Obituary: Jane Milliken

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Jane Milliken

Jane E. Milliken, dancer, actress, volunteer, as well as political and peace activist, died at her home in Riverside on June 24, surrounded by her family. The cause of death was cancer.

She was predeceased by her second husband, Dick Roberts, who died in late 2016.

A woman known for her kindness and radiant personality, she was cherished by her extended family and friends from all walks of life. She was born in New York City on Sept. 5, 1938, to Virginia and George Milliken. Her mother was an international journalist; her father owned a freighter company, one of whose ships, the INSCO JEM, was named after her. Voyages with her parents introduced her to many parts of the world and led to a life filled with travel. She grew up in St. Petersburg, Fla., and graduated with an associate’s degree from Pine Manor Junior College. She then attended Sarah Lawrence College for her B.A.

During her 50 years in Greenwich she was a leader in numerous peace activities.  In her 2013 Greenwich Library Oral History interview, she described how she joined other activists to start The Greenwich Forum on Nuclear Arms Control (later The Greenwich Forum), which has brought prominent speakers to town for over 30 years. She also was a loyal participant in the annual Greenwich Avenue peace demonstrations on Hiroshima Day, Aug. 6.  She was very active with Peace Action, speaking out against the U.S. nuclear weapons buildup and serving as its representative at weekly NGO coalition meetings at the United Nations working for peaceful solutions to the world’s problems.

Simultaneously she began her long theatrical collaboration with several local actress and writer friends.  Their first project was The Pocket People, a children’s theatre group that performed in schools all over Fairfield and Westchester counties during the late sixties and seventies. Next the group formed Women’s Voices, presenting dramatic readings of women’s poetry in high schools, colleges and libraries throughout New England. In 1983 she and Roberts were among the participant-writers in “We’ve Been Here All Along,” a historical musical sponsored by Greenwich Library and based on Oral History interviews with Greenwich residents. She was also a founding member of the Moving Arts Collaborative, an improvisational dance collective that has met weekly for almost 30 years at the Greenwich Arts Council.

Milliken was a longtime member of the Democratic Women’s Club and a former member of both the Democratic Town Committee and the Representative Town Meeting. She also worked with her husband, a documentary filmmaker, on several award-winning films.

Along with her biological daughter, Cordelia Persen, she leaves five stepchildren, Annie Roberts, Catsou Roberts, Mathieu Roberts, Malcolm Persen, and Walid Persen, and seven step-grandchildren from her two marriages.

There will be a memorial gathering in honor of Milliken and her husband, Dick Roberts, at one o’clock on Saturday, Sept. 2, in the Parish Hall of Christ Church, Greenwich.

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