JEAN LOIS ROGERS HOLT

1925 - 2021

JEAN LOIS ROGERS HOLT, 95, A MEMBER OF THE GREATEST GENERATION Jean Lois Rogers, oldest child of Joseph Ball Rogers Jr. and Gladys Harriet Rogers (nee Kandle), was born on June 25th, 1925, on her grandparents’ farm off Egypt Road in Jeffersonville, PA. At an early age she learned the value of frugality and hard work, plucking chickens and strawberries to earn a nickel per bird or carton. A nature lover and avid birder, she and her brothers and cousins regularly trooped through Six Boys’ Woods on their way to the Schuylkill River. She was part of the first graduating class of A D Eisenhower High School in 1943, served in the class congress, and starred as Maggie Cutler in the senior class play The Man who came to Dinner. After graduation Jean promptly joined the war effort, making aircraft canopy springs at Hunter Pressed Steel in Lansdale, PA where working summers she rose to the position of inspector while also attending Duke University. She graduated from Duke in 1948 with a B.A. in Economics. While there she met the first great love of her life, the future Lt. Col. Robert Terrence (Terry) Holt, whom she begged not to leave her when he cut in on her during a mixed dance. He did not, for over sixty years. They were wed in Catlettsburg, Kentucky, in 1947, to accommodate Terry’s dying father in West Virginia, and again in West Norriton at Jeffersonville Presbyterian Church in 1948. After Terry got his law degree from the University of Florida and his subsequent return to service during the Korean War (starting with a year’s tour at Thule Air Force Base), Jean lived in Norristown and set up a bookkeeping system for her late father’s firm Joseph B Rogers Jr. Inc. After Terry came home from Greenland Jean made homes for him and their children wherever they went, including Japan, Virginia, and Northern Italy, moving 16 times in 16 years. This instilled in her a love of traveling that eventually had her visiting six continents and all fifty states. She also among other activities worked in women’s organizations, established base thrift shops, and served as Den Mother to Cub Scouts. In 1966 Jean, a longtime genealogist, wrote the History and Genealogy of the Jonathan Rogers Family and served as the Rogers Family Association Historian until her death. In 1970, the Holts returned to Norristown, where they bought and renovated a decrepit colonial farmhouse, continuing to improve and enlarge it until 2004 when they moved to Shannondell Apartments, her last residence, just down the road from where she was born. Starting in 1975 she helped Terry turn a struggling enterprise, Mobile Lifts, into a profitable company that at its height employed twenty-five people and continues to operate to this day. Not just an able administrator, a tough negotiator, and a tireless bargain-hunter for supplies and parts, Jean also accompanied her husband to many sales conventions in the northeastern US, personally demonstrating the bucket trucks that were part of the company’s stock in trade. The dynamic couple spearheaded an effort in the 1980’s to prevent the building of townhouses on what is now much enjoyed parkland at the John James Audubon Sanctuary, the site of her great grandfather’s Civil War era birth. In the 2000’s, the Holts contributed much time, effort, and money to improve the sanctuary’s collections and to finance the building of a new state-of-the art museum, art gallery, and dining and events pavilion. Jean was a member of the Jefferson Presbyterian Church, the First Church of Christ, Scientist in Phoenixville, and the Thomas Paine Unitarian Universalist Fellowship whose Ridge Pike house of worship sits on land the Holts were instrumental in acquiring. Despite advancing macular degeneration she continued to lead Mobile Lifts after her husband Terry’s death in 2007 until its sale in 2019. Her blindness may have slowed her down, but it did not deter her from continuing to be productive and connected to the end thanks to many visual aids and computer applications. After her husband’s death and the passing of her second love, William Stouffer, Jean met the last great love of her life, Ralph Volpe, and spent many happy years in his company and on numerous bus tours of the northeastern US and adjacent Canada. Cape May, New Jersey, was a favorite annual tradition for three generations of Holts to grow and reconnect. Jean enjoyed sewing and mending, planting rock, flower and vegetable gardens and had a garden plot at Shannondell until the final years of her life. A strong GOP supporter, Jean danced at President Reagan’s second Inaugural Ball, and remained actively interested in politics to the end. She was pleased to watch Joe Biden become the 46th President after voting Democratic for the second time in her life. Unfortunately lockdown followed by a month battling COVID-19 proved too much for this indomitable woman. She succumbed to the disease on January 24, 2021, in Chester County Hospital, West Chester, near the Chester County Historical Society to which she donated historical family records. Cremation was at James Terry Funeral Home, Downingtown, PA, https://www.jamesterryfuneralhome.com Jean was preceded in death by her parents, her husband, a partner, William Stouffer, her infant son, John Rowe Holt, a brother, David B Rogers, and recently a sister, Sarah Bright. She is survived by her partner Ralph Volpe, Shannondell; her daughter Virginia Holt and husband Professor Ian Parberry and their children, Elizabeth, Katherine, and Margaret Parberry, all of Corinth, Texas; son Robert Jackson Holt and his wife Janet Ebert, Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania; an adopted son, Miles Edward Holt, of Florida; his daughter Nicole Holt Kopp, her husband Chris Kopp, and their children, Dylan Kopp and Violet Kopp, in North Carolina; brothers George, Joseph, and Albert Rogers, of Pennsylvania; and a sister, Linda Simmons, Texas. A celebration of Jean’s full and busy life will be held post-Covid. Contributions may be made in Jean’s name to the John James Audubon Center at Mill Grove, 1201 Pawlings Road, Audubon, PA 19403. https://johnjames.audubon.org