Vivian Ann Nader

By Robert J. “Bobby” Nader (First Born Baby Boomer Son)

“A MOTHER IS YOUR FIRST FRIEND, YOUR BEST FRIEND, YOUR FOREVER FRIEND….HER INFLUENCE ON THE LIVES OF HER CHILDREN IS BEYOND CALCULATION….IT IS SHE WHO CAN TAKE THE PLACE OF ALL OTHERS, BUT WHOSE PLACE NO ONE ELSE CAN TAKE”

Vivacious Vivian Ann Nader, born Vivian Ann Zrake, a member of what has been universally known as “The Greatest Generation”, was born a hundred and two years ago (102), on November 23, 1920, inside a simple residence in downtown Brooklyn, New York on Atlantic Avenue where her mother, Matilda Ann Farrah Zrake, and father, Najeeb (‘James’) Zrake, resided with their first born child, Elias Zrake. With the mid-wife assistance of her grandmother, Sultana “Taitha” Farrah, Vivian came into this beautiful world at home. Her parents and grandparents were Lebanese immigrants who came to America from Beirut, Lebanon and Marseen, Turkey during the great wave of immigration at the turn of the 20th Century. Her mother Matilda and Grandmother Sultana first arrived inside the steerage of a great ship as did her father Najeeb subsequently, at the then unparalleled federal inspection and processing destination of Ellis Island in the Upper Bay of New York City.

Vivian was raised as a first generation American who always adored this country. “America the Beautiful” and “God Bless America” were two of her favorite patriotic compositions right up to her last day when she passed from this earthly life to enter God’s holy kingdom on December 8, 2022, which was perfectly timed by coinciding with the solemnity of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, celebrating the sinless lifespan of the Blessed Virgin Mary, to whom Vivian daily offered her prayers. Raised in both the Antioch Syrian Orthodox and Catholic Churches, Vivian was devout throughout her life.

She first went to elementary school on Pacific Street in downtown Brooklyn before her family, with the addition of another brother, George Zrake, moved to 8TH Street in the desirable Prospect Park area on the opposite side of this vast urban park from where Ebbetts Field was located, the home field of her favorite baseball team, the Brooklyn Dodgers. Her family then moved to and rented the upper floor of their first home on 47th Street, owned by her beloved aunt and uncle, Tom and Nellie Ganim, Nellie being Matilda’s sister. After elementary school through the 8th grade, she then went to Girls Commercial High School on the other side of Prospect Park, where she studied fashion design of clothing. She went there with her enduring lifelong friends, including Lila Haddad, Eleanor Hakim, Sylvia Lutfy and Grace Hoffman, all of whom predeceased Vivian. During her school years, her fellow students nicknamed her “Blue” because of her bright blue eyes. Ironically, in Arabic, her last name “Zrake” translates to the word ‘blue’. In addition to speaking beautiful and perfect English, she was also proficient in Arabic, having learned this difficult language from her immediate family, which she spoke fluently during her lifetime. Vivian was also a member of the “Shore Set”, an informal neighborhood sorority of local girls whose families lived near the stunning and scenic Brooklyn district of Shore Road Park in Bay Ridge.

During her teenage years and early twenties, Vivian was one of the ‘Bobby Soxers’ who attended the live concerts with her girlfriends of the Big Band orchestras of the day, including those of Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey and Harry James. She had the unique and memorable experience of being inside the screaming throngs of fans at the classic Paramount Theatre and Astor Roof venues in Manhattan to see in person the new kid singer from Hoboken, New Jersey, Frank Sinatra, who she got to see decades later in concert at the Sun Dome in Tampa, Florida.

Thursday, November 23, 1944, on that Presidentially Proclaimed ‘National Day of Thanksgiving’ as the tides of WWII began to turn in favor of the Allied Forces, the very day Vivian turned 24, she met the first and only love of her life, First Lieutenant Elias Nader, from St. Augustine, Florida, who was about to embark for the European Theater of Operation during World War II, as a fighter pilot and flying reconnaissance in the branch of the United States Army Air Force. Eli Nader too was a first generation Lebanese American whose parents also entered the U.S.A. as immigrants from Beirut. The Nader family and Zrake family had, interestingly, met many years before through a common relative in Worcester, Massachusetts, which precipitated Eli first calling on and meeting Vivian on that Thanksgiving Thursday. Lt. Nader became so smitten and fell so deeply in love with Miss Zrake, especially when she opened the door and he initially saw glamorous Vivian as she always looked, beautifully and demurely dressed and coiffed in the elegant classic styles of the 1940s and 1950s, that he proudly inscribed as artwork on the nose of his P-51 Mustang single piloted 1940s war-plane, “Vivacious Vivian”, in huge letters, for all of his fellow airmen and the opposing pilots of the Third Reich to witness.

On August 12, 1945, these two graduates of The Great Depression, World War II, the Big Band era, and immigrant parents, who fell in love at first sight, got married at Fort Hamilton in the Bay Ridge area of Brooklyn. They first resided together in Brooklyn, living as newlyweds, in the second two-story 47th Street house owned by the Ganims, all under the same roof as Tom and Nellie, their two sons who were Vivian’s adored first cousins, Raymond and Donald Ganim, Taitha Farrah, Vivian’s Mother Matil’, her two brothers, her first cousin and father’s orphaned nephew, Gabrial Kouchary, and the family dog Pudgy. Eli and Vivian then resided for a short while in Port Chester and Rye, New York, and then back to Brooklyn where they had their three children: Robert Joseph, the first born, who Vivian named after her favorite movie star, Robert Taylor; her magnificent and loving daughter with whom they became lifelong and endearing friends and mutual caretakers, Joyce Ann, in the same parallel way Vivian adored and generously cared for her mother Matilda “Nana” Zrake as she aged; and George Elias, her youngest child, named after both Vivian’s younger brother George Zrake, and Eli’s younger brother, George Nader.

Eventually, after the birth of their third child, Eli and Vivian moved their young family to the newer thriving, but not yet well known provincial city of Tampa, Florida. They settled in the northeast community of Temple Terrace, where they prospered for a while, having once been members of the Temple Terrace Golf and Country Club for years. Unfortunately, the economy retracted at the time and Eli, at the young age of 49, died suddenly, leaving Vivian a widow at the still youthful age of 47. Thus, Vivian remained a widow for over 54 years. Her continued main focus, but with triple the energy and commitment, now being a single parent in a world of couples, was her three children and their well- being, health, happiness, paramount safety, and education. And because God could not be everywhere at all times, he therefore made Vivian……to watch over her children as a sentinel to ensure their progress and success absent a father. Her selflessness, which began when she was young, and continued in a pronounced way from her wedding day onward and always, was an inspiration to her entire family, in-laws, and friends. One of her cutest traits was to call everyone “Honey”, when indeed she was the sweetest person in the room and always a Lady.

Vivian’s greatest accomplishment for which she was most proud, however, was not for anything she personally achieved, but that each of her three children, Bob, Joyce and George, while she was the sole parent, became very successful lawyers and practicing members of the Florida Bar. This could not have happened without Vivian’s sacrifice, advice, and motherly critiques when absolutely necessary. She could not hesitate, in the most humble and fitting manner when the opportunity presented itself, to proclaim that her three offspring had become attorneys.

Vivian endured and persevered because of the immeasurable love she had for her children, despite the tragedies she endured, from the loss of her father a week after she got married forcing an unexpected end to the honeymoon, the early deaths of both of her brothers, and the sudden passing of her beloved husband Eli when he was only 49. But with her vast reserve of hope, her deep and abiding faith, her gift of love, her glorification of Jesus Christ, her ability to compartmentalize fate and misfortune, her bright heart, and her noticeably abounding vivacious and happy nature, she endured for over a century, spanning the incumbency of nineteen U.S. Presidents.

In 1993, Vivian added another son to her fold when Joyce Ann married Adrian Cuarta of Tampa. For twenty-nine years, and even before he was betrothed to Joyce, he loved Vivian like a mother and she him as her fourth child. Adrian and Joyce together provided Vivian with incomparable care and assistance as she aged and became frailer as time inevitably marched on. Vivian lost most of her sight and hearing in 2013 and 2014, and had to move out of her Bayshore Blvd. Condominium unit where she had lived for 18 years, into an assisted living facility. But with the spirit in which she always conducted her life, she continued to laugh, joke, shine her sparkling lovable smile, sing songs from the Great American Songbook, and maintain an attitude of constant joy as she began losing her resiliency. The staff members of the incredible Canterbury Tower Nursing Facility where she passed after her blessed and sacred life of 102 years and 15 days adored Vivian for the respect and gentility she always displayed toward those who assisted her. The entire Nader family sincerely thanks each and every staff member at Canterbury for the gracious and tender way they cared for Vivian over the final six months of her long life. “Farewell” Vivacious Vivian For A Life Well Lived!!

Vivian is survived by her four children, Bob Nader (her ‘Bobby’), Joyce Nader (her ‘Joycie’), George Nader (her ‘Georgie’), and Adrian Cuarta, her four grandchildren, Samantha Christine Nader, Kelly Joyce Fazel (Ali), Kevin Elias Allan Nader, and Shannon Mackenzie Nader, her sister-in-law, Rose Zrake of Brooklyn, New York, her two incredibly thoughtful and attentive God-Daughters, Claudia Zrake Bogris of Fair Lawn, New Jersey, also her niece, and Sherrie Nasrallah of Tampa, Florida, and by her many loving, admirable and accomplished nieces and nephews and close and caring friends.

A Funeral Mass will be celebrated at 10a.m. Monday, December 19, 2022 at Christ The King Catholic Church, 821 South Dale Mabry Highway in Tampa, Florida. The family will receive friends Monday from 9-10a.m. at the church. Interment to follow in Myrtle Hill Memorial Park, 4228 East Lake Avenue, Tampa at 2:00 p.m.

In lieu of additional flowers, please make a donation in the memory of Vivian Ann Nader to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital at P.O. Box 50, Memphis, Tennessee 38101-9929, or through its website of stjude.org/donatetoday