From the Horse and Buggy Days to Tutoring Defensive Driving
Vivian Marie Womack Warner celebrated her 100th birthday on October 18, 2001, and is happy that she is still able to live at home and take care of herself.
Vivian was born October 18, 1901 at Blossom, Texas (near Paris) to Henry Marshal and Sarah Aletha Allen Womack. The family lived next door to Grandmother Womack. Grandfather Womack was on his farm near Faught much of the time.
It was Christmas Eve in 1911 when the family moved into the big house on the hill at nearby Slate Shoals. This was a large home-place with nine fireplaces and a Delco electric generator. There was a marvelous big barn out back and a water tower to provide running water.
Vivian and her three brothers, Sam, Allan and Hal traveled by horse four miles each day to attend school at Spring Hill.
For the tenth grade Vivian attended Wesley College two miles south of Greenville. She later attended the all-girls College of Industrial Arts in Denton. She graduated in 1923 and accepted a teacher-principal position at Slate Shoals School. The next year she taught junior high at Greenville.
It was June 28, 1925 when Vivian Marie Womack married Samuel Warner on the front lawn of her childhood homeplace. The newlyweds honeymooned in Corpus Christi and then settled down in Dallas, where Samuel was employed by a bank. Their first daughter, Patsy Ruth, was born in 1927. The family moved into their new home on Kenwood in 1934 and Sam was born there in 1936. Emily arrived in 1938.
The Dallas schools would not hire a married teacher in those days, so Vivian began teaching in the Shady Grove area of Irving until sometime around 1944, when she began teaching at Rose Hill School (between Garland and Rowlett).
During W. W. II, Samuel had to use Vivian’s car for his candy business, so she took a streetcar to downtown Dallas, transferred to another line and then on to Pleasant Grove where she caught a ride with another Rose Hill teacher.
In the summer months Vivian attended TSCW, which is now known as TWU. She received her master’s degree in 1949 and continued to teach at Rose Hill until the school burned. The students were then transferred to Southgate Elementary in the Garland ISD.
Vivian remained as a dedicated teacher to hundreds of Garland-area first graders until her retirement in 1967. She then tutored students and taught defensive driving for several years.
This mother of three, grandmother of five and great-grandmother of six (with two more on the way as of this writing), continues to read and stay informed. She believes in simplicity, serenity and sincerity.
She may have been born in Blossom, Texas, but she knows the secret of living life to its fullest bloom at one hundred years of age.
Note: Vivian Womack Warner passed away on December 22, 2005 at the age of 104. Burial was at Evergreen Cemetery in Paris, Texas.
By Emily Rogers
From Proud Heritage, Volume III by DCPA. This hardcover book is now available online.
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