Vivian H Hart

The eldest child of Walter Lee Houlditch and Nora McCary Houlditch, Vivian was born July 22, 1921, in Birmingham, Ala. She was an exceptional person from her earliest years and throughout her life.

Graduating from Shelby County High School in 1938, she was Vice President of the freshman class at Howard College (now Samford University) in Birmingham and a member of the student Senate, the May Day Scholarship Honor Court, and the A Capella Choir. She held three jobs simultaneously while earning her undergraduate degree in English, which was conferred in February 1942.

Three months later she married John Thomas Strickland, moving to Tuscaloosa where he began medical studies at the University of Alabama. He completed his M.D. at the University of Pennsylvania while Vivian worked in the Home Economics Department at the Philadelphia Electric Company and at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital.

John Strickland was a Captain in the U.S. Army Medical Corps at the outbreak of the Korean War. He was assigned to a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (MASH) unit within 25 miles of the front-line fighting. His exploits were the basis, in part, of the "MASH" motion picture and television series.

In 1958, while serving in the Alabama National Guard, then Lt. Colonel Strickland was tragically killed in an automobile accident. Vivian later married Alvin deGraffenreid Hart, the Probate Judge of Cullman County. From 1965 to 1990, she and her husband were co-owners of the Hanceville Nursing Home. "Graf," as he was known, was athletic director and golf coach at St. Bernard College in Cullman from 1976 until it closed in 1979 and later golf coach at Wallace State Community College in Hanceville.

Their home was a beautiful and welcoming place for family and friends, especially during the holidays, when their talent for generous-spirited hospitality was most vividly on display. Indeed, their home reflected Vivian's lifelong emphasis on style, which is eternal, rather than on the transitoriness of fashion, with which it is often confused.

Vivian's Christian faith was central to her being. In Cullman, she was a member of the First Baptist Church, where she held many leadership positions over the years. She was superintendent of Vacation Bible School and also led the Girls' Auxiliary and Women's Missionary Unit. She was also co-facilitator of adult Bible Study and taught various Sunday School classes.

Vivian was president of the Dogwood Garden Club in Cullman and active in Cullman's Community Concerts Association. She was a longtime supporter of Yokefellows, a Christian organization based at Earlham College in Richmond, Ind. She enjoyed international travel, current events and reading. She was an elegant speaker and writer; and, as all who knew her can attest, an elegant person.

Left to cherish her memory are her son, John David Strickland, of Cullman; her daughters, Peggye Hart Knight of Huntsville and Linda Beth Hart of Atlanta; her grandson, Lenn Knight of Huntsville; two great-grandchildren; her nephew, Allen Sawyer of Gainesville, Fla.; and her niece and namesake, Vivian Ruth Sawyer of Louisville, Ky. She was predeceased by her husband, Graf Hart; her daughter, Amanda Jane Strickland of Cullman; and her sister and only sibling, Bette Houlditch Sawyer of Gainesville, Fla.

A funeral service will be held on Wednesday, January 3, 2017 at 11:00 A.M. at Moss Service Funeral Home Chapel with burial to follow in Cullman City, Cemetery. The family will receive friends for one hour prior to the service.

Expressions of sympathy may go to Cullman First Baptist Church, World Hunger, Jimmy Hale Mission or Gideon’s International.

Please visit mossservicefh.com to leave condolences for the family.

Moss Service Funeral Home Directing.