Evelyn Strovas Schneider

Evelyn Strovas Schneider passed away peacefully at age 100 on December 10, 2024, in Glendale California. She led a full, colorful and successful life in the business and financial community. Evelyn was born in Rugby Colorado, Walsenburg County on May 31, 1924. She was the eleventh of twelve children born to Blaz and Marija Strovas, who fled Austria in 1914 with 5 young children at the start of World War I. Growing up in the Black Diamond coal mining area, where her father ran the General Store and was an activist for mine conditions, she attended Rapson School. In 1943, she married her Army sweetheart and soulmate, Joseph A. Schneider, and moved to Pueblo, Colorado. 
    Widowed at a young age with three small children, she overcame the herculean challenges of discrimination and prejudices that existed at that time towards working women. After moving from Pueblo in 1964, she built a successful bookkeeping and accounting practice in Glendale, California. Multilingual and personable with an eclectic entrepreneurial business style, she was surrounded by a family of long-time clients who often frequented her office to visit over coffee, or a good scotch. Her clientele included Disney Studio artists, creative animators, animal trainers; writers; poets; historians; aviation pioneers, inventors, vintners and the occasional racehorse owner. 
    Active in the community and local politics she served as: President of the York Valley Chamber of Commerce; President Soroptimist Club; Association Business & Tax Consultants. She contributed to the community as March of Dimes Walk block coordinator and Glendale precinct election judge for numerous years, until her retirement in 2006.
    Evelyn is survived by daughter Dr. Sandra L Schneider, son Ronald J Schneider, grandsons Andrew and Jeffery Schneider, extended family members, Cheryl/Tom Mueller and beloved Cocoa. She was preceded in death by parents Blaz and Marija Gradisick Strovas; husband Joseph A Schneider; daughter Dianna Jean Schneider; brothers: Frank Strovas; Anthony Strovas; Blaz Strovas Jr; Joseph Strovas; Louis Strovas; sisters: Mitzi (Marija) S Kalister Brill; Apolonia (Lona) S Tomsic; Frances S White Pierce; Josephine S Nakonieczny Maltese; Anna S Obechina Skrzynear; Rose S Felice; sister-in-law Mary Ann Pograjc Kenney; nieces: Beverly Strovas Strom; Betty Strovas Cardwell; Dorothy Tomsic Sekulich; nephews: Frank Strovas Jr; David Kalister; Jerry Strovas; Edward Obechina; Robert Nakonieczny; Anthony Strovas; Walter, Albert and Frank Tomsic; and late in life husbands Samuel Stella Smith and John Coyle Layman.
    Valuing and living to remember every minute of her life’s journey, Evelyn left a historical timeline in a vintage trunk filled with letters, cards, memorabilia, including her 6th grade Rapson art notebook and an unfinished manuscript that spanned her personal legacy. Her chapters, including the “white mule” episode, are musings, tragic and humorous insights from a woman’s perspective. A perspective shaped by the values, ethics and drama growing up in a large European family, prohibition, the depression, wars and the impact of her father’s political intrigue and quest for coal miner rights and unionization. 
    Bright, energetic, tenacious, compassionate, generous, adventurous, fiercely independent, she always had a twinkle of mischief in her bright blue eyes. Evelyn Strovas Schneider lived her remarkable and extraordinary life to the fullest and without remorse.