Joan Schneider

Services for Joan Elizabeth Schneider, 91, will be held at Vander Plaat Funeral Home in Wyckoff, New Jersey on Saturday, March 23rd. Family will receive visitors from 11 am–noon. Memorial services follow between noon – and 12:30 pm. Burial and graveside services follow immediately at George Washington Memorial Park in Paramus, New Jersey. There she will join her husband Robert for eternity.

Joan, late of Lawrence, Kansas, passed in relative peace after a period of illness. Intermittently hospitalized in her last weeks, she was grateful for being able to pass in the home she most recently shared with her late husband of nearly 65 years, Robert F. Schneider. Joan was surrounded by her loved ones in the weeks before her death. She was preceded in death by her parents, her sister Helen M. Parks in 1990, and her beloved husband Robert, who passed in 2019.

Born Joan Elizabeth Wludyka on May 8, 1932, in Irvington, New Jersey, the daughter of John and Sophia (Lewandowski), she attended a Polish Catholic elementary, Irvington High School, then she earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Medical Technology from Fairleigh Dickinson University in Passaic, New Jersey.

Joan spoke often and with fondness of attending Newark Bears and Eagles double headers at Ruppert Stadium with her father.

Joan met her husband Robert, of Carlstadt, New Jersey, on a blind date set up by his cousin Joan while attending Fairleigh Dickinson. Their first date was a baseball game at Hoboken’s Elysian Fields, near Robert’s college, Stevens Institute of Technology, where he graduated with a degree in Industrial Engineering.

After a long courtship, Robert and Joan were married in 1954, starting a family shortly after in Ridgewood, New Jersey, the birthplace of daughters Susan and Nancy and son, Robert E. Schneider. Robert’s work as an engineer took him to a three-year stint in Barrington, Illinois, after which the family returned to New Jersey in 1974, settling permanently in Mahwah, New Jersey.

In 2017 Robert and Joan moved to Lawrence, Kansas, where their daughter Nancy and her husband, Steve, reside.

In her school days, Joan was an avid athlete. She enjoyed the company of her young male peers, finding many of her female peers frivolous. She played softball, field hockey, and a variety of sports. In college she joined the Civil Air Patrol, unusual for a young woman at the time. Utilizing her medical training, Joan was involved in the formation of the Bergen County Blood Bank, working there until the birth of their first child, Susan.

Always engaged in her children’s activities, Joan was not just a chauffeur. She coached her daughter Susan’s softball teams, was girl scout leader for Nancy, and volunteered for many of Robert’s Cub and Boy Scout troop activities.

She continued her nurturing talents for the next over 30 years, helping establish and passionately run the STEED program within the Northern New Jersey Amateur Horseman’s Association, serving young, handicapped riders. Her “kids” participated three times in Special Olympics National Games with Joan serving as head coach for Team USA.

No appreciation of Joan’s life is complete without a mention of her enthusiasm for culinary delights. Her family benefited greatly from this, of course, because Joan’s kitchen skills were at the Chef de Cuisine level. She was well-known and loved at her favorite vendors Janek’s, Abma’s, her various butcher shops, and the Market Basket.

Joan is survived by her children, Susan Schneider, Nancy (Steven) Wilson, Robert E. (Shelly) Schneider, five grandchildren, Madeline Wilson, Edward Wilson, Zack Schneider, William Schneider, Kara Schneider, and two great-grandchildren, Daniel Brown, and Langston Brown.

Joan as she affectionately stated numerous times “I'm headed for my last roundup” Her roundup may be over but her legacy lives on in all that knew her.

In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the Special Olympics of New Jersey.

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