Lydia Elizabeth Laepple was born 19 August 1878 at Cannstatt, a district of Stuttgart, Germany. Her parents were Ludwig Karl Laepple, a Methodist minister, and his wife Pauline Marie Pfander. After finishing her education, Lydia went to London, England, where she is said to have worked as a governess and music teacher for the Ramsays, friends of the Royal Family. She once saw Queen Victoria.
While in London Lydia met Bernhard Schubert, who was studying to be a Methodist minister. They were married by her father, Rev. Laepple, in Ulm, Germany on 21 May 1901. They lived first in the city of Eibenstock, where Bernhard was pastor. Their first child, Herman, was born there in 1902.
In 1902 the Schuberts immigrated to America. Over the next seven years they served churches in Inver Grove and Johnsonville, Minnesota, then Lawrence and Sylvia, Kansas. When German-speaking congregations started to die out, the couple turned to farming. In 1909 they homesteaded 640 acres near Expanse, Saskatchewan, living first for several weeks in a dugout with their five children until the land was legally theirs. In ten years of operating what came to be known as the “10,000 Tree Farm,” they had only three good crops.
The family, now with ten children, moved back to the United States in 1918, living first on a tobacco farm near Acme, North Carolina, before settling near Franklin, New York, where they were in the dairy and poultry business for many years. The couple became citizens in 1928, Americanizing their names to Bernard and Lydia Shubert.
Bernard died 2 October 1953 at Sidney, New York, from injuries received in a traffic accident. Lydia continued to live in their home in Franklin and died there 1 November 1954. She is buried next to her husband in Ouleout Valley Cemetery in Franklin.