Frances Mildred Geddes was born in Clyde, New York, and grew up in England, studying at Oxford and the Slade School of Art in London. Moving to Toronto, the artist studied at the Ontario College of Art with George Agnew Reid and John William Beatty before joining the Art Students League in New York to study with Kenneth Hayes Miller and Dimitri Romanoffski. Geddes later returned to Toronto to teach at the Ontario College of Art for two years and traveled extensively through Canada, Europe and the United States.
In 1923, she and her husband, Lewis John Geddes, moved to California first living in Los Angeles for five years and then settling in San Diego. The artist exhibited regularly, receiving a Leisser-Farnham Memorial prize at the San Diego Art Guild for her portrait of Dr. Edward L. Hardy, the president of the San Diego State College.
Geddes passed in 1947 while returning from a trip to Canada.
