Victoria Kent Pyle was born on February 11, 1931, in Rochester, New York, the youngest of five children, to Polish and Russian immigrant parents. She was christened Wanda Victoria Suzanne Bileck, and her confirmation name in the Catholic Church was Regina. She was called Wanda, or Vonja in Polish (Polish was the language used at home and in her upstate New York community). Her four older brothers were Winfield, Edward, Victor, and Walter.
Victoria attended parochial schools through her first twelve grades and was always at the top of her class. Wanda studied piano at home from a very early age. Lessons were not easily afforded, and they took considerable sacrifice from her parents Walter and Michalina (Sadowski) Bileck, who were making a new start for themselves and their family in "The New World."
Through her high school years, Wanda worked for a local physician and dreamed of becoming both a doctor and musician. Upon graduation from high school, Wanda attended the Eastman School of Music, studying piano, voice, and dance. The arts seemed to triumph over science.
With her formal education completed, Wanda left Rochester for New York City to begin her career in the performing arts. As her "stage name" Wanda selected Victoria Kent, by which she was known thereafter.
As with all young artists, it was necessary to have a "job" to support a career. Victoria's first position was as a "gal Friday" on the brand new black and white television show "Meet the Press," working for Larry Spivak and Martha Roundtree, the founders of the show that continues to this day.
As Victoria continued to audition and perform, largely as a singer, other "jobs" to support herself came along. She taught piano in her apartment in off hours, and, having studied shorthand in school, she took a position as secretary in the law offices of one of the nation's largest communications law firms, Fly, Blume, Shuebruck, and Gaguine.
Victoria began modeling and was discovered by Christian Dior, becoming his top fur model in New York City. But music remained her first love, and she continued to study voice with Madam Valdez at New York's famous Steinway Hall. It was through this affiliation that Victoria was cast as the lead singer/actress in a revival of "The Merry Widow" to be staged at Carnegie Hall.
When the production was well into rehearsals, the part of the "Widow's" jilted lover was vacated by a gentleman who became ill. Quickly scheduled auditions for a replacement produced a young singer by the name of Tom Pyle. Tom announced to friends the morning after his first rehearsal that he had "met the woman" he would marry. And, indeed, seven months later, Victoria and Tom were married in The Actors Chapel of St. Malachy's Cathedral in the heart of Manhattan.
To help support her husband's career, she again took a "job," this time as a secretary in a French import cosmetic and perfume company - Orlane cosmetics and Jean D. Albret fragrances. "Business woman" Victoria quickly moved from the secretarial pool to Executive Secretary to the President, and just as quickly to Vice President of Public Relations for International Operations - working directly for the French owner-family and its head, Count Michelle D'Ornano.
Five years into her marriage, Victoria (or Vicki as she was known to family and friends) gave birth to the couple's first child, a baby girl named Pamela Victoria Pyle. Eighteen months later, Pamela was followed by a baby boy, Brett Thomas Pyle. Vicki became a full-time mother and supporter of her husband in his expanded career as a filmmaker.
About five years later, the family built a home north of Manhattan. Vicki began to teach piano again, and took up gardening. She started with just a few students, but her studio quickly grew by word of mouth until she was teaching as many as thirty young aspiring pianists individually each week. She became an active member of the Music Teachers National Association and several of its local chapters. Her students and family thrived.
A few years later, her husband's work took the family to the Washington, D.C., area, where they bought a house in the northern part of Virginia in a town called Reston. Vicki built her studio again, from scratch, and was soon teaching, mentoring, and counseling up to forty-five young people a week. She believed that all three activities were key to success with children and teens, whether in piano or any other aspect of life.
Vicki became an active participant in several music clubs: Northern Virginia Music Teachers Association, Western Virginia Music Teachers Association, the National Music Teachers Association, and she was a member of the nationally prestigious Friday Morning Music Club of Washington, D.C. Her studio was always filled and music abounded in her life and the lives of her students, on a daily basis, year in and year out.
Over the years, Victoria's students went on to succeed in many fields: music, computer sciences, philosophy, psychology, physics, teaching, and yes, in the area of her other "love" as well, medicine.
But that's Victoria the "teacher." There was also Victoria the "mother."
Pamela took after her mother in many ways, but more than in any others, she too began piano at a very early age, and later flute as well. In fact, her parents simply couldn't keep her away from the piano starting at 18 months of age. Though very young to be taking lessons, Vicki, nonetheless, initiated her formal piano training at the age of four. Within a couple of years, Vicki guided her daughter to other teachers, believing that the role of mother should take precedence. But her personal support of music in her children's life continued, always. Pamela went on to gain her Bachelor's degree from The New England Conservatory, and her Masters from The Juilliard School. Pamela then became a staff member at Juilliard, as well as at the Aspen Music Festival.
Brett, too, inherited an interest in music with classical and folk guitar, though his engineering and business instincts were much stronger. He obtained a degree in systems engineering from the University of Virginia, worked with Arthur Andersen in Washington, D.C., Amoco in Chicago and throughout the Southwest, and for British Petroleum in London. Through Brett, and his wife Jeanne (Jourdan), three grandchildren - Lauren Marie, Kaitlyn Victoria, and Jonathan Thomas, filled Vicki's life even further.
"Mother" and "Grandmother" Victoria played a major supportive role in the lives of her family, in all ways.
"Wife" Victoria spent 43 years in support of her husband, Tom, and his career, which often necessitated her reestablishing her own in new cities.
In the year 2000, Vicki once again followed Tom as they moved to partial retirement in Arizona, the place of her husband's birth. Here, the two of them joined the Pinnacle Presbyterian Church in Scottsdale, Arizona.
Beloved wife, mother and grandmother, musician, businesswoman, teacher, and Christian, make up the history, the contributions, and the legacy of Victoria Kent Pyle.
