Vivien L. F. Burnett, social worker

Vivien L. F. Burnett, a retired social worker and reading specialist, died July 21 of breast cancer at Northwest Hospital in Randallstown.

The Owings Mills resident was 92.

The daughter of Louis N. Francis and Belulah Vivian Naylor Francis Plummer, a Baltimore public schools educator, Vivien Louise Francis was born in Philadelphia and raised in East Orange, N.J., where she completed junior high school before moving with her family to Baltimore.

Her father died when she was 1, and she was adopted by her stepfather, Clinton James Plummer, a former Pullman Co. porter who was later maitre d’hotel at the Green Spring Valley Hunt Club.

After graduating in 1942 from Frederick Douglass High School, she earned a bachelor’s degree in economics and sociology with a minor in elementary education in 1946 from what is now Morgan State University.

Mrs. Burnett was a 1949 graduate of Howard University’s School of Social Work, where she earned a master’s degree. She did postgraduate work at the Johns Hopkins University.

She began her professional life in Washington, working from 1946 to 1947 at the District of Columbia Department of Social Services while in graduate school. In 1948, she was hired permanently and worked for the department from 1948 to 1952.

Mrs. Burnett became a psychiatric social worker at Spring Grove State Hospital in Catonsville, where she later became managing social worker.

She then became a city public schools educator and taught at Dickeyville Elementary School, James Mosher Elementary School and Eutaw Marshburn Elementary School. At the time of her retirement in 1992, she was a reading specialist. From 1973 to 1988, Mrs. Burnett served Baltimore’s Urban Services Agency as a center director and worked at centers throughout the city.

She was a member of the Kappa Alpha Psi Silhouettes and was a lifetime member of the NAACP and Morgan State College Alumni M. J. Naylor Chapter. She also served on the board of the Morgan Christian Center, the Weinberg Village 1 Association and the Chipperettes.

Mrs. Burnett was a lifetime member of Sharp Street Memorial United Methodist Church and served in the church’s Naylor Hughes Circle.

A celebration of her life will be held at 11 a.m. today at her church, 1206 Etting St.

She is survived by a son, Aaron G. Burnett of Owings Mills; three daughters, Stephanie Vivienne Burnett Gantt of Owings Mills, Sydney Arlene Lee of Lusby, and Sharon Burnett-Thomas of Fort Washington; nine grandchildren; and 11 great-grandchildren. Another son, Sidney Obed Burnett III, died in infancy. Her marriage to Dr. Sidney O. Burnett Jr., a dentist, ended in divorce.