Margaret I. Wiggins
Baltimore public schools secretary and longtime member of Enon Baptist Church was a ‘lady’s lady’ and a gifted baker
Margaret I. Wiggins, a retired longtime Baltimore public schools secretary who was an active member for more than seven decades of Enon Baptist Church, died Feb. 25 from progressive dementia at the Augsburg Lutheran Home and Village in Lochearn, where she had lived for the past year. The former Randallstown resident was 91.
Margaret Irene Wiggins, daughter of Willie Wiggins, a janitor, and his wife, a homemaker, was born in Baltimore and raised in Sandtown-Winchester.
“Margaret often reflected with fondness childhood memories, pointing out bakeries, schools and drugstores whenever she rode through the old neighborhood,” said a niece, Karen Lynne Kalu of Randallstown.
Miss Wiggins was a 1947 graduate of Frederick Douglass High School and Cortez Peters Business College and studied at Morgan State University. After working as a private secretary to Circuit Judge Solomon Baylor, she went to work in the 1960s for Baltimore public schools at the old headquarters building on 25th Street for one of the deputy superintendents.
Miss Wiggins later left school headquarters and worked as a school secretary. “Margaret always had fascinating stories to tell about the students,” wrote Ms. Kalu in a biographical profile of her aunt. “She bonded with them and mentored them throughout the years until their graduation.” She retired in 2009. Miss Wiggins, who lived on Fairview Avenue before moving to the Augsburg Lutheran Home and Village a year ago, never learned to drive a car, walked everywhere and took public transportation. But that she didn’t drive didn’t hold her back.
“She walked blocks to catch the streetcar and later the bus. She walked every day and did that until she was in her late 80s,” her niece said in a telephone interview. “I remember when I sang with a group and we were doing a performance in Dundalk, and there she was in the audience. She had taken the No. 20 all the way there. You simply could find her everywhere.”
Miss Wiggins, who was known as “Barbie” or “Bobbie,” was a world traveler, a pursuit she shared with her sister, Gladys Davis, who lives in Pikesville. She traveled to the Caribbean Islands, Cuba, Alaska and Europe.
“They were like two peas in a pod,” her niece said.
When her nieces and nephews were growing up, she took them to Disney World several times because she enjoyed the park as much as they did, Ms. Kalu said. She was also an inveterate fan of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, to which she took her nieces and nephews at the Civic Center, and was “truly heartbroken when they discontinued the elephants’ act,” Ms. Kalu said.
She regularly attended the Hampton Jazz Festival in Hampton, Virginia, and traveled to Trinidad to attend Caribbean carnivals. “She never missed an Artscape or Flower Mart and went to the Lexington Market every weekend,” her niece said.
“Margaret’s independence and vitality were something to marvel at,” her niece wrote. “She was very independent. You could see her everywhere and she exercised daily even into her 80s. She walked three flights of stairs and walked more than three miles every day.”
Miss Wiggins joined Enon Baptist Church in 1944 and for years was Sunday school secretary. She drafted her nieces and nephews to appear in Christmas and Easter pageants, rehearsed them and made sure they knew their lines.
A gifted baker, Miss Wiggins was known and admired for her pound cake, replete with lots of butter, which drew “praise and admiration from her nieces and nephews,” Ms. Kalu said. Her nieces described her as a “lady’s lady” who was a stickler for manners and decorum.
“She always ensured that her nieces held their utensils properly and crossed their legs,” Ms. Kalu wrote.
“Bobbie was very independent but quiet. While she wasn’t the life-of-the party person, she loved being around people and really enjoyed life,” Ms. Kalu said in the interview.
Miss Wiggins was described by other family members as “observant, vibrant, curious, youthful and one strong-willed lady.”
Funeral services will be held at 11 a.m. Monday at the Wylie Funeral Home, 9200 Liberty Road, Randallstown.
In addition to her sister and Ms. Kalu, she is survived by two other nieces, Cheryl Hicks and Robin Parke, both of Baltimore; great-nephews and a great-niece; and seven great-great-nephews and a great-greatniece.
Back in December, a box of food shelf donations I dropped off for a struggling neighbor was stolen. Now, I am relieved that Congress has passed a new COVID relief bill that will provide relief to renters, increase the Earned Income Tax Credit for low-wage workers and, astoundingly, cut child poverty by 45% by expanding the child tax credit. Maybe folks will no longer be so desperate and can concentrate on raising healthy families and engaging in productive activities (“Stimulus check updates: Biden to sign COVID-19 relief bill Thursday ahead of primetime speech,” March 11).
Thank you, Sens. Ben Cardin and Chris Van Hollen. Thank you, Rep. Kweisi Mfume. It’s now time for Congress to build on these successes by fixing vast inequities in housing and lifting more children out of poverty.
First, make housing choice vouchers universal to all who qualify. Currently, only one in four eligible renters get federal housing assistance. Next, protect workers and families by making the new EITC and child tax credit provisions permanent. Columbia University researchers estimate these combined changes could reduce child poverty in America by almost two-thirds.
We have the chance to make a generational leap in reducing poverty in America. I urge Senators Van Hollen and Cardin, and Congressman Mfume to take bold action to permanently and dramatically reduce child poverty and housing instability in recovery legislation this year.
As a nose tackle, Brandon Williams’ top priority is to gain leverage and not get pushed around, so it will be interesting to see how he handles new negotiations with the Ravens.
On one hand, it appears the Ravens have an upper hand because they could simply cut Williams, 32, and save $7.5 million against the salary cap even though $6.9 million would count in dead money.
But on the other hand, they can’t win without him because he is almost as vital to the offense as he is to their defense, which is why general manager Eric DeCosta recently said he expects Williams to return for the 2021 season.
“He’s a valued player on the team; it’s hard to find guys like him. He fits our mentality,” DeCosta said. “As a nose tackle, these guys can play for a long time. He plays hard. He plays [well]. He’s one of us. He’s a Raven through and through. So, yes — I expect him to be on the team.”
It makes sense for both parties to reach an agreement on a restructured deal. At the start of the upcoming season Williams will be in the fifth year of a $52.5 million contract he signed in 2017 that will count $14.4 million against the salary cap.
As usual, those types of contracts are backloaded because neither the player nor the team expected to see that type of payday, but it helped with the salary cap. But now that makes no sense for the Ravens to pay Williams that type of money, especially for a player who is in on less than 50% of the defensive snaps because he can’t get consistent quarterback pressure.
But the Ravens struggle to win without Williams.
Williams doesn’t get much of a pass rush, but he is still one of the better run stoppers in the NFL. Ideally, the Ravens want to control the pace of every game by running the football and stopping the run.
If they can’t stop the run, then that keeps quarterback Lamar Jackson off the field. And if the Ravens fall behind, they have problems catching up.
Like most nose guards, Williams’ integral role is buried among the mass of humanity on the line of scrimmage on Sunday afternoons.
He missed nearly four games last season, three from injury and one because he was on the COVID-19 list. In those games against New England, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Tennessee, the Ravens allowed 608 yards on 111 carries for a 5.47 yards per carry average. In their 12 other games, they allowed 271 carries for 1,132 yards (4.17 average).
In 2019, Williams missed just one game because of injury (He also sat out the finale vs. Pittsburgh for rest). The Ravens allowed 29 carries for 193 yards (6.7 per carry) vs. Cleveland in that home loss.
Is Williams a one-man defense? No, but he is a difference-maker.
Even though rookie middle linebacker Patrick Queen led the Ravens in tackles last season, he isn’t a thumper or the shock-and-shed type. He is a runner and has to be protected, and Williams does that well by often occupying two blockers.
The Ravens secondary was generally rated as the top position on the team, but the defensive line wasn’t far behind with ends Calais Campbell, Derek Wolfe and Williams.
Williams brings energy and personality. He is one of the most well-liked players on the team. Unlike outside linebacker Matthew Judon, who tried to imitate former Ravens outside linebacker Terrell Suggs, Williams can change the mood or tempo of practice with his loud voice or dance moves.
He has been consistent during his eight years in Baltimore, starting 101 of 110 career games. He may have played in only 50% of the defensive snaps in 2018 compared to 54% in 2019 and 33 in 2020, but the Ravens aren’t as successful without him.
In the end, they will probably work out an agreement. Williams likes being a Raven and the Ravens know his value to the team, especially because possible second-year replacements such as Justin Madubuike and Broderick Washington aren’t ready yet.
It looks like Williams has some good leverage again, even as begins the twilight of his career.
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