Born: ?
Died:
Was a unique personality. She was intelligent, cultured, independent, self-reliant, and had visited many places of interest in the United States and had traveled throughout Europe, Egypt and Palestine. She first visited the Central Christian Church in Peoria during the pastorate of N. S Haynes. At that time she looked as if she might be fifty years young; her actual age was seventy-two. She was a Widow. Her husband had lived and died a member of the Baptist Church--a devout Christian man. Her only living child was a married daughter, who soon after passed away.
Mrs. Holman said to the pastor, in a personal interview, that when a young woman she had heard Alexander Campbell preach, and that she could not conscientiously become a member of any church but the Christian; that her home had never been where there had been such a congregation, and so through her life she had stood aloof from all churches Within a few weeks she was led by the pastor to publicly accept Christ and place her membership in the Central Church. She was not then a resident of Peoria, but was later.
When she came to be baptized it was found that the baptistery had sprung a leak and was empty. "There it is again", exclaimed Mrs. Holman; "the Lord intends that I shall never be baptized." The minister assured her that the Lord had nothing to do with the leaky pool, but maybe the devil had. At the conclusion of her baptism three days afterward, she said to the two women that assisted her: "And now, ladies, what do I owe you?" They were shocked and protested. She answered: "It is my custom to pay those who assist me in any way." When further protest would have been rudeness, they each accepted the five dollars that she gave each of them and turned it into the church hymnal fund.
Mrs. Holman passed to the life to come, at the age of ninety-three years. During the twenty-one years in which she was a member of the Central Church, she gave to it, to Eureka College and the Church Extension Society the aggregate sum of $22,000.