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Kranicks: Three generations of growers
This year's grand marshal is Vivian Marie Kranick Brown.
Vivian, 80, moved to Coquille from Wisconsin in 1948 and got a job working at the National Cranberry Association in Coquille, where she worked until 1952.
It was there, in April or May of 1948, that she met Leslie and Ethel Kranick of Bandon when they came in to buy supplies for their cranberry farm, Kranberry Acres.
Ethel Kranick sent her son, Martin Kranick, to Vivian's work, so that her son could meet Vivian. Martin said to Vivian, śMa wants to know if you want to come and see the cranberries."
Vivian said yes and that is how she and Martin met. The couple married in 1951, on the cranberry farm. It was at that time that they started to take over operation of the farm.
Vivian and Martin had four sons: Douglas, Gordon, David and Ronald. Leslie Kranick (Martin's father) died in 1959, and Vivian's husband Martin died in 1963.
Vivian ran the farm by herself with an occasional farm-hand until she married Floyd Brown in 1970. She continued to run the farm until she retired. Vivian and Floyd passed the farm down to a third generation: her son David and his wife Marci, in 1999. Floyd died in 1996.
Some of Vivian's fondest memories include being on the cover of Cranberries Magazine. climbing Mt. Hood in June of 1949, quilting and traveling, her nine grandchildren and three great-grandsons, and being past Master of the Oddfellows Grange and a member of the Rebekahs.
