Anne's Mink Coat - Re: Miller Art Museum Exhibit
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Last fall I donated the mink coat I inherited from my Aunt Anne to her childhood home - now the Miller Art Center in Springfield, VT. The museum curator asked me to write a history of Anne and the coat for the exhibit which will open this month (May 2012)
Here is what I sent the museum:
Anne Miller was born on Jan 2, 1912 in Perkinsville, VT to Grace Spencer and mechanical engineer, Edward Whitney Miller who worked with Fellows Gear Shaper from 1898-1968. She graduated from Springfield High School before going on to study Italian at Wellesley College. Anne married David "Dave" O. Collins of Hingham, MA and they lived in Hartford, CT until WWII began.
Dave took his saxophone with him to the European theater where he served as a combat medic in the 63rd Infantry Division of the 7th Army under General Patch. He helped repel the German Offensive called Operation Northwind. After the war, the couple returned to Vermont where Dave worked at the Fellows Gear Shaper plant.
Never having any children, Anne and Dave explored artistic interests by listening to classical jazz - they saw every great act that came through New England. Highly intelligent, Anne collected art and Hester Bateman Silver. The two of them were genuinely happy until Dave died in 1981. Anne lived another 20 years until September 2001.
In 2004 Donna Welles, Anne's great niece, took this coat with her to Russia where she spent a year at St. Petersburg State University, before graduating Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Texas in Dec 2005.
Front of Miller Art Center Source: Museum Website
Me Wearing the Coat Before It Went Back to Vermont
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