The papers consist of Jessie Lafountain Bigwood's letters to family members from 1931 to 1953, photographs, and her step-sister's correspondence in regard to Bigwood's estate. In a group of 1931 to 1940 letters that Bigwood wrote to her teenage niece Helen Phipard, Bigwood encouraged Helen to study for a profession. With each letter she enclosed a column, "Training for Life's Work, " from an unnamed Ontario newspaper. Bigwood wrote to her step-sister, Cora Gebo Munsell, in South Royalton during the last months of her life. Bigwood, a widow, lived in a modest Toronto apartment, and supplemented her pension working as a nurse's aid. After Bigwood's death in September 1953, her niece, Marguerite Bigwood Rogers, wrote a series of letters from Toronto to Cora Munsell. Bigwood died intestate; Marguerite was administrator of her estate and Cora Munsell was one of the heirs. The papers include photocopies of the Vermont Bar Association Proceedings, August 1903, and Vermont Bar Journal, December 1980 and April 1988, that have articles about Bigwood's early professional achievements. The papers also include a photocopy of an April 30, 1904, article from Burlington Clipper, on which the previous articles are based.
