It”™s one of those love stories. He was a student at Princeton University; she was working at IBM Corp. in sales. Frances and Bernard Schneider met while playing bridge at a New York City bridge club and, 30 years later, they”™re still playing the card game ”“ only on a national level.
“Bridge is the most fascinating of games,” said Frances Schneider. “It”™s intellectual, there”™s psychology in it and it”™s sociable. It”™s a complex, fascinating game, and it”™s totally absorbing. Some play every day of the week.”
Schneider began playing back in London, where she grew up. “In England, young ladies got married very young and stayed home in those days, which is how I really didn”™t see my future,” she said. “I didn”™t know what I wanted to do with myself, so I did some traveling, which was not so unusual for young folks in Europe at that time.”
She had some family in New York City and came for a visit, fell in love with the Big Apple, got a green card ”“ “It was a little easier in those days” ”“ and eventually wound up at IBM in Manhattan and, later in White Plains, N.Y. “A friend told me that IBM was looking to hire women into sales,” she said. “Before that, it was all men.”
By the time she retired last year after 34 years at the company, Schneider was sales executive for one of IBM”™s worldwide brands. “What I did was I worked with managers in headquarters areas around the world helping them put programs into place. My focus was on what IBM called medium-sized companies that have different requirements from the mega companies. My job was to help our sales force focus on those customers.”
Before she even joined IBM, though, “one of my cousins said there was a very nice bridge club in the city where there were a lot of young people,” she said. “In those days, young people used to play bridge in college. I started playing there regularly, four or five times a week.” And on holidays, Bernard “would come back from Princeton and come to the same club. We started playing bridge together ”“ he was a very good bridge player ”“ and then started dating and married a couple of years later.”
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National ranking
“When we were first married, we would play in tournaments and travel a great deal,” Schneider said. “It”™s very hard to explain the bridge world, how compulsive it is.” Some play every day of the week, attending regional and sectional tournaments and working their way up to national tournaments.
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As players become more proficient at the card game and attend more tournaments, they encounter even better players. “You can play against truly great players,” she said. “Normally you play at your local club, and there”™s a whole mixture of talent there. When you play in New York City, you can play against a world-class player.”
Once the Schneiders began raising a family ”“ their son, Andrew, is now 29; daughter, Jessica, is 26 ”“ “we no longer could play as competitively as we did,” she said. “Before, we tended to travel regionally in the Northeast. We wanted to play against good competition and meet different people and see different styles of play. When you play against excellent players, it”™s very interesting to see what they do and how they do things better than you. It expands your understanding of the game.”
“We now travel again quite extensively,” she said. “We just came back from St. Louis, and last year we were in Chicago. This summer we”™ll be in Nashville.” At the Chicago national tournament, the Schneiders won a Grand National Team title in the B player rank, representing New England. “When you play bridge, you get points and people who have a certain number of master points are in the A ranking,” she said. “Since we stopped playing for a number of years, we didn”™t earn as many points as others. But we now play in the A ranking.”
The couple plays at the Wilton Bridge Club ”“ it actually meets in Norwalk ”“ which runs a half-dozen or more games a week. “People just show up, maybe 30 people for an average game,” she said. As many as 10,000 people can be part of a national tournament.
Bridge lost a lot of its popularity over the years, “but recently there”™s been a lot of focus on novice games and giving bridge lessons,” she said. “We”™re seeing a lot of newer players, although not necessarily young players.”
The couple seldom plays bridge socially. “We discuss bridge at home a great deal, but go out to the bridge club to play,” she said. “We very, very rarely have a social bridge evening.” One reason is that bridge club players play duplicate bridge, while those who play socially in their homes play rubber bridge. “We don”™t find rubber bridge as interesting.”
“Once you go to a bridge club, you tend to get into that mode,” she said. “I”™m definitely a competitive person, and people who play bridge seriously tend to be very competitive. You want to play better and you want to win.”
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Second careers
Both Frances and Bernard are into their second careers. Bernard was an attorney, retired and went back to college for a master”™s degree in education. He”™s now teaching full time at Norwalk High School. Frances works from their home in the Riverside section of Greenwich as a reverse-mortgage specialist with Financial Freedom Senior Funding Corp. in Pasadena, Calif.
A reverse mortgage, she said, “enables seniors to take equity out of their homes to continue living there and enjoy a nicer, better quality of life.” And “after the corporate world, it”™s very nice to work with individuals and help them out of sometimes difficult situations, sometimes just to enjoy life a little bit more.”
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