Jean Elizabeth Holmes, National President 2010-2011
Jean Elizabeth Holmes, 81 passed away January 14, 2023, in Canton, Georgia. She is survived by her husband, Lucien, of 56 years; daughter Rebecca, (Chris) Peterson; and two grandchildren, Alyssa and Michael.
Jean was a physical therapist for 45 years before retiring. She was also a quilter, gardener, and a photographer.
A letters member of the National League of American Pen Women, Inc., she authored eight books and many short stories. Jean also penned a book series for youth about the Gullah people on the Sea Islands of South Carolina and the Geechee people of Georgia during the Civil War era. She made paper mâché characters to bring the characters to life when presenting the stories at schools.
Jean was a longtime active member of the Del Ray Beach Branch. I first met Jean in 1989 while serving (in person) on the state board. She was president of her branch and I was Florida State president. At one meeting, she disagreed with me about something and stated reasons why. I thought, “That’s someone I want to get to know.” We became lifelong friends.
Her book, “The Women of the Ark,” was presented to church groups all over Florida. She asked me to do some paintings that she could project on huge screens during her presentation of the different women.
She became an art member through her beautiful photography. She opened and operated an art framing business in Del Ray Beach and was very successful for many years until moving out of the area.
Jean became state president and led our Florida branches to grow and interact with each other. She was elected National president and had many plans to push our organization forward.
Jean was plagued with severe back problems during her first year from a botched back surgery. She had corrective surgery, but too much damage was already done. She was in severe pain even though she sought help from many sources for the rest of her life. She decided she should step down from the National president position when it became harder for her to function.
Suffering much property damage from a hurricane, Jean and Lucien made repairs and remodeled their home of some 40 years. They decided to move to a smaller town with a slower pace. They sold their home in Del Ray Beach and moved to Canton.
One day before her move, Jean called me and told me they were moving. She said she had some things she thought I could use and asked if I could come down and get them. She generously gave me many supplies for matting and framing art works.
Jean loved her family dearly, NLAPW, and those she met and became friends with. She was a very special person, in so many ways, to all who knew her. Jane will be greatly missed.
— Submitted by Meletha Everett
JoAnna O’Keefe
August 29, 1937 – December 8, 2022
I would rather
blossom for a season
face full to the sun,
than moulder on the vine,
afraid to flower.
JoAnna O’Keefe, a poet, author, inspirational speaker, and cherished letters member of the Cape Canaveral Branch, Florida, passed away after a short illness on December 8, 2022, at age 85. Those who knew her will remember her compassionate spirit, which she expressed in hundreds of poems composed over several decades.
JoAnna was an engaged citizen throughout her life, beginning with running fundraising events for the USO during the Vietnam war. A graduate of Syracuse University in New York, she brought to her poems the accumulated experience of studies at the Pecos Benedictine Monastery School for Spiritual Directors, near Santa Fe, New Mexico; the Northern Arizona Hospice Program; the Dale Carnegie Course; studies in contemplative prayer at the Benedictine Monastery in Snowmass, Colorado, and the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She studied Christian spirituality and the psychology of C. G. Jung at the Einsiedein Conference in Switzerland.
JoAnna’s spiritual journey to writing began with two profound losses. Her father’s death left her in the depths of sorrow and took her to Florida to seek solace. She lived in a cottage by the sea with her husband, Jack, her high school sweetheart; and their son and daughter. Then the murder of a lifelong friend left her bereft and paralyzed with grief. She spent days sitting on the beach, adrift with the pain of suddenly losing two people she loved dearly.
That pain brought a new birth — JoAnna’s emergence as a poet. In 1988, she went on a pilgrimage in Yugoslavia shortly before war came to the Balkans. There, in a crowded church in a tiny village where miracles happened, she prayed to write a poem about peace. Back in the sanctuary of her home in Florida, she poured out her heart and feelings in poetry that later became her now-classic poem, “Come to the Garden,” which was read at the 51st National Prayer breakfast in Washington, D.C.
“Writing, I found, was a bridge to wholeness — a way to get in touch with my feelings, hopes, and dreams, a way to listen to Spirit’s voice within,” she had said.
JoAnna went on to write compelling poems that have been published and read by officials in Washington, D.C., incorporated into the commissioning of a U.S. Navy ship, and awarded many other blue-ribbon accolades and honors. She is the author of five books of poetry.
One of her proudest accomplishments was her patriotic poem turned into song, “America at the Crossroads,” released in December 2014. Dedicated to the American people, the song was performed by the Brevard Symphony Orchestra at its annual July 4th concert in Cocoa, Florida.
JoAnna was a 2016 recipient of the Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge National Award: George Washington Honor Medal. Her work was read into the Congressional Record on May 4, 2017. In April 2018, she received the NLAPW President’s Prestigious Pen Woman Award for Distinguished Achievement in Poetry. The award reads: “Her exceptional creation of America at the Crossroads to inspire national unity has brought great credit to herself, and the National League of American Pen Women, Inc.”
A popular inspirational speaker, JoAnna offered presentations integrating her poetry with spirituality.
JoAnna is survived by her son, Matthew; daughter, Patricia; and six grandchildren. She was preceded in death by her husband, Jack; and her granddaughter, Elizabeth. Donations are invited for Project Ellie, a nonprofit established in memory of her granddaughter, who died in 2011.
—Submitted by Marion Coste
Camilla Bozzoli Rudolph
Camilla Bozzoli Rudolph, 80, District of Columbia Branch art member, passed away on February 18, 2023, after a struggle with cancer.
The multitalented Camilla was, among other things, a translator, a teacher, and an artist.
She knew five languages: Italian, English, Spanish, French, and German. (She could read Proust in the original.) Camilla worked as the key translator at National Geographic for many years. In addition, she did freelance translating, as well as working on occasion as an interpreter and teaching Italian at various institutions in the Washington, D.C. area.
Camilla was an artist whose paintings were shown in exhibits at the Arts Club of Washington, as well as in some exhibitions in Georgetown, where she lived.
During the last many months of her illness, Camilla translated several librettos of operas by Johann Christian Bach for the Packard Humanities Institute. She also had plans to complete an illustrated children’s book.
I became friends with Camilla over 30 years ago when I took an Italian class in Georgetown University’s continuing education program. She always had an ear to listen, urging you to call so she could soothe and calm you if you were upset about something.
As I’m sure she did with others, she encouraged me in my writing career — inviting me to conduct a workshop with her at a translators conference, urging me to find and attend writers conferences and retreats, and even pushing me to pursue teaching my own course in creative writing in Georgetown’s continuing education program.
Camilla was a lively person who — whatever life threw at her — was determined to live in hope and accentuate the positive side of life. To the end, she hoped that she would have a few more years in which to enjoy life, create more art, and perhaps even travel a bit once more.
Camilla is survived by her sister, her daughter, and the many dear friends and colleagues in the Washington area whose lives she touched. We miss her.
—Submitted by Jessie Seigel
Polly Craig
Polly Craig, 94, was an Atlanta Branch member. Born in Orlando, Florida, she grew up in Massachusetts. She raised her five children as a single mother on Cape Cod, where she was a professional photographer and freelance contributor to Cape Magazine.
In 1983, Craig moved to Georgia to pursue a professional acting career. Then in 1984, she got her first speaking role, which entitled her to join the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. When she felt the need for more training, Craig relocated to North Hollywood and enrolled in the prestigious Joanne Baron’s Beverly Hills Studio to study the Meisner Technique. To finance her classes, she worked as an office manager for the Center for Surrogate Parenting.
I lost my dearest friend, the woman with whom I was most in sync with. Same age, same career, same humor, same likes and dislikes, same agreeable gossip — and the “sames” list goes on!
Sadly, she is no longer on the other end of my telephone line. I have no one to share my grievances, or an audition where we competed. We loved the playfulness we had between our sarcastic remarks. “You’re too fat for the part!” “You’re too old!” “I couldn’t even remember my name”; the teasing went on with much laughter.
Ah, how we bantered and made fun of ourselves and secretly gossiped about others. What fun to be with this remarkable woman! And being “second banana” to the comedic standup routines I wrote never left her wanting top billing.
Although rarely heard, her life story was real. Perhaps our “Yankee” upbringing made us immediately un-derstanding for the women whose woes were losing the competition for prom queen.
Her life before Atlanta was a calamity of ill-chosen decisions. Two miserable husbands and constant abuse. The blessings came with the five children she bore. Her aftermath choices were unusually coura-geous. She wanted to follow her dream to become an actress and making a courageous, Polly decision, she packed up her old station wagon, children, and needed items — the most important being a map of the United States — and then headed west.
Her dream to study acting with the best would become a reality. She mastered the best books of Stras-burg, Hagen, Adler, Meisner, and more. Jobs dribbled in, but money seemed to dribble out even faster. Where does a woman go with five children in her care?
We shared many jokes on how she ended up in Atlanta. Maybe her Rhett Butler would be around the white-columned homes serving mint juleps. Polly found one job and another and settled in a small apartment. The children mastered many classes and soon became their mother’s saving grace.
Two daughters found their way back to Massachusetts for college; two sons returned to California and soon were able to help their mom. The youngest son, still too naïve to set out on his own, remained with Mom in a small Smyrna apartment.
Polly found a job keeping the social and philanthropic endeavors up to date for a kind, wealthy woman and also helped to manage the woman’s staff in her home. She was happy with that means of salary for it also gave her time to find a casting agent and a way to audition.
Her studying never ended, for now she must learn how to act for television and with no time to waste she was a working wannabe actress. She kept her job with the woman and managed to work in film.
Her spare time was devoted to painting in oils, beautiful scenes she remembered from her youth, but she soon found another outlet for her talents, writing. She somehow managed to write and publish six books in her lifetime. Never stopping, never resting, just continually pursuing her variety of endeavors to create.
And then, so suddenly a brain stroke. She became unable to form words or understand what the a, b, c’s on a page meant. The entanglement of sounds that passed through her magnificent brain were no longer detectable. The sounds came out but the word was lost. Those exceptional words that she had used so well could not be grasped. Reading, a delicious pastime for Polly, was washed away.
She struggled to understand, but never gave up trying. When we talked, I did most of the talking, hoping she could recognize what I was saying. We laughed, although it was painful for us both, me trying to help her vocalize the much used words while she tried to grasp their meanings.
Writing my sad feelings for the loss of my sweet friend does not truly attest to the friendship we shared. You were that one in a million. See you soon, Polly!
—Submitted by Mimi Gould
Rosemary Wood Dodd
A beloved Atlanta Branch Pen Woman, Rosemary Dodd of Gainesville, Georgia, died on March 29, 2023, at age 88.
Rose was a legend in Gainesville, known for her bold colors in her paintings as well as her trademark multicolored hair. She created the Gainesville Theatre Alliance. Dodd was also the co-founder of
the Gainesville Ballet, Children’s Theater, and the North Georgia Community Foundation.
She was celebrated for her creativity, humor, devotion to her family and many, many friends and in every aspect of our community. Her wicked sense humor, along with her stories, with tales of her life and years in Gainesville, kept us entertained.
The National League of American Pen Women, Inc. Atlanta Branch was important to her. Dodd was a devoted member for many years.
We miss her and cherish the wonderful memories we have of her.
Rest in peace, Rose.