Janet Wilder Dakin
Janet Wilder Dakin , was a philanthropist, zoologist. She was the daughter of Amos Parker Wilder and a younger sister of theologist and poet Amos Niven Wilder, author Thornton Wilder and poet Charlotte Wilder and writer Isabel Wilder
She was born in Berkeley, California. She received her B.A in zoology, magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa in 1933, and her M.A. in biology in 1935, both from Mount Holyoke College. She received her Ph.D. in zoology from the University of Chicago in 1939. She taught zoology at Mount Holyoke until she married Winthrop S. Dakin in 1941.
She also lived in China for a few years when her father Amos Parker Wilder was United States Consul General in Shanghai, but then left with her brother and sister because of the unstable state of the country.
Referred to by many as the First Lady of Amherst, Dakin was a longtime animal advocate and founder of the Dakin Animal Shelter, which over time evolved into the Dakin Humane Society, the largest animal shelter and resource center in western Massachusetts.
