It was sticky hot this summer as English Professor Kathy Mangan sorted through box after box of her mother-in-law’s belongings in their dimly lit garage. Jane Twigg Willis ’35 was moving into Carroll Lutheran Village, but the accumulation of treasures from nearly 60 years of marriage to her late husband Lieutenant Colonel Eugene “Stoney” Willis ’34 could not come.

From their years in Japan and Turkey, there were Persian rugs, Japanese porcelain, brass ornaments, and Asian sculptures. But mostly there was clothing: vintage lace cocktail dresses, hats still in hatboxes, piles of ties and bowties, kimonos, leather gloves, nurse uniforms, and delicate pumps.

“It occurred to me, ‘I’ll bet the Theatre department at the College would love these,’” Mangan said. “The more we thought about it, it seemed like the clothing had value beyond a monetary value and perhaps the school would be interested as well.”

Willis, now a grandmother of five and great grandmother of three, loved the idea and immediately agreed.

“I thought it was a great idea instead of sending them to the Goodwill. I’d rather give them to someone who can use them,” she said.

Jane Willis, who just turned 91 years old, met her husband Eugene at the College. From the mining town of Stone Gap, Va., he was on an academic scholarship for football and baseball. Mangan recalls hearing stories of the two lovebirds holding hands in Little Baker Chapel while their friend, Charles Forlines ’32, played the organ.

“When we were going to a dance, the dean would need to look at girls’ dresses to see if they were appropriate,” Willis recalls wistfully. “We needed to have shoulders covered and high necklines. Stoney would be in the waiting room waiting for me.”

Willis served as a Red Cross volunteer and a “Grey Lady” during her husband’s time in the Army. She took care of wounded soldiers and wrote letters home for them while raising their two young sons Eugene ’64 and John (Mangan’s husband).

“In the Army back then, we had a lot of formal events where women had to dress up and wear white gloves,” Willis says. “When we lived in Japan, our maid hand-sewed my cocktail dresses.”

Assistant Theatre Arts Professor Elizabeth van den Berg welcomed the dresses, now part of a large donation that will fill a void in the department’s collection.

“It’s often quite difficult for us to find vintage clothing, and especially military uniforms, that are correct for the time period and place, so to have these in our stock is amazing,” says van den Berg. “It will be really nice for when we do some beautiful 1940s and ’50s plays.”

Willis blushes when told that her clothing will have a new life on the stage at her alma mater.

“She knows they have a home here,” says Mangan.