In a memorial service of music, readings, and recollections, Princeton philanthropist William Hurd Scheide was remembered last Saturday not only as a champion of civil rights and a patron of the arts, but also as a loving father who enjoyed making his children laugh and reading Dennis the Menace comic books.

Nassau Presbyterian Church was nearly full as friends, family, and colleagues came to pay their respects to Mr. Scheide, who died November 14 at the age of 100. Among those in attendance were Mayor Liz Lempert, Princeton University President Christopher Eisgruber, Representative Rush Holt, and McCarter Theatre Artistic Director Emily Mann.

“He was a registered Republican but we all knew in his heart he was a classic liberal Democrat,” said Louise Marshall, Mr. Scheide’s daughter. She recalled her father’s appreciation not only of J.S. Bach but of jazz greats Bessie Smith, Bix Beiderbecke, and Benny Goodman. Ms. Marshall’s younger sister Barbara Scheide, who joked that her father referred to her as “opus two,” recalled a portrait of Bach that hung in the house.

“That is the man who writes my Daddy’s music,” she was known to say as a small child, a statement that amused Mr. Scheide. He used it, she said, when  promoting the Bach Aria Group, which he founded in 1946.

The Scheide house was filled with books “in every room,” Ms. Marshall said. And while her father was a strict grammarian, “he could always make up nonsensical syllables that always made us laugh,” she said, reciting a few to laughter from the audience. “As a father, we knew we had a very funny man in the house.” Among the favorite memories of Mr. Scheide mentioned by his children were his attempts to balance on two rafts at Lake Dunmore in Vermont, where the family had a summer home.

Mr. Scheide’s son John, who not only spoke but played the recorder during the service, was visibly moved as he thanked members of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra Chamber Players for their performance of a movement from a Schubert string quintet. The service of readings and music, which was planned by Mr. Scheide some two decades ago, included music by Schubert and Bach, played by the NJSO ensemble and several other musicians.

The Rev. David A. Davis, pastor of the church, spoke of Mr. Scheide’s “stunningly generous and lasting philanthropic life” and quoted Mr. Scheide’s wife Judith as saying he was “Presbyterian in his bones.” Ms. Scheide’s brother, the Reverend William Dalglish, noted that the wealth Mr. Scheide inherited from his father and grandfather was used not to lead a privileged life, but to help others.

“He was created by God to be a faithful manager of everything that God had trusted to his care,” Rev. Dalglish said. “And Bill understood that his responsibility was to manage it — manage it responsibly.”

Mr. Scheide was a 1936 alumnus of Princeton University. The service included one verse of the school’s anthem, “Old Nassau.”

Mark Laycock, former conductor of the Princeton Symphony Orchestra and a favorite of Mr. Scheide, spoke of him as “a courteous, honorable, and faithful man,” adding, “A great man never really dies, but always lives on. Thank you, Bill.”