PERKINSVILLE — Lorraine Zigman loved a good story.
She told stories about her childhood in Weathersfield and the history of the town she researched and loved beyond measure. She told stories about the places she traveled and the history of those places.
“I think some people don’t have stories and other people have lots of stories, and she had lots of good stories,” said Steve Aikenhead, of Perkinsville, who is putting together a collection of Zigman’s stories. “They’re interesting. They’re fun, and she tells them very well.”
Zigman, who had cancer, died on Sept. 24, 2020, at age 83, at Cedar Hill in Windsor with her beloved cat, Timothy, by her side. Born on Oct. 10, 1936, in Waterbury Center, Vt., she moved as a baby with her family to Weathersfield, where she lived the rest of her life.
“She had a lot of experiences and a love for history, the history of her community and her family,” said the Rev. George Keeler, of the North Springfield, Vt., Baptist Church, who met Zigman when he served as pastor at the Perkinsville Community Church.
That love showed in her ability to connect with anyone, no matter their age or walk of life.
“Just about anybody who spoke to her, she just had that way of lifting them up and encouraging them,” Keeler said.
Zigman graduated from Springfield High School in 1954 and started working there the next year as a secretary. She started in the health office, before moving over to the guidance department, where she quickly became a favorite among students.
“They were comfortable enough with her that they’d stop by and just talk,” said Zigman’s niece, Sally Wildsmith. “Several people have said she was the heart and soul of the guidance department.”
Zigman and her husband, Raymond, were married in Windsor in June 1958. They made their home in Perkinsville. They planted and grafted heritage apple trees on a small orchard on their property. In the vein in which she researched other histories, Zigman cataloged and traced the origin of each tree.
While Lorraine was more of an adventurer, Raymond preferred to stick closer to home.
“She planned a lot of surprise trips from him,” said Peggy Knoras, Zigman’s Springfield High classmate. Knoras recalled one occurrence where Zigman tracked down one of his former teachers for a visit. “Raymond knew better than to argue because she’d go anyway, so he’d get in the car.”
She delighted in visits from her nieces and played an active role in their childhoods. As a youth, Wildsmith would visit during the summer.
“She would wear you out. It was funny: you would need to go home to get a vacation. She had every minute of every day planned. She had it all logged out,” Wildsmith said, recalling visits to Equinox Mountain and the Fairbanks Museum after Zigman taught her about geological formations in the state. “She always loved an adventure and she always loved introducing people to local history to the world they lived in.”
After leaving Springfield High in 1985, she worked for the state of Vermont at the Traffic Ticket Center and Child Protective Services. She retired in 1996. She was a Notary Public, Justice of the Peace, active election volunteer and member of the Weathersfield Historical Society. She taught senior citizens how to use computers at the Weathersfield Proctor Library and started monthly potluck meals at the Perkinsville Community Church.
“She was a force for the good,” Aikenhead said.
Raymond Zigman died from prostate cancer in 2001 and Zigman became an advocate for early screenings, which was evidenced in the numerous letters to the editor she wrote to the Valley News. After his death came a new stage of Zigman’s life: world traveler. She set off to visit the places she had read about in books for decades.
“When he passed away, it gave her the freedom to do it and she just had a ball,” Wildsmith said. “She has travel notebooks and she had pages and pages of things she had printed off the internet so she would know about them when she went.”
Among the places she visited were England, Scotland, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany.
“She was mesmerized by Russia,” Wildsmith said. “The music, the dance, the people, the way the people had managed to survive communism and come through it fairly good-natured with a positive outlook on life which they might not have in other circumstances.”
In January, while living at Cedar Hill in Windsor, she gave a presentation about the trip to other residents in the assisted living facility.
“She explained to us the way to drink vodka. You have to put it in the crease of your elbow. That’s how you drink your shots,” said Ruth Barton, activities director at Cedar Hill, who helped Zigman put the presentation together. “She was excellent. … She never lost the audience’s attention.”
Her adventures also took place stateside. During a trip to Busch Gardens in Williamsburg, Va., with her niece, Becky Day, she was determined to go on an upside down roller coaster. It was closed, so they went on another one instead.
“We had a picture of her on a roller coaster with us laughing so hard,” Day said.
On another trip, they visited the Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., where Zigman was excited to try out a flight simulator.
“We were laughing in there and people thought we were teenagers,” Day said. “She was always up for something fun and well-versed in so many different subjects.”
Knoras spent 48 hours in New York City with Zigman where they saw numerous shows and visited a wax museum, among numerous other activities.
“She was a great traveler. I was not,” Knoras said. “We filled every minute with something. She had it right down to a science.”
Knoras and Zigman also worked together to organize monthly lunches for their Springfield High class of ’54.
“She was a good listener as well. She didn’t monopolize, but she did keep a conversation going,” Knoras said. “I think it’s because she was very well-read and she had a lot of interests and therefore she could talk to anybody about anything. I always said if I was on a quiz show I’d want her on my team because she’d know all the answers.”
Her hobbies ran the gamut from stenciling to candle-making to creating elaborate cakes.
“She’d buy 20 books on it and give it a go,” Day said. “Very few things other than reading lasted her whole life. She would dabble in everything and once she got the hang of it, she’d find something else. Mostly to say ‘I can do that.’ ”
Toward the end of her life, she continued to pursue knowledge connections with the people she came into contact with, including other residents at Cedar Hill.
“If she saw somebody was down, she’d go and talk to them,” Barton said. “She made the lunch outings a little more special because she’d tell some stories and she would get people talking.”
By sharing her stories and those that she collected throughout the years, Zigman helped people establish a sense of pride in their communities and by extension, themselves.
“She was always interested in learning more,” Wildsmith said.
Liz Sauchelli can be reached at esauchelli@vnews.com or 603-727-3221.
