NPR reporter pays tribute to mother, killed in Montclair
Vivian Folkenflik played a variety of roles in her 83 years, from a longtime college professor and student mentor in California to a grandmother who enjoyed spending the last few years with her family on the East Coast.
Her life ended suddenly last month when she was hit by a pickup truck while crossing a street in Montclair. But rather than focus on her death, her son, David, highlighted how she lived, in a lengthy Facebook post early Wednesday morning.
“She was marked by her incisive intellect, her profound caring for others, her drive to connect and her caustic wit,” said David Folkenflik, a reporter who serves as a media correspondent for NPR. “She lived a long and full life with surprising and numerous distinct chapters.”
Vivian Folkenflik was struck at the intersection of Bellevue Avenue and Park Street on Oct. 28 in the afternoon, said acting Essex County Prosecutor Theodore N. Stephens II and Montclair Police Chief Todd Conforti. She was taken to Mountainside Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead 45 minutes later.
Vivian was born in Brooklyn in 1940, her son said. Her parents, a cardiologist and a school librarian, helped instill in her an eclectic mix of interests, including museums, music, literature, history, travel and the baseball player Jackie Robinson.
“Above all, she was restlessly curious about the broader world around her and sought to cultivate connections with others,” David Folkenflik said.
Vivian graduated from high school at 16 and continued her education at Radcliffe College, a women’s liberal arts school in Massachusetts. She then earned a master’s degree at Cornell University, with a concentration in French literature.
It was at Cornell where she met her future husband, Robert, when the two were doctoral candidates. Robert told her at their first lunch together — after her then-boyfriend left the table — that he would marry her, according to David’s post.
Robert was right; the couple wed two years later and soon had two children. The family lived in upstate New York, where Robert held his first professor job, before moving to Laguna Beach, California, in 1975.
The Folkenfliks both spent the ensuing decades as professors at the University of California, Irvine, after Vivian joined the staff in the early 1980s. She taught a humanities core course that incorporated history, literature and philosophy, in addition to mentoring hundreds of graduate students and faculty on teaching and research crafts.
Vivian’s daughter also was killed in a car accident. According to news archives, Nora Folkenflik, 28, was riding her bike when a drunken driver crashed into her in Seattle on Jan. 17, 1995.
Nora’s death, David said, made her relationships with her students and future professors even more meaningful.
“It proved an act of courage and a conscious decision for her to persevere,” his post stated, “which she did, teaching and mentoring for another generation, living quietly in Laguna, and traveling widely with Bob.”
After Robert Folkenflik died in 2019, Vivian moved to Montclair amid the COVID-19 pandemic to spend more time with her grandchildren. Initially, she was concerned about the effect the extreme transition would have on her mental well-being. “She worried that she would lose her identity as a person of intellectual vitality and worth,” David said. “Instead, her leap of faith led ultimately to great joy.”
Vivian experienced her grandchildren’s soccer games and dance recitals, and created displays of their art pieces and photos in her room. She studied the Talmud and wrote poetry, building a new circle of friends locally while occasionally visiting her old ones in California. To the end, David said, Vivian Folkenflik remained “active and vital.”
Vivian is survived by her grandchildren, Viola, Zella and Eliza; her son, David, and daughter-in-law, Jesse; and her sister Judith.