Ann Crockett Holland

1937 - 2025

Ann Crockett Holland

May 31, 1937 - February 10, 2025

Longtime High Point resident, Ann Crockett Holland passed away peacefully on February 10, 2025, in Boulder, Colorado 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 "Sheltie" Shetland Sheepdogs.

She was an accomplished pianist, 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 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.

Ann attended Marshall University with numerous academic and leadership achievements and was also selected 1958 Miss Marshall by the student body. She graduated cum laude in 1959 with her BA in Psychology with a minor in History and German. In 1959, Ann travelled to Europe 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, and lived in Clemson, South Carolina and Sarasota, Florida before settling in High Point in 1964.

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 and her husband Ralph were founding members of St. Christopher's Episcopal Church in High Point 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 at Duke University Chapel.

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.

Ann also 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 supported her husband's Greensboro-based business Ralph Holland Photography an award-winning advertising photography studio - and worked for twenty-five years in interior design at Reynolds House in Greensboro before retiring in 2005.

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. 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 University Hill in the last years of her life.

Ann is survived by her two daughters Elizabeth Michele Holland of Longmont, Colorado and Kathryn McKenzie Holland of Temecula, California; her two grandsons Kyle Taylor and Jackson Joseph Kolakowski of Denver, Colorado; and dearest cousin Dennis McKenzie "Kenny" White, his wife Donna Billings White of Asheville, North Carolina and their daughter Allison McKenzie White of Brooklyn, New York.

Ann's first Celebration of Life is Sunday, March 9, 2025, 12:30-3:30 p.m. in The Chapel at The Academy - University Hill, 970 Aurora Avenue, Boulder, Colorado. 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.

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

Ann's Celebration of Life details including the first Celebration of Life Zoom link are at https://www.greenwoodmyersfuneral.com/obituaries/ann-holland. In lieu of flowers, please consider a pledge to St. Christopher's Episcopal Church or a donation to the Triangle Sheltie Rescue of North Carolina in Ann Holland's name.