Nicholas Holt IV

1935 - 2015

Nicholas Holt, IV

October 25, 1935 - April 26, 2015

Nicholas Holt, IV, of Angles Camp, California, died peacefully in his sleep from complications of a stroke at approximately 5:45 AM April 26, 2015 at Mercy San Juan Hospital in Carmichael, California, outside Sacramento, a specialist hospital equipped for Neurology and Neurosurgery. He was 79 years old.

Nick was born in Stockton, California on October 25, 1935, son of Benjamin Dean Holt and Loretta Holt, and the grandson of Benjamin Leroy Holt and Ann Brown Holt, a descendant of Stockton pioneers. Nick's grandfather was the founder of Holt Machinery Company of Stockton in 1892, and inventor of the steam traction engine, and later the first working crawler track-type tractor, founding with those products what eventually grew to become the Caterpillar Corporation.

Nick completed his secondary education in Stockton before attending the University of California, Berkeley. Nick was an avid participant in Zeta Psi fraternity, graduating from University of California in 1959. He subsequently attended University of California Los Angeles Business School.

He served in the U.S. Army, stationed at Fort Lewis, Washington, then entering the stock brokerage business with Shuman Agnew Investment Company in San Francisco. Nick subsequently established Nicholas Holt Securities on Pine Street in San Francisco, serving as President, and purchasing a seat on the Pacific Coast Stock Exchange. In recent years, Nick and his wife lived in Sausalito, California, prior to their retirement and move to Angels Camp.

Nick will be interred at 11 AM in the Holt Family Mausoleum at Stockton Rural Cemetery, in Stockton, California on May 14, 2015, attended by family and close friends.

Nick was an active member of the Bohemian Club, and was honored to have been a member of that organization's Old Guard. He was also the senior member of Outpost Camp, having joined the Bohemian Club in August 1964, and Outpost Camp shortly afterwards, where he contributed mightily, bringing most interesting and occasionally infamous guests.

Warm and cheery, generous to a fault with precious time and resources, all who knew him experienced Nick's warm and sincere greetings, delivered from a full smile on a tanned face. Educated in history, the arts and classics in his formative years, erudite and well traveled, Nick held his own in intellectual discussions on matters of state, the world and the financial markets.

Nick's passions were his wife, family and friends. He was blessed with a full and active life highlighted by thirty-one years of international travel with his wife; tennis and golf at Angels Camp, water skiing and boating at Lake Tahoe with his wife, children and grandchildren; and avidly cheering in support of his son Nick V's football games while playing linebacker at the University of the Pacific and later coaching at the college level.

Nick is survived by his loving wife, Penelope Wayte Holt, of Sausalito and Angels Camp, California, a professor of Speech Pathology at San Francisco State University; his son Nicholas V, of Bowling Green, Kentucky and two daughters, Linden, of Brooklyn, New York and Deana, of Tampa, Florida; two brothers, B.D. "Peter" of San Antonio, Texas, and Donald, of San Louis Obispo, California, and his sister, Catharine Holt, of Angels Camp, California; Nephews Peter Martin Holt of San Antonio, Texas, Benjamin Holt of Louisville, Kentucky, and Kenneth Besser, of San Francisco; Cousin Douglas Holt of San Mateo, California; and an extended family of nieces, nephews, and grandchildren.

Grieved for sure by Penny, his children, and his extended family, Nick will be remembered fondly in legend by his friends and pals at Outpost Camp and elsewhere in the Bohemian Club, and by others within his various communities at University of California Berkeley, San Francisco, Sausalito, Angels Camp, and everywhere else he touched someone's life. We were privileged to share Nick's life, for which we are all rich beneficiaries and better off.

A celebration of Nick's life will be commemorated on Monday May 18, 2015, at the Bohemian Club in San Francisco.