Winton Briggs M.D.
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. – Winton “Win” Briggs, M.D., 88, passed away Monday, May 15, 2023, at The Village at Penn State, State College, Pa.
Born in Providence, R.I., to the late Walter David Briggs and Ruth Eleanor Brodrick Briggs, Win attended Mount Hermon School (Northfield, Mass.), and went on to graduate from Tufts University (Medford, Mass.) with a B.S. in bio-chemistry in 1956. Together with his new wife, fellow classmate Robin Reardon, he headed to Pittsburgh, Pa., where he earned his M.D. at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine in 1960.
Returning to New England, Win completed four years of internship and residency at the Maine Medical Center in Portland. Nineteen months into running a solo practice in South Portland, he was summoned to join the U.S. Army Medical Corps. Commissioned as Captain and assigned to Fort Leonard Wood Army Hospital in Missouri, he joined the infectious-disease team tasked with identifying and treating recruits with meningitis.
Discharged in 1968, Win and his family moved back to Maine and he resumed his practice in the Cape Elizabeth/So. Portland area. His successful practice grew to include more physicians, more staff, and finally a new office building in Cape Elizabeth housing the Greater Portland Medical Group. Win also served as attending physician in internal medicine at Portland’s Maine Medical Center (MMC) and Mercy Hospital. In 1986, he stepped in as first medical director of MMC’s New England Rehabilitation Hospital. Win retired from active medical practice in 2005, knowing that he would miss the wonderful people he worked with just as much as the patients who entrusted him with their care.
In addition to his love of medicine, Win especially enjoyed his family, bicycling, and music. He laughed heartily at the dinner table with children and grandchildren and at large gatherings of Briggs and Reardon families. An avid cyclist, he participated in Trek Across Maine multiple times and rode his age in miles every year until he turned 70. Win also loved to sing, something his mother and aunt (both professional musicians) encouraged from a young age. He sang at Mt. Hermon, at Tufts, in the army, and, in 1972, was a founding member of the Choral Art Society, Portland’s premier singing group, with which he performed for more than 30 years, including a Christmas recording in 1999 and a European cathedral performance tour in 2001.
Win is survived by his wife of 67 years, Robin “Bobbi” Reardon Briggs, their three children, Elisabeth Briggs Nichols (Hod) of State College, Pa., David Winton Briggs of South Portland, and John Brodrick Briggs (Jaelyn) of Brentwood, Tenn.; as well as four grandchildren, Taylor Briggs of Knoxville, Tenn., Mae Nichols of Stratton, Vt., Caroline Briggs of Dublin, Ireland, and Jackson Briggs of Windham. Also surviving are his brother and sister-in-law, Conrad and Cynthia Briggs of North Conway, N.H., his sister-in-law, Nancy Feldman of Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.; and several nieces and nephews.
The family wishes to thank the incredible staff at The Atrium at The Village at Penn State for their compassionate, exceptional care during Win’s last years.
A memorial celebration for family and friends will be held at a future date.
In the meantime, donations in lieu of flowers or gifts may be sent to
Choral Art Society
(choralart.org),
St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital
(stjude.org), or
Northfield Mt. Hermon School
(nmhfund@nmhschool.org)
Send questions/comments to the editors.