Pioneer Information
Born in Cumberland, Maryland, Parker received her B.A. from Wellesley College in 1924. She studied in Europe for a year and traveled to the Far East before enrolling in the M.L.A. program at the Cambridge School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (later Smith College). After graduating in 1934, she worked briefly for architect Gertrude Sawyer, landscape architects Ellen Shipman and Rose Greely, and the Historic American Buildings Survey. Parker operated her own practice from 1937 to 1942, simultaneously working as a draftsman in the Washington, DC area. During World War II she worked for the U.S. War Department and oversaw the making of contour maps for the Office of Strategic Services. She returned to private practice in 1946 and spent the latter half of the 1950s in Central America with her husband who was stationed there. Upon her return, she taught at Catholic University from 1960 to 1963 and continued in private practice until 1975. Parker’s projects include Central Plaza, St. John’s College, Annapolis, Maryland; The Octagon, Washington, DC; and Point Farm, Calvert County, Maryland (now the Jefferson Patterson Park & Museum).
Parker served as Secretary, Vice President and Trustee of the Potomac Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects and was made a Fellow of the Society in 1965. She received the Medal of Merit from the Garden Club of America and was a member of that organization and the Society of Woman Geographers.
