Jean Wrigley - Class of 1958

Bob and Jean seen in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Jean was amazed to learn that people in Canada skated on sheets of ice.

Jean participated in track and field, badminton,
and gymnastics teams at CCHS,
and was a cheer leader for the South Shore Combines Football Team.

Jean with high school friends Pam Tait and Elaine Dietche practice at L'Esperance Park.

Memory Lane

Jean was awarded the Montreal Star Trophy for the Most-artistic Skater.

Jean during an Eastern Canadian Figure-skating Championship performance.

Ice Follies opening night in Hollywood Jean attracts the likes of actors Jimmy Stewart and Ronald Reagan.

Also in attendance was Bob Hope. Jean encourages him to step onto the ice.

Anxious to have his photo taken is a smiling Ernest Bourgnine.

Not to be outdone by Actor Bourgnine is Loretta Young.

She pursued her own development in performance by taking classes in New York from world-leading dance teachers, and taught competitive skating, dance and choreography

Jean Evelyn Wrigley was born in 1941 in the beautiful city of Buenos Aires, Argentina, the first of four children of Eva and Ernest Wrigley, formerly of Montreal, Quebec. Her early interest in the performing arts began with ballet lessons at age four, and she performed her first recital a year later. She also developed a fascination with clothes, and didn't hesitate to dress her younger brother Bob in her finest costumes, since there were few other girls nearby with whom to play. While she attended an English school, she soon picked up considerable Spanish from talking to the household maid and gardener. Vivid memories of the time included watching parades featuring Juan and Evita Peron in their white limousine, accompanied by marching bands and military personnel. Walking in the spacious parks of the city, they frequently caught the attention of gypsies, in their long and colourful dresses and beads. Her Mother feared that the two children might be a target for abduction – a not-uncommon occurrence back then. Trips to sea-side beaches and ocean-liner and plane journeys back to Montreal to visit relatives, were highlights of her youth.

Never having seen ice before in the warm climate of Argentina, Jean was amazed to learn that people in Canada skated on sheets of ice -- the same stuff as the ice cubes normally found floating in drinks. At Westmount Park in Montreal, she expected that skating would be akin to walking, and with over-sized skates on her feet, she fell down and cried in frustration after failing on her first attempts to glide over the frozen pond.

Returning permanently to Canada after the Second World War, the Wrigley family resided with relatives in Montreal until a new house was built in St. Lambert, at the corner of Logan (282) and Maple. She quickly adapted to the local scene, with many young families in the neighbourhood. School days and weekends were filled with diverse activities with youngsters of the Strides, Barbers, Tates, Langs, Machans and Dietchies. Among her favourite pastimes was swimming at the old St. Lambert beach on the St. Lawrence River with her friends. Boardwalks and floating telephone poles separated the areas reserved for learners, girls, boys, strong swimmers, and the scary diving board, which required powerful strokes to regain the raft in the strong current. Swimming lessons ensured that she and her friends became proficient in the water.

She was excited to attend the annual carnivals, and the 24th-of-May fireworks at Riverside Drive. There were many opportunities to ride her bicycle in St. Lambert parades, and along with many other kids, she decorated the wheels and bars with strips of colored paper, but added real daisies picked from the fields behind her house (perfection was important, even if it took all day to achieve). Playing in autumn leaves, and constructing forts and tunnels in the snow were fun, but she found skating to be her new passion. She especially enjoyed the family skating times with loudspeaker music on Sunday afternoons at Lesperance Park, and gliding along winding openings in the Dulwich Swamp on moonlit nights. Her Father, like several other dads in the neighbourhood, built a rink each year in the backyard, where Jean diligently practiced her figures, jumps and spins.

During other periods, she joined the Brownies, Girl Guides, and CGIT (Canadian Girls in Training) programs. Jean also participated in other events, such as swimming and skating competitions organized by the St. Lambert CSA. For many years later, even though the family budget was limited, Jean's Mother continued to donate funds to the CSA, because the organization and volunteer coaches had been so important to her children – Jean, Bob, John and Mary.

At age six, Jean enrolled in ballet with Mrs. Henstridge on Edison Ave., and continued practicing for 10 years to develop grace of motion. In 1950, Jean saw the Ice Follies for the first time at the Montreal Forum, and then and there, her life's ambition was born. With her great desire to be an ice ballerina, she began figure-skating lessons with noted St. Lambert coaches Jean Langille and Nita Hammond. She often skated with her friends to Lesperance Park on the icy streets, and participated in the popular winter carnivals, where prizes were awarded for winners of speed skating and best costumes. She can still hear the tinkling of the little bells she had fastened to the white boots of her skates. As she began to excel in figure skating, her coaches approached Dr. Brown, Brown's Pharmacy, Taylor's Department Store, and other local sponsors to help with the costs of training (Jean's Father having passed away). A South Shore newspaper story and photo at the time noted that Jean won a championship for her late Father. She began to travel farther afield (e.g., Mount Royal, Montreal; Cobourg, Ontario; Lake Placid, New York) to take lessons from some of the most-respected free-style skating coaches in the world.

Jean remembers being excited at the beginning of each school year at Chambly County High School, and two of her favourite teachers were Ms. Montgomery and Ms. Holmes. However, like most students, she was anxious for the school year to end so that she could concentrate on summer pursuits. Her grades and interest in school lessons began to wane with the increased intensity of her skating practices, and she rose each morning at 5:00 and took two buses (the second at the smelly stockyards in Montreal) to reach the Verdun Arena by 6:30 AM; then after practice, it was back on two buses during rush hour to reach school for morning classes. After supper, she was picked up by coach Jean Langille and driven back to Verdun for additional practice.

Training five-to-six hours a day left little time for homework, and she occasionally missed school entirely to prepare for a major competition. Her teachers were remarkably understanding, and along with several of her friends, helped her catch up on lessons she had missed. During high-school track days, she also enjoyed competing in hurdles, relay, broad jump, and hop-skip-and-jump events, and her room wall at home became covered with colourful ribbons won over a number of seasons. She also found time to be a cheerleader with the South Shore Combines Football Team for two seasons, and dated player Ian MacDougall. She graduated with the class of 1958, leaving behind her school days and sadly, many of her friends.

As Jean became more proficient at figure skating, she won the Montreal Star Trophy for the Most-artistic Skater, and then the Eastern Canadian Figure-skating Championship. Soon after, she decided to audition for the Ice Follies – the world's premier ice show -- and landed a position in the chorus. An article in The Windsor Star (November 8, 1962) headlined; “Skater's Dream Came True.” It stated that: “The pretty blue-eyed brunette from St. Lambert, Quebec, had joined the show in June, 1961, in San Francisco. Her determination to become a star and her flair for skating -- developed through 12 years of conscientious training and practice – led to her selection as understudy for several soloists... The pretty five-foot, five-inch skater, who possesses a wide engaging smile, enjoyed teaching skating and was coaching prospective skaters in St. Lambert before she joined the Ice Follies.”

With her natural skating abilities, Jean was expected to learn and perform the soloists' routines, should they be unable to skate due to illness or other reason. Nine months later, one soloist retired and the young St. Lambert skater suddenly became one of the stars of the Ice Follies. Her grand debut was in the famous Madison Square Gardens in New York City – truly a special night to remember. With her bright smile and outgoing personality, she was in great demand for interviews at each stop on the hectic annual schedule – 22 cities in the United States, plus Montreal and Toronto. Her family, relatives and friends watched her skate each season in the Montreal Forum, a facility built by her Great Uncle and Hall-of-Fame member William Northey, and who was also an Executive Vice-President of the Montreal Maroons and later, the Montreal Canadians hockey teams. Mr. Northey, then in his nineties, was in a front-row seat to see Jean skate when the show came to the Forum. (see Robert Wrigley's article; “The Hockey Player.”)

Jean also became known for her astonishing speed while executing spins (without travelling off-center); in fact her Mother Eva was shocked at seeing the bruises on her arms from capillary damage resulting from the great centrifugal force generated by the spinning action. Her body literally became a blur for many seconds – a skill that never failed to draw enthusiastic applause from appreciative audiences. Brother Bob asked her how she could keep smiling throughout entire performances while executing challenging manoeuvres, and sometimes with a painful back injury. Her love of skating simply shone through every minute she was on the ice.

During the scheduled summer break from travel, Jean worked on new routines at the Ice Follies headquarters in San Francisco, California, and each annual opening night in Hollywood drew many political, film, television and sports stars such as Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Stewart, Bob Hope, Loretta Young, and Willie Mays. Once on the road, daily life was a hectic routine of rising early for make-up and fitting into fancy costumes for photo shoots, luncheons with special groups and dignitaries, several interviews with print, radio and television reporters, an hour's practice at the arena, back to the hotel to grab a meal, then dress and perform that evening, followed by a couple-more publicity calls. The Ice Follies public-relations department soon recognized that Jean's personality and PR skills were just as valuable to the organization as her skating performances, and most of her off-rink time became occupied with media appearances orchestrated by the public-relations coordinator. She admits to being so busy with this controlled and demanding lifestyle that she was hardly aware of events going on in the outside world.

Travelling every two weeks to a new city, she had to adjust to different rink sizes, varying ice conditions, new prop positions, and the ever-present yellow envelope dictating when, where, and with whom she would be interviewed. With her activities under the microscope, a well-known reporter for the Los Angeles Times presented her as a role model for young women on learning that this successful artist neither drank alcohol nor smoked. Another paper showed two pictures of Jean on and off the ice, with the caption; “Many talented – She skates, she sews, and she shines when she smiles. She's Canadian Ice Follies star Jean Wrigley of St. Lambert, Quebec, a 21-year-old ballerina on blades.”

Even during her month vacation each May in St. Lambert, Jean maintained her fitness routine, working out at her home on Logan Street, followed by running at the Lesperance track. When the show arrived one season in New Haven, Connecticut, a young news broadcaster (a retired US Army officer recently back from serving in France) was offered a front-row seat by the Ice Follies management, and was then invited to go backstage at intermission to meet Jean. The tall Robin Sunde asked Jean to dinner, and the following evening he prepared the first home-cooked meal she had eaten in over six months. When the show left town, they continued their romance, travelling back and forth to see each other at every opportunity. Finally realizing that they could live apart no longer, they announced their marriage plans. A generous salary offer from the Ice Follies President failed to deter her decision to retire. Also, all the years of intense training, executing complex jumps and landings (and occasional painful falls on the unforgiving ice surface), plus four years of daily performing with the show, had taken a toll on her lower back.

An article in the Montreal Star (February 5, 1964) began with the headline; “Tuesday Last Night for St. Lambert Girl. When Jean Wrigley takes off her skates at the Forum next Tuesday night, she'll be both happy and sad. “I'm always sad the last night the show plays in Montreal,” says the pert St. Lambert skater, but this time it will be for a different reason. Next Tuesday will be my last night with the show. I liked travelling, I loved performing, and I made some wonderful friends in the Ice Follies, but I was always a bit homesick. And each time we played in Montreal it was harder to leave.”

Jean and Robin married at the St. Lambert United Church in June, 1964, and took up residence in Norwalk. Robin became a news director at CBS, then ABC, and finally a producer with NBC-Television, commuting daily to the New York studios. They remained married for 23 years and had a daughter Marja and a son Jonathon.

For the next four decades Jean taught competitive skating, dance and choreography, and was hired to choreograph the routines for the United States Gymnastics Team at the World Championships at Madison Square Gardens. She is proud that one of her skaters competed at the international level. During these years she pursued her own development in performance by taking classes in New York from world-leading dance teachers in ballet, jazz, Middle-Eastern, modern, and flamenco styles. She also kept fit with classes in yoga and pilates at a nearby gym. Over the years, she was thrilled to have had the opportunities to travel throughout Europe, Morocco and China, but her main interests are now her two grandchildren Eva and Jasper, gardening, reading, and exercising, although like most women, she enjoys an occasional outing to shop for designer clothes and shoes at T.J. Maxx and other favourite outlets. Jean continues to reside in Norwalk, Connecticut, in a grand old three-story home on a hill, surrounded by majestic trees and a beautiful garden of flowering herbs and shrubs.

Recent photo of Jean's family, Jonathon - 34 and Marja (Mullineaux) - 37 along with, Marja's daughter Eva - 9. Grandson Jasper (Jonathon's first son) was born February 2009.

A recent photo of Jean at a reception in Connecticut, showing that she still loves dressing up.

Jean does not have email but may be contacted through an e-mail to her brother Bob