouraged to enter the ministry by the Rev. O.G. Robinson of Calvary Church in Washington, where he had been active in youth work.

An alumnus of American University, Schell was ordained Deacon in 1952. He received his graduate degree from the Theological School of Drew University and was ordained Elder in 1953.  He was appointed to Broadway Methodist Church and remained in that pastorate until 1960. 

In 1958, Schell was elected president of the Conference Historical Society and worked toward the re-chartering of the society in 1961. At the same time, he worked toward fitting himself to the needs of the Society through post-graduate work in History and in Archival Administration at Wesley Theological Seminary and at the University of Maryland.

The society's 1961 charter provided for an Executive Secretary to manage the society's collections and business. Pastor Schell took that position in 1962, and held it for the rest of his career while also serving part-time pastorates. He guided the society's work in national celebrations of the bicentennials of the beginning of American Methodism in 1966 and of the Christmas Conference which organized the denomination in 1984.

Schell became known locally and nationally for his encyclopedic knowledge of the complex history of the Baltimore-Washington Conference, its churches and institutions, and recorded much of that knowledge in extensive card catalog files. He also contributed chapters and articles to "Those Incredible Methodists," the conference's definitive history, and to many other church history publications. 

His pastorates included Woodberry Methodist Church on the Jones Falls. Arriving there in 1966, he became involved in the Baltimore Streetcar Museum which was organized that year and in which he remained active after leaving Woodberry in 1975.

Schell was appointed to historic Stone Chapel in 1975 and, in 1980, to Old Otterbein Church, a United Methodist Heritage Landmark. Through the Strawbridge Shrine Association he was active in acquiring another Heritage Landmark, the Robert Strawbridge House, in 1973 and in relocating the John Evans House to the Strawbridge site in 1979. 

Pastor Schell formally retired in 1988, but continued to carry on with the work of the society. Though he was unable to work at the Lovely Lane Museum over the past few weeks, he was in contact with the staff and with many callers in this and other conferences through the end of last week. 

In his last years, Ed Schell was engaged in compiling histories of Lovely Lane Church and of the American Methodist Historical Society, the predecessor to the current conference historical society. Both projects were near completion and are expected to be brought to fruition by friends and colleagues, the last of many contributions to Methodist History by the Rev. Edwin A. Schell."

He was married to the former Ruth Herman Timanus, who predeceased him in January of 2010, and is survived by her daughters, Rita La Cotti of Joppa and Nancy Cann of Severna Park, and by their families.

The family asks that memorial contributions be directed to the United Methodist Historical Society, 2200 Saint Paul St., Baltimore, MD 21218-5897.