Myra Biggerstaff was born February 6th, 1905, in Logansport, Indiana, to Blanche Berry Biggerstaff, a country school teacher, and Oliver Biggerstaff, a railroad telegrapher. In 1909 the family moved to Omaha, Nebraska. Later, her father became station master in Howe, Nebraska, and her family moved to Auburn, Nebraska, in 1919. From 1924-26, Biggerstaff attended Bethany College in Lindsborg, Kansas, receiving a two-year teaching certificate which enabled her to teach elementary school. Myra returned to Bethany in 1929 to work as an assistant to Dr. Birger Sandzen, a well-known etcher, oil painter and watercolorist, at Bethany College. Sandzen served as Biggerstaff's mentor and much of her early work reflects a strong Sandzen influence in both subject matter and style.

Myra and Margaret Sandzen, daughter of Birger Sandzen, traveled to Paris in 1932, where they lived at the Cite Universitaire. Biggerstaff studied with Andre L'Hote while in Paris. Upon completion of her courses in Paris, Biggerstaff visited language professor, Roland Kvistberg in Sweden, whom she had met while studying at Bethany College. They later married in 1933.

Biggerstaff and Kvistberg lived in the old university town of Upsala. Biggerstaff arranged a joint exhibition of Birger Sandzen's graphic works and her own watercolors at a university gallery in Upsala. In 1934 she moved to Stockholm. She received a full scholarship to the Swedish Royal Academy's graphic arts school and studied with noted etcher Harold Sallsberg. Biggerstaff lived in Sweden throughout World War II, but decided to return to the United States where she obtained an amicable divorce from Kvistberg.

Upon Biggerstaff's return to the United States she became active, in arranging exhibitions while living in Auburn, Nebraska. Later, Biggerstaff returned to teaching at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, where she remained for two years. She decided to move to New York City and attended Columbia University Teachers College. During this time she married her second husband, William Holliday. Myra graduated with a Master of Arts degree from Columbia University and exhibited in national group shows in New York City receiving multiple awards. Biggerstaff retired in 1972 as Associate Professor and Chair of the Textile Design Department at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City.

In her later years, Myra resided at her home in Auburn, Nebraska, until her death in 1999