Ramona Bressie was born on December 3, 1894. She attended the University of Chicago, receiving a B.A. in 1920 and a M.A. in 1925. In 1928 she received a Ph.D. in English, writing her dissertation on Thomas Usk while under the supervision of Edith Rickert. After completing her degree, she worked with Edith Rickert and John Matthews Manly on the Chaucer Life Records project, an extensive archival search for new documents pertaining to Chaucer's life.
Even though Bressie's dissertation was well received and she made lasting contributions to medieval scholarship, she never held an academic position and spent most of her life as an independent scholar. While her primary focus was Chaucer, her research interests also included Roman and medieval England, and libraries in the British Isles prior to 1450.
She died in 1965.
From the guide to the Bressie, Ramona. Papers, 1900-1965, (Special Collections Research Center University of Chicago Library 1100 East 57th Street Chicago, Illinois 60637 U.S.A.)
