Background
Wigmore was born Anna Marie Warapicki in Lithuania on March 4, 1909 to Antanas (1877-1959) and Anna (1882-?) Warapicki.
Wigmore was born Anna Marie Warapicki in Lithuania on March 4, 1909 to Antanas (1877-1959) and Anna (1882-?) Warapicki.
Wigmore wrote several books on her theories and lectured widely to promote her practices. On February 16, 1994, Wigmore died of smoke inhalation from a fire that destroyed the Boston site of the original Hippocrates Health Institute. Today, her methods are still being promoted in Puerto Rico at the Ann Wigmore Natural Health Institute, in Florida at the Hippocrates Health Institute and in various other "alternative medicine" resorts.
Antanas emigrated to America in 1908, settling in Middleboro, Massachusetts, where he first worked as a laborer in a shoe manufacturing company, then later as a truck driver for a bakery during Wigmore"s American teen-age years.
The 1930 Federal Census found Anna Marie living in Bristol, Massachusetts, and working as a hospital maid under the name of Anna Warap. In 1968, Ann Wigmore co-founded the Hippocrates Health Institute, a health resort in the United States, with Viktoras Kulvinskas.
Known as "the mother of living foods", she was an early pioneer in the use of wheatgrass juice and living foods for detoxifying and healing the body, mind, and spirit. She was sued by the Massachusetts Attorney-General"s department in 1988 for publishing pamphlets falsely claiming to offer an Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome cure, but acquitted under the First Amendment as the claims were deemed not to be not commercial claims made in trade.
She was, however, ordered not to misrepresent herself as a doctor qualified to treat illness or disease.
Wigmore died in Boston on February 16, 1994, of smoke inhalation from a fire at the Ann Wigmore Foundation. At the time of her death, the Institute was called the Ann Wigmore Foundation. Brian Clement owned the Hippocrates Health Institute next door, which he relocated from Boston to West Palm Beach, Florida.