Gandolfa V. Holson, a curious traveler who embraced new experiences with child-like zeal, died on Friday, January 4. She is survived by her eight children, seven grandchildren and a great-granddaughter.
Mrs. Holson, 81, was born on July 25, 1926 at Mercy Hospital in Pittsburgh, Penn. and grew up in the nearby suburb of Clairton. As a young girl, she and her mother took the train to New York City to enjoy Broadway shows, shopping on Fifth Avenue and summers with her cousins on Long Island. Her father moved the family to Gilroy when she was 13 years old and opened a shoe repair shop in what was then called Pleasant Valley and better known for its prune orchards and dairy farms.
She graduated from Gilroy High School in 1944 and attended nurse’s training at the College of Notre Dame in Belmont, Calif. She was later schooled at St. Mary’s Hospital in San Francisco before returning to Gilroy. Mrs. Holson married her now deceased husband of 54 years, John J. Holson Jr., in February 1949 and worked for three decades as a nurse while raising their family. To be sure, it was not easy. At one point, the couple had five children in diapers.
Through it all, though, Mrs. Holson never strayed in her devotion to the personal value she held most dear – being true to herself. “Grandma always told me that Grandpa fell in love with her because she was different, not like all the other girls,” recalled Tessa Hager-Holson, her granddaughter. “She taught me lessons, even if I didn’t always agree with her. It was nice to know you can be yourself, not a cookie cutter person, and people can still love you.”
Indeed she had a style all her own. She greeted neighbors by name with a wave and a cheerful “woo-hoo,” a wide grin brightening her face as she climbed into the charcoal Thunderbird convertible she bought when she was 76 years old. She welcomed strangers with the same joy, (and sometimes a hug), as she did friends. And she enjoyed theatrical events and parties, everything from musicals like “Evita” to performances as varied as those by the Beatles and Andrea Bocelli.
She was mercurial, with a penchant for mischief-making and spirited good fun. In 1988, on a ten-day New Year’s cruise with her husband and several close friends, Mrs. Holson entered a holiday contest dressed as a garlic bud, a costume comprised of borrowed clothes and flesh-colored balloons. She handily beat 75 other contestants to snare the top prize: a bottle of champagne and a set of luggage.
Mrs. Holson delighted in unfamiliar cultures and terrain, whether recently exploring the Norwegian fjords from the balcony of a sailing ship or on a motor scooter in Tahiti, where she and her husband in the 1970s perused local markets for exotic hand-colored fabrics. She was fearless. On a 1989 trip, to then war-ravaged Israel, Mrs. Holson gave her daughter-in-law a scare when she returned late from a solo daytrip to Nazareth. For Mrs. Holson it was a happy adventure; she had been swept up in a May Day parade.
At the same time, Mrs. Holson cherished quiet contemplation and prayer, her spiritual life nurtured by years of church going and regular visits to the family’s Aptos beach house which, in later years, became a retreat. She delighted in tending to her garden and often raked leaves the day after a stormy autumn wind blew the trees bare. Like the wind, Mrs. Holson could be both gentle and forceful.
She helped finance an orphanage in Guatemala and was a friend and decades-long supporter of several groups she held in regard, including Saint Joseph’s Monastery of the Poor Clares in Aptos, Calif. and the Villa Maria del Mar Retreat Center in Santa Cruz, Calif.
Mrs. Holson is survived by one brother, Anthony Villafranca, and her eight children, Grace Malson, John Holson III, twin sons, Michael Holson and Vincent Holson, Mary Connolly, twin daughters, Gondie Chavez and Frances Hampton and Laura M. Holson.
A rosary will be said for Mrs. Holson at the Habing Family Funeral Home in Gilroy on Thursday, Jan. 10, at 7 P.M. On Friday, Jan. 11, there will be an 11 A.M. funeral mass at St. Mary’s Church. Burial will follow at St. Mary’s Cemetery.
Contributions in her name can be made to the Sisters of the Holy Names, Villa Maria del Mar, attn: Patti Doyle, 2-1918 East Cliff Dr., Santa Cruz, Calif. 95062. The phone number is 831-475-1236, ext. 14.
