Gastineau Channel Memories

Gruber, Vivian Ethel

Eleanor Gruber Smith

Vivian was born in Kennicott and moved to Juneau with the family when her father went there for work. Vivian attended Juneau schools and graduated from high school there. When her family moved to Thane she attended school in a one-room school with a potbelly stove for heat. When her sister Eleanor became quite ill, the family went to Seattle where Eleanor went through the Virginia Mason Hospital. Upon her return to home in Seattle, they all came down with scarlet fever, except sister Verna. The family was in absolute quarantine during this time causing Vivian to lose some schooling and had to repeat a grade. The family returned to Juneau and started school again. Vivian went to nursing school in Seattle for a semester but became ill and returned to Juneau.

She married Emil Millard Starks and had two children: Treva and Leslie. Millard died and she married Jack Kent, living in Yakima, Chelan and also Missouri for a time. She is now living in Mesa, Arizona, where she and Jack are retired and enjoy traveling in their motor home. They raised a boy, Robert Kent, as their own and he now lives in Vancouver, Washington. Treva lives in Yakima and Leslie in Mesa.