Penelope Frances Parkman Biggs
Are you a close relative of Penelope? Would you like to manage this memorial? Learn more about managing a memorial
BIRTH
24 May 1937
Boston, Suffolk County, Massachusetts, USA
DEATH
3 Nov 2022 (aged 85)
BURIAL
Christ Church Cathedral
Saint Louis, St. Louis City, Missouri, USA
MEMORIAL ID
245535905 · View Source
MEMORIAL
PHOTOS 1
FLOWERS 0
Penelope Parkman Biggs, of St. Louis, a brilliant but shy and modest scholar, teacher, friend and a wise and beloved mother and friend died quietly, with gentle hospice, after a long illness on November 3, 2022.
She was born in Boston and grew up there, combined with 4 separate years in Europe, when her family accompanied her father on major military and government assignments after WWII. She entered Radcliffe, then part of Harvard, graduating summa cum laude, studying classics, with a remarkable published achievement as an undergraduate.
Upon graduation she married a classmate, John H. Biggs (m. 1959), and she moved to St. Louis, to raise a family and enter Washington University, where she earned a Master's degree in Classics and a PhD in Comparative Literature.
After graduation she joined the faculty of Lindenwood College where she taught literature, published some of her research, and became tenured. After 8 years she left Lindenwood and accepted a senior position at Mary Institute, teaching advanced Latin courses.
She loved living in St. Louis in the Central West End during the great days of Gaslight Square, where she also was one of the founders of the New City School, from which her two children and all 4 grandchildren graduated. Our many new friends there remained so when we later moved to New York City but returned often and then permanently to St. Louis in 2019.
She also enjoyed her 30 year retirement in NYC, missing few theater, opera and ballet performances and courses at the Met Museum, and reuniting with Harvard classmates and new friends.