Vivian Goodwin Obituary (1940

Vivian Edwina Palm Goodwin passed away at Hillcrest Medical Center on September 18, 2012. She was born on June 19, 1940, to Marguerite Elizabeth (Nee) Russell and Dr. Irvin Davey Palm, Sr. in Columbia, South Carolina. At the time of her birth, her father was a waiter on a train and her mother a housekeeper before becoming a U. S. Air Force medical doctor and university English professor, respectively. Vivian traveled the country living on military bases. Affectionately known as ?Punky,? she attended public schools in Columbia, S.C., Denison, Texas, and Victorville, Calif., before her family settled in Tulsa. She attended Booker T. Washington Elementary School, George Washington Carver Junior High School and graduated from Booker T. Washington High School in 1958. When she learned her lifelong crush from her childhood, James Osby Goodwin, was going to attend the then all-male University of Notre Dame, she enrolled a year later into the nearby all-female St. Mary?s College. That decision solidified their love that began as neighbors on Haskell Place. Mrs. Goodwin attended also Howard University in Washington, D.C., and Benedictine Heights College (now home of Monte Cassino School) in Tulsa. She had also been a life-long student at Tulsa Community College. In college, she took French with a plan to spend a semester studying abroad at Paris Sorbonne University. Instead, she opted to pursue a nobler path. ?My dreams of going to Paris were cut short when I decided I wanted to get married and start a family,? she wrote. ?I stayed quite busy for nine years having five children. They were all beautiful, healthy children, and I was quite happy. Always having in the back of my mind to someday study French at the Sorbonne, whatever conversational classes in French I could find, I took and studied. Now that I am a grandmother, I have no desire to go to Europe. The idea of flying across an ocean simply terrifies me.? Vivian married James Osby Goodwin on Thanksgiving Day on Nov. 24, 1961, at St. Monica Catholic Church. She worked as a receptionist at her father?s medical practice on East Pine Street, while her husband attended night law school at the University of Tulsa. Later, she served as a staff writer, photographer, copy editor, advertising representative, circulation, a janitor, and practically every job at The Oklahoma Eagle, as a freelance writer for several publications over the years, and sold real estate. She was a member of the Tulsa Chapter of the Links, Inc., The Charms, The deClasse Bridge, the Tulsa chapter of Jack and Jill of America Inc., the Tulsa Philharmonic and other civic and social groups. She was a member of Holy Family Catholic and attended In the Spirit Christian, St. Monica Catholic and St. Augustine Catholic churches. Vivian was preceded in death by her parents and stepfather, Thomas Martin. Besides her husband, James, Mrs. Vivian Palm Goodwin is also survived by her five children including her son, Jerry of Tulsa; son and daughter-in-law, David and Angela of Liberty Township, Ohio; daughters, Anna of Houston, Texas, and Jeanne of Tulsa; and son, Joseph of Tulsa. Other survivors are granddaughters, Leah, Viviana and Addison; grandsons, Jalen, Christian and Jackson; a brother, Irvin Davey Palm, Jr. of Tulsa; a sister, Marilyn P. (Skip) Dorsey of Chicago; sister-in-laws, JoAnn Gilford, Jeanne (John) Arradondo, Susan (Johnny) Jordan, Alquita Goodwin; brother-in-laws, Edward L. (Johnnie) and Robert K. (Ruth) Goodwin, and a number of nieces, nephews, cousins, relatives and friends.