Vivian Charno (Wren) was born on June 11, 1921, in Kansas City, Missouri. After graduating from Central High School in 1937, she entered Baker University in Baker, Kansas.
At Baker, she joined Zeta Tau Alpha. She entered Mercy Hospital’s School of Nursing and graduated as a Registered Nurse in 1939. Enlisting in the U.S. Navy, she served as her country as a nurse for four years.
Kansas City Times, February 5, 1945
Her first post was at Mare Island, the first Navy base in California. There she worked with amputees. She was then transferred to Fort White, Oregon, a German POW camp. Lieutenant Charno finished her Navy career at San Diego Naval Hospital.
On February 21, 1947, she married Roger J. Wren. The couple remained California residents for the rest of their lives, although they loved to travel.
She battled polio while pregnant with her third child, whom she lost before birth. She recovered and had two more children. Her husband, a football coach, took a job at Ukiah High School and she was a surgical and floor nurse at Ukiah General Hospital.
Wren then began teaching psychiatric nursing at Mendocino State Hospital. This led to her enrolling in a public health nursing degree program at Sonoma State University. Following graduation, she became the school nurse for the Ukiah Unified School District.
She was an active PTA member, served as nurse for the Camp Fire Girls’ Mendocino Woodlands camp, volunteered at the Hospice Gift Store and even served as the Easter Bunny for a Lion’s Club Easter egg hunt.
Vivian Charno Wren died on November 28, 2014, at the age of 93.
