Martha Joan Holt

Joan Barrington Holt A life filled with grace, wisdom, and humility ended in Huntsville on Thanksgiving Day. As she would have insisted, Joan Barrington Holt, 89, died without burden or despair on anyone’s part, leaving this life peacefully after an apparent heart attack. Hubbard, Texas, where she was born on August 6, 1921, was a vibrant center of small-town farm life. Growing up during the Depression with her parents, Fletcher and Mattie Barrington, and sister Juanita, Joan never recalled any hardship or material deprivation as extended families and home-grown produce furnished health, nourishment, and good times in abundance. From the Gordons she gained a strong Biblical orientation, from the numerous Scotch-Irish Barrington clan she learned to confect a tall tale, and from the Hances she learned to sing and dance. She had a lovely soprano voice and the same beautiful skin as her mother and aunt. Joan became an honors student, developing a lovely, clear writing style that served her well throughout her long life. Her own mother’s two rules – attend school every day and (Baptist) church every Sunday – formed the foundation of her own solid system of beliefs and later, her own approach to child-rearing. From 1938 to 1940, Joan attended Lee College in Baytown, where she served as president of one of the school’s social clubs. Trips to Houston for dances at the lavish Empire Room of the old Rice Hotel were a special delight. Following one year enrolled at Baylor University, Joan joined the wartime work force. At the Baytown Ordnance Works, she met Lieutenant Beverley Holt, whom she married in January, 1942. They enjoyed each other’s company and support for the next 65 years. Army duties and, after the war, work assignments from Amoco led the Holts to numerous temporary and semi-permanent residential forays far from the Texas homeland. Driving through a bitter snowstorm along rural Missouri back roads en route to a military post in Iowa, the newlyweds understood for the first time why automobiles sold in northern states came with heaters and defrosters. Many more adventures lay ahead. Joan learned that people living in places such as New York, California, Illinois, Oklahoma and Virginia were different, but in ways that she did not think were as important as their similarities. She always enjoyed seeing new things and places and wrote only recently, “I hope I never stop learning from the world around me.” European travel, especially to Scotland and Ireland to pursue family lineages, became a passion for Joan, particularly during the time after her husband’s retirement in 1984. Genealogical research became an amateur career, involving numerous cross-country trips by auto. She was especially proud of her Cherokee ancestors. Joan began teaching Sunday School in Baptist churches in 1951 and continued for the rest of the century, one of many ways in which her insights, warmth and good humor inspired others. Her piano was always set with the sheet music of hymns. She was preceded in death by her husband Beverley Baker (B.B.) Holt, and son-in-law Ashley Elkins, in 2007. She leaves three loving and devoted children, Jack Holt and wife Lenora, of Spring, Suzanne (Suzy) Steed and husband George, of Huntsville, and Jim Holt and wife Susan, of Washington, DC., six grandchildren, Matthew Holt, Adam Steed and fiancé Heather Houston, Elizabeth Harrison and husband John, Emily Elkins, Charlie Holt, and Jimmy Holt, and four great grandchildren, Jeremiah Harrison, Travis Harrison, Madison Elkins, and Owen Steed. They will all miss her optimism, love and enduring youth. A visitation will be held Monday, November 29, at Sam Houston Memorial Funeral Home in Huntsville from 5:00 until 8:00 pm. A graveside service for the family will be held at 11:00 am at the Weimar Masonic Cemetery in Weimar, Texas on Tuesday, November 30, where she will rest alongside her husband. Those wishing to leave memorial condolences may do so at www.shmfh.com

Martha Joan Holt

August 6, 1921 - November 30, 2010