Edward Benjamin Scheve was born February 13, 1865, at Herford, Westphalia, Germany.
At the age of eight, Edward began the study of piano and organ under a local teacher, continued at the Cologne Gymnasium and the Geisenheim Institut, and then went to Berlin for further studies.
He came to America in April 1883, first to Rochester, New York, where he worked as a music teacher and the organist at the First Baptist Church.
In the year 1890 he made a trip to Berlin, where he married Lina Amalie Grosch on October 7th. They returned to Rochester, until 1892, when Scheve became organist of the First German Baptist Church and director of the German-American Conservatory in Chicago. In 1906 he was called to the Grinnell College School of Music, Grinnell, Iowa, as professor of theory and composition and instructor in organ.
He died in Longmont, Colorado, in 1924, while on extended vacation.