Pioneer Information
Raised in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, Grace Parks Campbell attended Simmons College and the Lowthorpe School of Landscape Architecture in Groton, Massachusetts. Following her graduation in 1934 and before her marriage to architect William C. Wing during World War II, she worked in a range of design positions, moving four times to three different cities. Initially Wing joined the New York Parks Department, where she designed playgrounds and prepared planting plans for public spaces. A year later, she began work for the Treasury Department in Washington, D.C., where she developed planting plans for Federal Triangle, one of the largest Federal development projects at that time. In 1937 she began a partnership in Atlanta, designing private gardens with fellow Lowthorpe School alumna Edith Harrison Henderson. Two years later, she returned to Washington, D.C., where she designed private gardens and estates for Rose Greely and H. Clay Primrose alongside Cary Millholland Parker. She joined the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps during World War II, adapting men’s barracks into suitable quarters for women. Following the war, she moved with her husband to Maryland, Texas, California, Guam, Alaska, and Rhode Island before settling in Norfolk, Virginia. In 1962 Wing returned to landscape architecture practice in Norfolk as City Landscape Architect. Later, she worked for the Army Corps of Engineers’ Norfolk District, where she designed park amenities for the Gathwright dam project and reviewed plans for the expansion of Arlington National Cemetery, before her retirement in 1970.
