Rhoda Kyser Taschioglou

Rhoda Kyser Taschioglou (née Rhoda Jane Kyser) passed away unexpectedly at Brigham and Women’s Hospital on September 8, 2026, with family by her side.

Born December 28, 1938—a date she wished weren’t eclipsed by Christmas—Rhoda was raised in Utica, New York by Joseph W. Kyser and Edith McCune Kyser. As an only child, she was sensitive and sociable, devoted to her springer spaniel Bozo and a virtual sibling to the five kids next door.

Bright and incisive, displaying an innate gift for verbal and written expression, Rhoda excelled in school. She graduated from New Hartford Central High School as a Latin and math major at age 16 with a grade point average of 96.69. She earned a degree in economics from Vassar College in 1959 and a master’s degree in education from Boston University in 1962. Her ability to communicate and persuade served her as an educator, consultant, and executive. She wielded her prodigious vocabulary with precision, correcting all grammatical transgressions within earshot.

During her first job at Polaroid, researching how the eye sees color, Rhoda met her future husband, Kemon Peter Taschioglou. On May 27, 1961, she married him “twice,” first in a Presbyterian ceremony, then in an Orthodox Greek one. Two years later, Rhoda and Kemon moved from Cambridge, Massachusetts to Lincoln, where they raised Ellen and Peter and thrived. Rhoda and Kemon remained partners for 63 years.

At a time when few women in her circle pursued careers, Rhoda embraced being a “working mom.” In 1968, she joined the English department at Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School, where she developed original courses and brought remarkable humor and showmanship to her teaching of exposition, drama, and literature. Each year, she assiduously crafted admissions recommendations for up to 40 students, guiding and championing several hundred on their way to college over her 17-year tenure.

In 1984, Rhoda shifted her career to healthcare fundraising. As a development officer at Massachusetts General Hospital, she created donor education and cultivation events, including a symposium on women's health and a panel discussion on healthcare for the poor. In 1991, she became Vice President of Development at Emerson Hospital, where she excelled until retiring in 2002.

Rhoda lived out her belief that freedom comes with a responsibility to contribute. She was repeatedly sought out to select leaders, plan events, shape educational programs, and coalesce people around a common purpose. She screened candidates for a new superintendent for the Lincoln Public Schools, reviewed the district’s primary-school English curriculum, and chaired the Lincoln-Sudbury Teachers’ Association scholarship fund. Her flair for the dramatic made her an ideal General Chair for the deCordova Museum’s 1965 festival: With two children under three, she herded 400 volunteers over six months of preparation for an outdoor extravaganza that drew 5,000 people and generated $10,000 in profit—more than $100,000 in today’s dollars. In retirement, Rhoda worked with incarcerated men at the Massachusetts Correctional Institution at Concord, teaching interpersonal skills.

Together, Kemon and Rhoda consistently showed up for the machinery of New England town life—participating in Lincoln Players productions, serving at the First Parish in Lincoln and singing in its choir, speaking at Annual Town Meetings, designing floats for Lincoln’s July 4th Parade, serving as election inspectors, and initiating neighborhood projects.

Alongside her formidable capacity for getting things done, Rhoda was highly creative. She sewed clothes, mastered needlework, danced to jazz, and wrote satire starring her pets. She was an adventurous and intuitive cook: While humoring her family’s preference for homemade pasta sauce and blueberry pie, Rhoda forayed into the latest culinary craze—Bundt cakes, fondue, quiche, poached salmon, and Asian stir-fries.

In her seventies and eighties, Rhoda expanded her creative output by transforming at least seven gardens around the house. With little interest in memorizing flower names, she chose to “paint” with them instead, spending countless afternoons creating broad swaths of undulating color and texture that resembled watercolors. Right up until her final days, she regularly assembled exquisite flower arrangements by pairing unlikely household receptacles with just two or three stems from her gardens.

Tall, elegant, and beaming a movie-star smile, Rhoda was as striking as her laugh was raucous. She found humor in almost any situation, often through self-deprecating sarcasm and wordplay. While she loved captivating people with entertaining stories, she was drawn to the vulnerable and forlorn. Her tender-heartedness toward animals led to the perpetual household presence of foundling canines. Beyond routinely soothing her students with a salient word, Rhoda shepherded many people from all walks of life through difficult times.

Rhoda is survived by her daughter, Ellen, and son-in-law, John Parsons, of Belvedere, CA; her son, Peter Taschioglou, and his partner, Susie Harris, of Waltham, MA; and her grandchildren, Nikki Parsons of Belvedere, CA, Danielle Taschioglou of Hermosa Beach, CA, and Alexander Taschioglou of Portland, OR.

A celebration of Rhoda’s life will be held at 2 p.m. on Friday, November 6 at the First Parish in Lincoln.

Memorial donations may be made to Save A Dog in Sudbury, in honor of Rhoda’s lifelong love of dogs, or to the First Parish in Lincoln.

Arrangements have been entrusted to Dee Funeral Home & Cremation Service of Concord.