Philippa de Roet was the sister of Katherine Swynford, third wife of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster and was the wife of the poet Geoffrey Chaucer. Philippa was the daughter of Sir Gilles de Roet, a knight of Hainault and accompanied Queen Philippa to England, he became the Guienne King of Arms. There is no history of her mother, but it is thought that Philippa had two sisters and a brother: Katherine and Walter, her father went to serve the queen's sister, the empress of Germany and the three younger children – Walter and Katherine – were left in the care of Queen Philippa. It was her father’s relationship with royalty that gave Philippa and her family high status and a reputation among the upper class, who took Philippa in as a ‘domicella’, or lady-in-waiting; this phase of her life began with the households of Elizabeth of Ulster and Queen Philippa, ended with Constance of Castile, Duchess of Lancaster. These associations proved to be valuable, as Philippa began to receive annuities from Edward III, Richard II, John of Gaunt, Costanza's husband.

Philippa is believed to have picked up the nickname "Philippa Pan" while working at Elizabeth of Ulster's household. There are records from 1357–1359 from the house of Elizabeth of Ulster which mention "a lady designated as Philippa Pan". "Pan" may have been an abbreviation of “Planetaria”, meaning mistress of the pantry, most where Philippa worked in the Ulster household. The name might come from her father, who sometimes went by'Paon' or Payne. Geoffrey Chaucer was commissioned to work as a page in Elizabeth's household in 1357, where Philippa was working as a domicella; this is. Philippa was around 10 years old at the time and Chaucer was said to be around 12, their marriage might have been arranged by Queen Philippa herself in September 1366. It was tradition for domicellas and esquires who worked in the same household to marry. Once married, although granddaughter Philippa of Eltham was grown, it was decided they would continue working for her and the king; as a result of this marriage, Queen Philippa and King Edward III granted a lifetime annuity to the couple in 1366.

This payment allowed the Chaucers to set up a household within the royal one. Chaucer was taken into the King's household in 1367 and began to receive his own annuity; these salaries gave the Chaucers a good lifestyle. After the death of the queen, Philippa went to the service of Costanza of Castile and John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster. Following Costanza's death in 1394, John wed his mistress, Philippa's sister; this connection increased the Chaucers’ status in society. Philippa was much in favor in court as a lady-in-waiting and her husband continued to elevate his reputation, he worked as a Controller of Customs and royal agent. Due to the varying nature of their jobs and Philippa were forced to spend much of their time apart; this may explain why little is known about their marriage. Philippa Roet was somewhat higher born than her husband and consideration has been given to the parallels between their relationship and the one in Chaucer's Franklin's Tale, which details the relationship between a lower-born knight and a higher-born lady.

It is probable that Chaucer and Philippa had “two sons and two daughters,” whose birthdates are unknown. A lurid conspiracy theory was put forth, first by Mary Eliza Haweis in the late nineteenth-century, again more influentially by Russell Kraus in 1932, that "one or two" of these children had been illicitly fathered by John of Gaunt. Many scholars, including all contemporary Chaucerians have argued against this theory. A. Kelly, for example, has demonstrated that this belief is false as John of Gaunt having sexual relations with two sisters would have been considered incest and would have required additional papal dispensation for him to marry Katherine. Samantha Katz Seal argues that literary critics deliberately encouraged the idea of a "harlot" Philippa for the same reason that earlier critics had believed in a "shrewish" Philippa, namely that alienating Chaucer from his wife and domestic circles allowed these critics to imagine a more masculine Chaucer, to claim that they, his critics, understood Chaucer better than anyone else had his wife.

Elizabeth is thought to be the oldest of their children. She is the Elizabeth Chaucer who, along with a Margaret Swynford, was nominated a nun by royal privilege at the accession of Richard II in 1377, thus she may have been born as early as 1364, she may have been a nun in Barking Abbey. It has been suggested that she was named after Elizabeth of Ulster, however it is worth remembering that Philippa had an elder sister, named Elizabeth/Isabel. Thomas, the eldest son and most well known, might have been born around 1367 judging from the dates he entered the military. CriticsA strong relationship with Philippa has been suggested due to an assumption that Thomas chose to bear her coat of arms over Chaucer's. However, in the Special Collections of the Harvard Library is a deed with the name and seal of Thomas Chaucer using the arms of his father Geoffrey and ther

The Anamosa State Penitentiary Cemetery known as the Iowa Men's Reformatory Cemetery or Boot Hill Cemetery, is located west of Anamosa, United States. The first cemetery associated with the Iowa Men's Reformatory, now a penitentiary, was begun in 1876 at Prison Farm No. 1 or at Farm No. 5. Its exact location is unknown; the graves are of those prisoners whose bodies were left unclaimed or were not taken to one of the state's medical colleges. They were buried in common graves. Tall limestone markers were contained the prisoner's name and death date, they were moved here when this cemetery was established in 1914. Subsequent graves hold individual bodies, are marked with shorter limestone markers with the prisoner's name, date of death, sometimes their prison number, they are in three different styles. Two styles are one with a triangular top and the other with a rounded top, they were used from 1914 to the 1940s. The third style of stone is a flat, horizontal marker, used from the 1940s to the present.

The cemetery is a triangular piece of land located on Farm No. 1 with the graves arranged in rows at an angle. It is marked with an iron entrance gate with the words "Anamosa State Penitentiary Cemetery" across the top, it is surrounded by a white fence. The cemetery was listed as a historic site on the National Register of Historic Places in 1992