James Arthur Schroer 1945 - 2026
This micro-site was created in tribute to Jim Schroer, who left us on May 16, 2026. It is for Jane Schroer, all the living and future Schroers. It was compiled and edited by Jim’s sons and grandsons from researching the absolute, rare treasure of our family analog media archive. So before we celebrate Jim, aka Jimmy, aka Dad aka Padre, we wanted to provide some context on just the pure timing and luck that had to coincide for these visceral, visual artifacts to be available at all in the year 2026.
- Jeff, Jason, Max and Bennett Schroer
The Schroer Family Media Archive
(1945 - present)
There would be no Schroer Family archive of photos and films from the pre-internet era if it weren’t for our grandfathers. We, as a family, have such a rare treasure of media from the analog era because of the convergence of affordable consumer photographic gear and two young men that not only embraced the technology, they took it seriously. Jim’s dad “Grampy” Jack Schroer, was a “tech-nerd” before the term was invented. He was the first person we knew to ever own the Atari home video game console PONG.
Grampy Jack Schroer
My mother Jane’s father, Grandpa Lee Hilton was so often seen taking photos with his trusty Rolleiflex camera (and pocket light meter), that we have Super 8 footage of him shooting with it.
Grandpa Lee Hilton
It was in 1981 Padre purchased a shoulder-mounted Panasonic VHS camcorder endorsed by NY Yankee, Reggie Jackson (even touting “Reggie-vision”). Jim put away the Super 8 camera for good. We can now accurately speculate with 97.1% confidence that Padre’s first VHS cam purchase was more heavily influenced by said celebrity endorsement vs the tech itself. And we all know Jeff would buy the first VHS camera endorsed by Luka Doncic in 2026 without hesitation.
And while Padre never took up still photography as a hobby, he took the familial archival media baton from his father, capturing, developing, labeling and organizing moving images from the best days of our lives; our first decade of Christmas mornings, birthdays, family vacations and little league games, well into the VHS era. Watching and editing the videos on this site have taken us through the entire gamut of emotions, but we keep ending up in a place of deep gratitude, for the archive and for the insanely good fortune of being in the family of Jim and Jane Schroer.