Ann Crockett Holland

Ann Crockett Holland passed away peacefully on February 10, 2025, with a loving circle of family, friends and caregivers around her. Ann wants her dying to be "a time of personal growth for everyone" which reflects her abundant kindness, generous spirit, and beautiful abiding love for others in a time of grief.

Throughout her life, Ann was known for her calm presence. She loved boating and water skiing - on the Ohio River in Chris Craft and Century boats as a young person, and later in life at the Holland family's South Carolina lake house. Ann loved her many dogs - Pepper, Cindy, Dolly, Winston & Clementine, Shelly, Duffy and her other rescue "Sheltie" Shetland Sheepdogs. She was an accomplished pianist playing Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Mozart, and Liszt as an early life pastime. Ann enjoyed morning birds, blue herons, frogs and toads, dark chocolate, classical and jazz music and concerts, a good long Gin Rummy card game (that she usually won), and engaged conversations with family and friends - often at her favorite spot on her South Carolina lake house front porch that she last visited in 2023. Ann was loyal and a prolific letter writer who always remembered people's birthdays with thoughtful notes, creative gifts, a friendly phone call or a warm hug.

Known in her childhood as "Sarah Ann," she was born May 31, 1937, in Matewan, West Virginia to her father Eugene Jackson Crockett and mother Sarah Elizabeth Shumate - both high school teachers who passed away respectively in 1950 and 1952. As a young teenager, Ann was raised in the loving care of her grandparents, Dr. Rufus Shumate and Lillie May White of Athens, West Virginia and John Crockett of Princeton, West Virginia and her kind, caring cousins Willis and Phyllis White of Huntington, West Virginia.

Under Willis' guidance, Ann learned to drive in a 1953 Corvette, as well as, several stylish Chris Craft and Century runabout boats. Ann attended Marshall University with numerous academic and leadership achievements as Kappa Sigma sorority rush chairman, treasurer, vice-president and president, President of Fagus - a top senior women honorarium, member of student senate, chairman of Marshall's Leadership Camp, Dean's List honoree, Psi Chi national psychology honoree, treasurer of Chi Beta Phi national science honorary, Panhellenic Council member, and 1958 "Miss Marshall" a stunning, beautiful homecoming queen as selected by the Marshall University student body. She graduated cum laude in 1959 with her BA in Psychology with a minor in History and German with plans to travel to Europe before beginning graduate school in psychology.

In April 1959, Ann also represented West Virginia as its Cherry Blossom Princess at the Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington DC - an annual commemoration of Japan's 1912 gift of 3,000 cherry trees and celebrating the enduring friendship between people of the United States and Japan while promoting traditional and contemporary arts and culture, natural beauty, and community spirit. After college, Ann enjoyed working for Kappa Sigma Sorority traveling by train to supervise recruitment and organization management of chapters across twelve states. Ann travelled to Europe later that year where she met her future husband, Ralph Taylor Holland Jr., and had their first date in Sorrento, Italy. They were married on July 2, 1960, in the First Presbyterian Church in Huntington, West Virginia. Ann lived at Clemson University in South Carolina and taught English and History at Pickens High School in 1960-61 while her husband attended Clemson. The couple moved to Sarasota, Florida for three years where her husband attended the Ringling School of Art while she attained her State of Florida Teacher's Certificate and taught German, Civics and remedial reading at McIntosh Middle School. The young family moved to High Point, North Carolina in 1964 - six months after their first daughter Elizabeth Michele was born. Their second daughter Kathryn McKenzie was born in 1966. As a young mother, Ann continued her education completing college courses at Clemson, Florida Presbyterian College, Manatee Community College, and University of North Carolina - Greensboro.

Throughout her life, Ann was a dedicated wife, mother, grandmother, cousin, homemaker, school teacher in Florida, North and South Carolina, and was a trusted friend and confidant to many. Ann also volunteered with and supported numerous community organizations. Ann and her husband Ralph were founding members of St. Christopher's Episcopal Church in High Point, North Carolina in 1966. She served her church perennially as a member of altar guild, youth ministry, vestry, and her local diocese. Ann was especially proud to serve during the years when the Episcopal Church of North Carolina diocese ordained its first female priests including her friend Julie Clarkson. In 2000, Ann proudly attended the election of Bishop Michael Curry, the first African-American diocesan bishop of the Episcopal Church in the American South at Duke University Chapel. Ann smiled ear to ear when Bishop Curry went on to become the 27th presiding bishop and primate of the Episcopal Church. Ann enjoyed regular trips to the Valle Crucis, an Episcopal Church retreat center in Banner Elk, North Carolina. Ann spurred the creation of the Memorial Garden at St. Christopher's Episcopal Church following her husband Ralph's death in 1990, and served as a Eucharistic Visitor to offer the Celebration of Holy Eucharist to members of her congregation who were ill, hospitalized, or homebound. In 2014, Ann completed her Education for Ministry four-year study.

Ann also volunteered and served as High Point Volunteers to the Court's first coordinator at the program's inception in 1973. Through presentations to civic, church, and community-based organizations, Ann recruited and organized training sessions for community volunteers to work with youthful offenders in cooperation with and at the direction of local court officials. She was also very active in the philanthropy and support of the arts including the North Carolina Shakespeare Festival, University of North Carolina School of Arts, Penland School of Craft, Spoleto Festival, just to name a few. Ann also worked for twenty-five years in interior design at Reynolds House in Greensboro, North Carolina and retired in 2005. Even though Ann left West Virginia in 1960, she continued to be a beloved and loyal member of Crockett, Shumate, White and McKenzie family reunions through the years.

In 2013, Ann moved to Boulder County, Colorado to be closer to her family. She loved attending her grandsons Kyle's and Jackson's Niwot High School and Colorado State University fraternity basketball games. She rarely missed the Carolina Tar Heels vs Duke Blue Devils basketball games, and enjoyed joking with her cousin Kenny, a Duke alumnus, and his wife Donna, a Carolina alumnus, about the games' outcomes. Ann's family gifted her a 1963 Century Resorter runabout boat named the "Sarah Ann" that brought her much joy. Her family was also blessed to travel with Ann in Colorado and to California, Hawaii, New York, Mexico, and her favorite South Carolina lake house, as well as savor many holiday celebrations with her at her residence at The Academy in Boulder, Colorado in the last years of her life.

Ann is survived by her daughter Elizabeth Michele Holland of Longmont, Colorado; her daughter Kathryn McKenzie Holland of Temecula, California; her two grandsons Kyle Taylor and Jackson Joseph Kolakowski of Denver, Colorado; and Dennis McKenzie "Kenny" White, his wife Donna Billings White of Asheville, North Carolina and Allison McKenzie White of Brooklyn, New York. Ann also enjoyed her relationships with several godchildren and other children who she dearly loved - Allison White, Dirk and Kirsten Whitley, Jeanne Pridgen, Katharine Ragsdale, Elizabeth "Sissy" Amis, and "Missy" Nagaishi Wilson just to name a few.

Ann's first Celebration of Life will be Sunday, March 9, 2025, at 12:30-3:30pm in The Chapel at The Academy - University Hill, 970 Aurora Avenue, Boulder, Colorado 80302. Entrance is at 10th Street with on street neighborhood parking. (Note Daylight Savings Time begins on Sunday March 9.) The family invites extended family, The Academy community, Ann's caregivers, and friends to join us in person or virtually via Zoom to share stories, enjoy music and refreshments that celebrate her life.

Zoom link: 

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/2827400038

Meeting ID: 2827400083 Password: Dara

A second Celebration of Life will be on Ann's birthday weekend May 31-June 1, 2025 at St Christopher's Episcopal Church Memorial Garden, 303 Eastchester Drive, High Point, North Carolina 27262. More details on this celebration will be available in the early Spring.

In lieu of flowers, please consider a pledge to:

* St. Christopher's Episcopal Church  https://secure.myvanco.com/YNBA/campaign/C-Z0G5 

or a donation to the 

* Triangle Sheltie Rescue of North Carolina https://www.triangleshelties.com/ 

 in Ann Holland's name.