Person
Biography
Janet Stone Wiggins was a faithful Pillow visitor and contributor for decades, with a close connection to the Pillow's roots. In the 1930s, Ms. Wiggins worked for the A.H. Handley Company, the organization that handled the bookings for Ted Shawn's Men Dancers. We have a video interview with Ms. Wiggins from 1998, in which she laughingly remembers how she would make "cold calls" to Rotary Clubs and other civic organizations and try to sell them on the idea of presenting a concert of men dancers. In recent years, her pattern was to attend a performance with her daughter, Edith Elizabeth Mazza, and return the following day to explore exhibits and watch classes. (Christopher Duggan's 2006 photo of them with Norton Owen is seen here.) There were several such visits in 2008, culminating with the Jazz Happening. In October of that year, she was sitting at her kitchen table in Framingham reading a Hercule Poirot mystery while her daughter briefly went upstairs. In those few minutes, Ms. Wiggins died at the age of 97.