Phyllis Craige Knopf, formerly of Winchester MA and a resident of Concord MA since 2005, died peacefully at the age of 95 in her home on April 13, 2023.
Born Phyllis Rachel Craige on September 6, 1927, in Haiti, she was the youngest daughter of Rachel Orndorff Craige and U.S. Marine Capt. John Houston Craige. She was the wife of U.S. Navy Cmdr. Winfield G. Knopf, whom she married on October 27, 1951, in Philadephia, where she was raised.
She was elected President of the Girls High School Class of 1945 in Philadelphia, where she received the school’s Latin Prize. Awarded a scholarship to the University of Pennsylvania, she graduated magna cum laude in English in three years. She later earned a Master’s in Education and taught English at Haverford (PA) High School.
Phyllis loved her Winchester and Concord communities. In Winchester, where she was a choir member at the Parish of Epiphany for 46 years, she frequently submitted articles to the local newspaper, was a member of book and garden clubs, was a Girl Scout troop leader, and served for a time as the director of the local chapter of the American Red Cross. She also tutored many school children, led nature walks, and worked occasionally as a substitute teacher at Winchester High School. At Newbury Court, in Concord, she sang in the chapel choir and was chair of the committee that raised money for staff holiday gifts.
She had a soprano voice that was considered by many listeners to be extraordinarily beautiful. While in fifth grade, she was asked to sing a solo for a school assembly to honor an invited group of civil war veterans. Like a songbird, she loved to sing around the house and had a vast repertoire. When asked by her children how she knew so many songs, many of them seemingly obscure, she said that her father had sung them all to her when she was a child. She took voice lessons as an adult, occasionally sang solos in church and in vocal recitals and eventually joined larger community choral groups, including the Masterworks Chorale, the Concord Community Chorus, and the Concord Women’s Chorus. When Allen Lannom, the esteemed director of the Masterworks Chorale at the time, listened to her audition, he stopped her shortly after she began singing and exclaimed, “I have to have that voice in my group!”.
In addition to music, Phyllis’s passions included reading, writing, crossword puzzles, art (watercolor and pastels), gardening, sewing, knitting, quilting, home decoration, and, last but not least, cats! She frequented local museums and concerts, had subscriptions to the Boston Symphony and Boston Lyric Opera and was a Museum of Fine Arts member. A voracious reader, she kept extensive reading journals for most of her life. At one point she had made journal entries for every book that she’d read in the past 40 years. She was a reader long before she attended school, and for her first two years of elementary school was engaged by her teachers to help her fellow classmates learn to read.
Prior to settling in Winchester, MA where they lived for 46 years, Phyllis and her husband “Bud” lived in District Heights, MD, Philadelphia, PA, Clearfield, UT, and Gloucester, MA. In Winchester, they enjoyed hosting large parties for friends and extended family in their beautiful 1881 Victorian farmhouse. During several summer trailer trips across the US and Canada with their children, Phyllis would regularly entice them all to learn and sing rounds with her in the car. Bud and Phyllis later travelled, often with friends, to Europe, the Caribbean, South America, Africa, and many domestic destinations. Phyllis was adept at languages, and was able to successfully communicate in French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and German.
She is remembered for her ever-positive outlook, warm personality, and ready sense of humor. Throughout her life, her intellectual curiosity never waned. She especially enjoyed poetry, literature, and history. She continued to “read” widely via audiobooks in the past few years even as her vision declined.
Phyllis, a loving and much-loved wife and mother, is survived by her three children: Craige Knopf of Winchester, MA, Scott Knopf of Winter Park, FL, and Phoebe Knopf of Allston, MA. She was pre-deceased in 2016 by her beloved husband. She also leaves her faithful feline companion, Angel, and many treasured friends and relatives.
A Memorial Service will be held at 3 pm on Wednesday, September 13, 2023, in Duvall Chapel, 80 Deaconess Rd, Concord, MA. Relatives and friends are kindly invited to attend. It will be followed by a reception.
In lieu of flowers, donations in her memory may be made to The MSPCA - Angell Adoption Center at https://www.mspca.org.