Another mystery composer, Archie W. Scheu did not work throughout his life as professional musician or writer. He was just man with a plan, but enjoyed a moderately successful career in many aspects of the music business pursuing his calling in helping others, eventually applying that to their planning for the future. Born to Henry H. Scheu and Lenora Haskins in Dover, Ohio in 1880, he was the youngest of three siblings, including his brother Walter H. (5/1876) and sister Maudia (1878), who died in her teens. On the census taken when he was five days old, his temporary name was spelled as Teldiss. Since it appears likely that his father was of the Jewish faith, it could also have been his Yiddish name, with the legal Anglican name of Archie given out at or after his bris. It could also have been taken at a time when the parents were still undecided. But Archie it was (Archibald has been seen as a reference, but cannot be confirmed so seems less likely). Nothing was found on his years growing up in the small town of Dover, Ohio, but in the 1900 census taken in Dover he was listed as an electrician, a fairly new and interesting career path at that time. He was still residing with his brother and recently widowed mother.

Public records and newspapers reveal only some about Archie's activities in the decade of 1900 to 1910, so some of the best available records are in his published music. The first of these pieces were Stadium Two Step and The Winner, both marches published in Ohio prior two or in 1905. Copies are nearly impossible to find today for verification, indicating that they may have been vanity press publications with limited distribution. His next piece, however, did much better. Published under the label of the Archie W. Scheu Music Publishing Company in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he had evidently relocated, Smiling Sadie was a pleasant little rag that was also a vanity press. It was followed by his equally enjoyable Jack Frost, the Indian intermezzo Hot Foot, and a couple of other typical pieces from the era. In addition to his composing, Archie's steady work, starting around 1904, was through employment with the Rudolph Wurlitzer Company as a salesman, curiously enough specializing in selling Steinway pianos for the firm, a role he would take on for most of the next 25 years.

Smiling Sadie got a significant boost in 1906 when it was recorded by the recently formed Victor Orchestra in New Jersey, in part at the insistence of his employer Mr. Wurlitzer. As low-priced Victrolas were still a fairly recent innovation as an alternative to cylinder players, and the Victor records were often sold with the Victrolas, it helped spread his composition around as one of the few rags available on disc at that time. It also made him the first Cincinnati-based composer to have his work recorded by Victor. In 1907 Archie evidently managed to leverage these points and sell both the rights and the printing plates for most of his pieces to date to F.J.A. Forster, who in turn published them under the subsidiary of Monroe Publishing in Chicago, giving them a much better circulation base in the Midwest.

His next piece was a curiosity that grew legs for a short while. In 1907, Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis who would later become one of the great saviors of baseball as a no-nonsense commissioner, had recently been appointed as an Illinois Federal Judge by President Theodore Roosevelt. Landis took on the conglomerate Standard Oil, which he suspected of colluding with the railroads for price fixing of rapidly escalating commodity. Calling in the owner John D. Rockefeller, who was likely the wealthiest man in the United States at that time, he compelled Rockefeller to testify in an antitrust case against his own company. Even though the Landis decision, which levied a 29 million dollar fine against Rockefeller, was eventually overturned, he was still considered by many to be a celebrity hero for his efforts. Standard Oil was a not too kind slap at the oil company and Rockefeller which Archie composed with lyricist and publisher F.L. Hill in Cincinnati. It was dedicated to Landis, which probably didn't hurt sales.

Likely not too happy about letting go of his rags which were now selling fairly well, albeit with no further compensation for him, Archie continued to publish in Cincinnati issuing pieces under his own imprint. The next two pieces in 1907 were Percy and Sleepy Sidney, both competently written piano rags. The latter was recorded the following year by no less than the band of John Philip Sousa under former assistant leader, Arthur Pryor a grand double endorsement for any ragtime composer. After what appears to be lull in 1908, Archie unleashed an intermezzo titled Thinking, then his final published work in both song and instrumental format, Naoma. The author was not able to locate any records of Archie performing publicly during this period, but it is likely he was at least able to play his own pieces, so could be regarded as a competent pianist. As one of the top salesmen for Wurlitzer, and by 1908 a manager, he certainly had some musical acuity. Just the same, it seems that Scheu found the music writing business to be both a little grueling at times and unsteady in terms of financial return. By early 1910 he had sold the remainder of his catalog to Levan Music in Chicago, but continued his piano sales work with Howard and Rudolph Wurlitzer as a manager in Cincinnati. No more compositions would be forthcoming from his pen, at least in published form.

In mid-1910 Archie parted ways with Wurlitzer and moved east to New York for a while, entering the piano stool and scarf business as part of Bristol and Scheu at 117 E. 14th Street with Mr. E.D. Bristol, having bought the C.E. Schunack firm. Frustrated with this after a year, and wanting to return home, he escaped New York to Dayton, Ohio, in mid-1911. Known already as a top sales professional in the music trade, Scheu secured a position with the Steinway and Sons branch in Cincinnati, focused on Dayton and Springfield. By the end of the year he had become the branch manager in Cincinnati. In August 1912 Archie moved down to Louisville, Kentucky for a while to manage the lucrative Steinway branch there. Among his revolutionary sales tactics was buying considerable advertising time for promotional slides to be displayed on movie screens in the city, one of the earlier forms of visual commercials in media. During this period Archie and Mary were divorced. However, ill health pushed him to resign his position and take a break, returning again to Cincinnati in April of 1916. Scheu was engaged in the opening of a couple of stores in the region, including one in Hamilton, Ohio in 1917. Archie was married to Emma Gertrude Nussdorfer on October 22, 1917. He appeared in September of 1918 on his draft record as a Steinway and Sons salesman in Cincinnati. In the 1920 enumeration, the couple is shown with their daughter Alice Lenora Scheu (4/16/1919), and listed Archie as a piano salesman. Later that year he resigned his post with Steinway and moved to his home town of Dover to work for D.W. Lerch & Company, a regional piano dealer in Canton, opening his own branch of the company as a Steinway dealer on East Third Street in 1921.

Archie was known to have remained in the piano business in Dover until at least 1927, and then managed the Steinway Hall and the Steinway store back in Cincinnati from 1927 to 1929. However, perhaps when piano sales started slumping in the late 1920s, Archie once again pursued the life insurance business. As of the 1930 census, Archie, Emma and Alice were living in Canton, Ohio with Arch listed as an insurance salesman. Over the next decade his widowed mother, Nora, joined the household. All four of them were residing in the same house for the 1940 enumeration, with Archie listed as an insurance salesman. He was still working in the business for John Hancock a couple of years later as per his 1942 draft record. After retirement from his second career, Arch's health deteriorated in the late 1950s. The Scheu's now-married daughter Emma lost a battle with encephalitis in 1951, which was a stress event that possibly adversely affected Arch. In the early 1960s he was put into a long term care facility in Canton where he passed on 1963. His widow, Emma, died in 1970, just short of the 1970s ragtime revival in which some of his pieces would again be recognized as a part of the school of Ohio valley ragtime.