Woman on Fire: Jana Schneider from Spark to Finish by Melanie Williams

Amongst the Ashes

The amass of trees in the front yard of the Schneider household is quite shocking when juxtaposed with the rest of barren, heavily landscaped suburbia. The small, ranch- style home still stands with integrity despite its age, as does its occupant Jana (formerly Janet) Schneider of McFarland, Wis. Her shiny, obviously well kept Mercedes looks out of place parked in what appears to be an average garage full of gardening equipment and boxes labeled “J.S.” in thick black marker. There’s no seeing what’s in the boxes, but research explains what they most likely hold. How she came about enough money to afford such a luxurious car remains unexplained as she lights up a cigarette and sits, legs crossed, in a rusty lawn chair. She inhales, exhales smoke through her nose, and makes a few grunting noises as she adjusts herself. She flicks her Marlboro Light sending gray and white ash into her unruly, black hair. The chair snags her brown, oversized sweater causing a couple of strings to fray around the cuff. Since there are already several noticeable holes in her corduroy pants, the loose strings only add to the distressed look of her secondhand clothing. She comments briefly on the nice weather. The sun is shining for the first time all week and the natural light in the garage casts the shadow of her lanky figure and flawless facial features as she lounges in her chair and uses the smoldering end of her cigarette to light a second one. She coughs as she takes a long, deep drag. No one would ever guess that this scrawny, aging woman, who can no longer speak in a register higher than a raspy growl and whose lips and eyes have lost all volume, was once a Tony-nominated Broadway actress. Nobody would ever imagine that her bespectacled eye was once behind the lens of a camera, watching and capturing the devastation of foreign wars. And no one could ever come close to believing that the small town girl turned starlet turned photojournalist would have so many tragic stories to tell: stories of war- time casualties, homelessness, and even her own questioned sanity.

Smokin’ Hot

In the early 1970s, a charismatic woman, barely out of college, arrived in New York City with a driver’s license and roughly two dollars in change jingling in her pocket. Having graduated from the University of Wisconsin at Madison with a background in acting, Janet Schneider was ready to see herself onto a bigger stage. “It was upsetting to see her go,” states her mother, Daphne Schneider. “But I knew she would never be happy if she didn’t follow her dreams. I never tried to stop her. What I worried about most wasn’t that she would be taken advantage of, but that she wouldn’t succeed in her chosen career.” Ready for a change in more than just location, New York transformed Janet into Jana. Having enrolled in Circle in the Square, a prestigious acting school, and found a job and an apartment in the city, the young woman was rearing to go. Fame came slowly however, causing frustration for Jana. She enjoyed keeping things moving and progressing. A static life with very few acting jobs was not what she had had in mind when she moved halfway across the country but, being the persistent woman that she is, she refused to accept a mediocre acting career. She just needed to catch a break. “I was chosen to do a few commercials at first,” says Jana. “A couple of cameos here and there. I was just another starving actress until Drood.” By Drood, she means The Mystery of Edwin Drood. It was 1985 when Jana was cast in the roll of Helena Landless for the Broadway rendition of the adapted Charles Dickens novel. Because the original novel had never been finished, the audience got to vote for who they thought the killer was at the end of the murder mystery. “I was the favorite I think,” Jana speculates. “I knew how to please a crowd and my character was…something else. She was conniving, almost cruel, and borderline insane. She got what she wanted. She was a lot like me.” It’s no wonder that the name Jana Schneider was in the running for the 1985 Tony Award for “Best Actress.” Her ability to bring the character to life and to win over the audience made even some of the toughest New York critics remark on her budding stage career. However, not long after, in 1988, as her first marriage to Tom Wilson, a musician and model, was failing, Jana left the cast of Drood. Although she had had the opportunity to read for other Broadway roles and audition for some famous Hollywood casting directors, she decided to take her life in a different direction altogether. “Hollywood never would have suited me,” says Jana with disgust. “I’m not the type of woman who gets thrills from seeing myself in the same scene over and over again without any variation. I loved the applause, but I got tired of Drood. I needed to do something else.”

In the Line of Fire

Jana’s “something else” was something else entirely. The beautiful Wisconsin native, who’d only left the country once before on a family trip, picked up a camera and began to document her surroundings. Before she knew it, she was headlong into the world of photojournalism. “Attending college in Madison in the 1970s was something I wouldn’t trade for anything. I learned so much there—most of it outside the classroom,” Jana remembers. “It was there that my passion for foreign affairs really began.” Inspired by the protests she had witnessed and partaken in during her college years, Jana took her camera and her bravado overseas to capture the essence of various world events. In her early photojournalism career, she covered such events as the fall of the Berlin Wall. “Most of the men in my field were to afraid to jump across the lines and really get the story. I’m sure most of those men are still alive today, but they never got what they were looking for by playing it safe,” says a very emphatic Jana. “Gunshots were something you got used to if you wanted to be a good reporter.” Being aggressive in her profession had its downfalls, and eventually, Jana took a hit. Along with a fellow journalist, she crossed the boarder into Sarajevo, Bosnia’s most dangerous region. Before they could get the shots they were looking for, they got another kind altogether. “I don’t like to remember that time of my life,” says Jana, solemn for the first time all morning. “It’s the most horrible feeling in the world to be shot at in a foreign country or to watch a friend and colleague get hit.” Jana and her companion, a Slovenian journalist named Ivo Standeker, were shot at multiple times by a tank. Both were hit. Standeker passed away on the flight to the hospital. Jana had to be flown back to the United States to have shards of the tank’s blasts removed from both her head and legs. “I still have some crazy scars,” says Jana, trying to lighten the mood by lifting her pant leg. Indeed, faint, pink scar tissue covers her leg. It’s enough to make you wonder how she can still walk. “I’m surprised she showed you those,” says Daphne as she propels herself and her wheelchair through the garage’s side door just in time to see the spectacle. “She hides them from everyone else.” As her mother says this, Jana turns a slight shade of pink and lights her fifth cigarette since coming outside. Her mother looks repulsed for a moment, but then lets her eyes relax. She knows its necessary considering what part of the story is coming up next.

Fanning the Flame

After her return from Bosnia to the United States, Jana returned home to Wisconsin. Even though she remained active in international outreach, she was severely depressed. This was in part due to the violent death of her friend and coworker, and partly because she was no longer out on the front lines getting her story. “I loved journalism,” states Jana matter-of-factually. “That’s all there is to it. I wanted to get back into it so badly, but after that close call, I didn’t dare. It wasn’t that I was afraid, but I was still very out of it and I didn’t want to worry my family any more than I already had.” “We were extremely worried,” quips Daphne from the background. Although she’s been quiet for some time, she decides this is a good opportunity to keep interjecting. “We didn’t want to see her get hurt again, or worse, end up like her poor friend. But, at the same time, it was incredibly hard to watch her sink into depression. That’s what she was doing.” Despite her fears that her family would not be thrilled with the decision, Jana began to wander. She showed up in various countries, visiting friends and their families from the photojournalism days. Then, out of nowhere, she showed up in her hometown of McFarland, Wis. “She was different when she came home,” states Daphne during a private interview in the cat hair coated living room. “She was saying things that no one could understand. She thought all these conspiracies were going on around her. We wanted her to see someone, but she wouldn’t. She just took off again.” This time when Jana left, she remained in the United States. After a stint in New Hampshire she traveled the country in her Volvo with some birds and two cats. “I loved that Volvo,” says Jana. “It was my home. It was my bed. It was my office. I lived out of that car. As horrible as it sounds, I was feeling a lot happier when I was traveling around with my animals.” It wasn’t that simple. Soon enough, Jana ran out of money and needed a job. She searched various southern states with no avail. Finally, after leaving a trail of misfortunes behind her, Jana was compensated by the United Nations for some confiscated camera equipment. Intent on reentering the world of photojournalism, Jana spent a good chunk of her money on a plane ticket back to Europe. Once again, things didn’t work out and Jana was forced to come back to the United States. She missed the big city though, and this time decided to return to the city she had first loved so dearly: New York. However, without any money, Jana couldn’t do much. She lived on the street, moving from shelter to shelter. She had very few belongings, and what she did have, she wore or carried at all times. She often told people of her many prior accomplishments. To them, the extraordinary life she described and the raggedy clothing that she wore led them to believe that she was just another crazy, middle-aged woman. When the cops were called to come for her, Bellevue was the first place they took her. Jana was committed involuntarily to the mental facility. “When we got a call from some stogy old woman telling us where she was, we all were quite relieved actually. We were just glad she wasn’t dead,” says Daphne, the usual gleam in the elderly woman’s eye growing dark. “I tried to use the time in Bellevue and the various other mental hospitals they put me in to my advantage. I’m not crazy. I’ve just had some trouble coping with what life dealt me,” says Jana, choking again on the smoke from her cigarette. “I did what I could to get in touch with family and friends I hadn’t spoken to in ages. When I got out, I went straight home.”

Finally Smoldering

Years later, Jana still resides with her mother in McFarland. For the most part, they live modestly, although neither is willing to explain how they came to afford a Mercedes. “Jana is a little nuts sometime, but she’s the sweetest woman,” says neighbor Brian Willhelmson. “I see her outside every day, just digging holes and planting trees. I asked what she was doing, since she started this project before our last snowfall, and she told me she was planting them for her mom. Since Daph is on her last leg of life, Jana wants to make her an arboretum where they can sit together and look at the trees. I think she wants to have it all finished by summer.” “I’m not sure if the trees will all survive,” continues Willhelmson. “But Daphne will appreciate them anyway. They’re just the greatest couple of people.”