Author's Bio (by Kendall Brown)
*Kendall Brown is a graduate student at Xavier University who interviewed Vivian and read her bOOks.
Vivian Kline was born on July 3rd, 1925 in Manhattan, NY. She was the youngest of 3 siblings after oldest sister Marjorie, nicknamed Mard, and older brother Walter, nicknamed Wally. The earliest years of Vivian’s life revolved around her family’s 4-story brownstone home on 57 West 91 Street in Manhattan, the same home that her great grandmother bought in 1890 and the home that her father grew up in. That house was home to many fond memories.
Vivian recalls the family having a few German nurses in her early years and one, Hilda, who would sleep in her room with her. Hilda took Vivian to Central Park, played with her, and taught her German songs. After the children were old enough for the nurses to depart, the family would employ couples who lived with them and helped to take care of the family and Vivian speaks of them warmly.
When the dumbwaiter in the house was not in use, Vivian and Wally could be found lowering one another down its length for sport. They would go to the basement and play in the large ice box when it was not keeping ice,
turning yet another mundane house appliance into something fun. Other times, Wally and friends would play cowboys and Vivian was a willing volunteer to play captured Indian. Wally, being the more relaxed and mischievous of Vivian’s siblings, once filled paper bags with water to launch through a window at passersby below, an activity Vivian thought was great fun until one woman threatened to call the police. Vivian says it was Wally’s approach to life, his ability to go his own way, that taught her all would not be lost if a few rules were broken here and there.
Wally was perhaps the inspiration for Vivian’s attraction to mischief. As a young child, she recalls taking her mother’s red lipstick and applying it to her cheeks, hoping to fool her father, a doctor, into thinking she was ill. She must have had a talent for this style of makeup because her father diagnosed her “rash” and, after the remedy he prescribed showed no signs of clearing up the worsening “rash,” he sent her to a dermatologist. This dermatologist was not fooled, but even after the jig was up, Vivian insisted that she was innocent. Vivian describes herself as an innocent experimenter and she feels lucky that this quality didn’t get her into more trouble.
School
Oldest sister Mard was 6 years older than Vivian and took after her father’s austere sensibility. Mard was often consulted by Vivian about serious matters over the years, including the dire straits of adolescence. Mard was the first of the children to attend a small private school, which took its principles from the educational ideas of John Dewey. The school taught all 12 grades and kindergarten. Vivian has remained close to her old classmates, 6 of whom went to the school together from kindergarten through graduation. A close bond was made, and Vivian’s graduating class held regular reunions every 5 years for many years until newsletters about each other’s lives became the preferred method of catching up.
The school was one that promoted arts and the students were always engaged in creating. Vivian recalls crafting a model of a Spanish Armada ship, and her esteemed role as Hatshepsut in one of the many school plays. The school taught students around a different theme each year and fourth grade was the year Vivian learned about Egypt. Such an impression was left on Vivian that, when visiting Egypt fifty years later, she was moved to tears by the sight of King Tut’s tomb.
In 1936, during the depths of the Depression, Vivian’s family moved into the apartment building where her grandparents lived. At the same time, while Vivian was in Junior High, the school changed its focus and abandoned their artistic principles in favor of more traditional schooling that would ensure a better college entrance rate. Chemistry and languages were not favorites for Vivian and she preferred the study of art and history. When America entered the war, Vivian was in 10th grade and she put her artistic talent to work, crafting and selling felt pins to raise money for war bonds.
Vivian’s class was the 8th class to graduate from the school and most of her classmates went to college. Vivian applied to the Rhode Island School of Design with thoughts of balancing a regular college program with an art education. When she was not accepted, she applied to Vassar, then an all-girls school where she was a legacy (her mother and sister, Mard, had gone there before her). She was accepted but she was not happy with the arrangement, having wanted to go to a co-ed school on her own merit. She took these events as a sign that she should not take any more art classes and, subsequently, she struggled with deciding upon a major for much of her time there. It wasn’t until she consulted with a family friend who asked her where she saw herself in 10 years that Vivian’s anxiety about her major melted away as she replied that she would have a family and be doing something that interested her part-time.
Summers in Connecticut
In 1926, Vivian’s parents bought a farmhouse in Westport, CT and would drive there from Manhattan on the weekends. Many games of touch football, “kick it,” and tennis were played there amongst the children of the Bass family and family friends who stayed in the converted barn an acre away. There were picnics and fires for roasting all manner of treats on the nearby Compo Beach. Swimming was an activity for the ocean water, and Vivian was surprised later in life when she moved to Cincinnati and discovered swimming only took place in pools. Several winter weekends were spent in Connecticut, skating on the frozen pond, reading, and playing in the attic.
Summers saw the Bass family spending more than just weekends at the Connecticut home, except for Vivian’s father who stayed in Manhattan to continue making house calls for his patients. School friends were invited to spend time at the house in the country and delight in the growing vegetables and other wonders that the country held for city children. Vivian recalls their mother driving them to the beach during the week in an open car. While beach visits were opportunities to swim and eat snacks from a nearby hut, the drive was less than ideal for the children. Their mother would struggle with the gearshift in the car and stalled on the slopes, causing her children to sink out of sight in embarrassment.
Meeting and Marrying Dan
During Vivian’s first Spring vacation from Vassar, she visited Mard, who was going to medical school at Columbia. She ate lunch with her sister and her sister’s classmates, only one of whom was a man due to the wartime shortage of men in the states. She recalls that he asked her what is was she did, and she replied only that she went to Vassar. She recalls thinking that she could never get such a man for herself.
That summer Vivian attended an all-day picnic Mard was hosting for the Physiology department of Columbia at the family’s Connecticut summer home. As fate or chance would have it, the same man Vivian had met while having lunch with Mard over Spring vacation was in attendance. This man was Dan, the only other “unattached” person at the picnic and therefore, Vivian’s companion for much of the day. They talked, joked, ate, and discovered their attraction for one another.
Several weeks later, when Vivian returned from vacationing with her parents, she found out that Dan had been trying to reach her. Vivian called Dan and the two met up that day. Vivian was set to go back to Vassar for the fall of her sophomore year the next day, so they made the most of their date and spent the whole day together, 17 grand hours. The two played tennis together, went to a diner for dinner, and then caught a movie downtown. After that, they took the ferry to Staten Island and rode on the Third Avenue el. When they finally returned to Vivian’s family’s empty apartment, she cooked breakfast for the two of them and they shared a kiss before she took the train back to Vassar.
That fall, in 1944, Vassar locked down its students in response to one of the last Polio epidemics. No students were allowed to leave and no visitors were allowed on campus until after the first frost of the year. During those eight weeks apart, Vivian and Dan wrote each other many letters, all of which Vivian has kept. When they were reunited, they had four dates before discovering that the activities of their fourth date had resulted pregnancy. Once again, Mard was consulted about this serious matter and the task of telling Vivian’s parents was split up: Vivian told her mother while Dan informed her father. Vivian’s mother was accepting enough as she was eager to have grandchildren, but her father was less than pleased. Her father decided that the two would marry in a judge’s office and that Vivian would finish the year at Vassar. Vivian and Dan complied, and they were married on April 25th, 1945. They bought the cheapest gold wedding ring at Tiffany’s and honeymooned at the Brevoort Hotel before Vivian returned to Vassar.
Back at school, Vivian proudly displayed her wedding ring, but as one of only a few students who were married, she felt that she became isolated from her classmates. When she left Vassar for good in June, she and Dan found an apartment in Manhattan. It was a railroad flat with all the tiny rooms in a row and no electric appliances. The two had to learn to live on very little and Vivian took care of their home while pregnant. On November 8th, 1945, Vivian noticed blood running down her legs as she hung laundry. She took a cab to her parents’ home and called her father, who picked her up and drove her to the hospital. Once Dan was able to meet her at the hospital, Vivian had a Caesarian section and the couple discovered that they were parents to twin girls, a surprise they had not expected. The twins were named Elizabeth, called Betsy as a child, and Kathy.
Raising Children
In November, Dan and Vivian moved into her parents’ apartment with them at the behest of her father. There, she cared for her tiny twins and, because they were so small and difficult to keep nourished, Dan became a very involved father. After caring for the children all day, Vivian would allow Dan to care for the girls while she cooked dinner.
After less than 2 years, Dan and Vivian moved back into their railroad flat with the twins and gave them the bedroom at the back. They instead slept on a pullout bed in the front room than barely accommodated the bed when it was open so that the couple had to climb in and out. While Dan was at work, Vivian recalls pushing the twins in a stroller to Central Park where many other children were being cared for by nannies. At times there was talk among the women of Jell-O at the stores and there would be a great rush to purchase such a treat.
Before the twins were 2, Vivian was pregnant with their youngest child, Emily. When Emily was born in 1947, Vivian’s parents gave them an electric washing machine to use in their new rented home in Connecticut. While in Connecticut, Vivian and Dan shared their home with another couple to help pay rent. This couple, who coincidentally shared the last name Kline, was made up of Al, a man going to Yale law school, and his wife Jeannie, who was a nursery school teacher and helped take care of the twins. Vivian acquired an enclosure to put outside and was able to let the girls play while she worked at her art. For the next 3 years both Kline families lived together in a series of rental homes.
Life in Bethany
When Dan became an assistant professor on the faculty at Yale in 1950, he and Vivian bought their first house in the suburbs. This house would do for a while, but as their girls grew older, they decided a house in the country was better suited for their needs. They bought an old farmhouse that needed fixing up on a 4-acre lot in Bethany. Vivian’s parents came out to see the house and Vivian’s father, when asked if it was as bad as he thought, replied only with, “Worse.” Her mother, however, saw that the couple could be happy working on the house together.
Vivian and Dan put much work into the house. The farmhouse was not just a farmhouse in name. The family grew to include dogs, a pony, two horses, and chickens. The girls learned to ride “bareback” since they only had one saddle. In addition to tending to their menagerie, Vivian and Dan hosted dinners at their home and tried inviting varied guests to encourage mingling between people who otherwise might not have met.
The family spent time traveling, as well, driving and camping across Europe in 1958. They began in London and made their way through England, Holland, Germany, Italy, Austria, and France. Years later they would embark on a cross-country road trip in a second-hand Oldsmobile. They visited friends along the way and, to the dismay of the girls, stopped at many historic sites so that Vivian could read the historical markers (which the girls came to call “hysterical markers”). On the way back to the East Coast, the Oldsmobile began to give up, dropping its motor, stalling, and flat out refusing to start. By the time they reached home, they sold the car for $25 and felt lucky to have gotten as much.
In later years, Dan and Vivian continued to travel, sometimes for Dan’s lectures or Vivian’s enameling conferences, some purely for enjoyment. In their travels, the couple has been to Iran, Afghanistan, Cambodia, Nepal, Ceylon, India, Japan, Thailand, New Guinea, Indonesia, West Africa, Egypt, Israel, and many countries in Europe. Though never thinking themselves rich, they were strategic with their money and traveled on a budget.
The Move to Cincinnati
After 19 years in Bethany, Dan received an offer of chairmanship at the University of Cincinnati Medical School. Vivian felt it was the right time for a change as the girls were now grown and in college. When Vivian and Dan moved to Cincinnati, Vivian decided it was also the right time to “try on” new identities. She joined every new group she was invited to and even tried wearing gloves to the store. The latter, she decided, was not for her but she was always willing to try new things. Vivian felt that Cincinnati was rather more conservative than she was used to and that she had more spunk than it was ready for. She has since felt that she has mellowed, and the city has become less conservative to meet her somewhere in the middle. She still lives in Cincinnati today.
Dan and Vivian were of a similar temperament and never argued. The two enjoyed each others wit and were supportive of the others endeavors. When the children were no longer at home, the couple began a tradition of writing a Christmas letter which detailed the goings-on of their family in the past year. Dan, an avid New York Times crossword puzzler and Vivian, a creative artist, would put their heads together to create a fun and unique iteration of the letter. Vivian recalls sitting down with drinks in hand to craft this letter one evening each year, laughing with Dan as they wrote.
Art
When the twins were infants, Vivian decided that she needed a creative outlet and the couple bought a small electric kiln so that Vivian could create masterpieces out of clay. They also bought a potter’s wheel after Dan attempted to make one for Vivian, a wheel which they could never quite center. While living in Connecticut, she had two days to herself to work on pottery while her girls were being taken care of by Jeannie. When the family moved into their own home in the suburbs, Vivian received her first professional order for her ceramics – six clay elephants with peanut dishes on their backs for a country club bar.
While in New Haven, Vivian returned to school to receive a 2-year art teacher training. She accepted a part-time job in Occupational Therapy teaching mentally ill patients how to enamel, the art of firing glass to metal. Though enameling was a new craft to Vivian, she taught herself and stayed just ahead of the lessons she gave her students. For 3 years after that she did research in esthetics at Yale.
Vivian calls herself an “unconventional enamelist” as she has pushed the boundaries of the craft for many years. She has achieved success in juried art shows and in selling her wares. She also started a craft guild when she came to Cincinnati and has nurtured it for many years. When she arrived, the only craft guild served the entire state and therefore met infrequently. The guild Vivian started served artists within a 50-mile radius of Cincinnati and she wrote its newsletter for 12 years. So much of her was poured into the guild that she called it her fourth child.
Vivian’s success was also noted by her parents who, upon hosting her first one-woman art show, praised her creativity. One of her shows was a collection of masks, pieces which Dan helped her transport to her show. Before the show could even begin, Vivian noticed that there was a “SOLD” tag on the wall displaying her multi-item art piece. Upon inquiring, she found out that as the masks were being put up for display, a woman saw them and decided they would be a perfect collection to display in her home. Vivian’s enamels included an ingenious series of pieces of which she sold many – light switch plates featuring figures standing in the windows of what could be an apartment building in the city.
The black and white urban designs that appear on many of Vivian’s enamel pieces have been a signature aspect of her work, work that has featured in national shows, has won awards, and are still being sold among curators of fine art to this day. For 18 years she also ran a co-op with 9 other local artists, a co-op that has been featured in Cincinnati Magazine.
Vivian Now
Vivian currently lives in Cincinnati at Marjorie P. Lee with her two cats. Her apartment is like a gallery displaying art of her own making and pieces from her travels. The headboard of her bed is beautiful antique that her husband once made from the shutters of her childhood home, shutters that she and Mard pulled free when revisiting the empty old brownstone of their adulthood. Almost as an outward sign that she is an artist, Vivian wears a flower behind her ear each day. She says she can’t remember when she first started doing this, but that if she’s not wearing her flower, people are bound to ask if something is wrong.
She speaks fondly of her children and grandchildren, saying that they are all very nice people and who have led very full lives, a fact that is very satisfying for her. She no longer reads the letters between herself and Dan from that Fall when they were apart, but she still has them all. She has compiled these together and has allowed her children to read them, though at least one has decided that they are too personal for her to read. In addition, Vivian has written a memoir of her life called “Many Happy Returns.” The memoir includes short biographies of her mother and short autobiographical writings from Kathy and her daughter, Kara. The memoir is candid and relatable, painting vivid pictures of moments in her life.
Perhaps it is this talent for writing which she nurtured with Dan each Christmas that has led Vivian to author 5 books in total:
- “The Lion’s Share in Art and Legend,” which tells of the lion as a symbol in the art of the Orient, Africa, and the Western world (published in 1973)
- “Many Happy Returns,” a memoir (published in 1998)
- “Let Freedom Sing: Of 19th Century Americans: An Historical Novel or Could it Be a Musical?,” a novel about a group of young, Black ex-slave singers (published in 2009)
- “Love in the 40’s – When Mail Came Twice a Day,” a collection of Vivian and Dan’s love letters (published in 2012)
- “4@94,” a collection of 4 stories in honor of her 94th birthday (published in 2019)
Vivian’s book, “Let Freedom Sing” is currently being transformed into a musical and one of the stories in “4@94” called Re-Tired – Home Away from Home is being set to music.
When Vivian was asked as a college student where she saw herself 10 years later, she said she would have a family and be doing something interesting part-time. In both of those things, Vivian has succeeded. She has raised a happy and loving family which now extends to great grandchildren. She has also maintained her lifelong passion for art, which she has channeled into a successful part-time career. In the eyes of her teenage self, Vivian would be a great success.