Barbara Dunham Holt
December 17, 1929 – October 29, 2020

Barbara Dunham Holt passed away on October 29 in Oklahoma City, from complications due to cancer. She was 90 years old.

A funeral service in her honor and memory will be held on Thursday, November 5th, at 11:00 AM at the Stanley Funeral Home, 3959 East 31st Street in Tulsa.

Although she was living in Norman with her daughter and son-in-law at the time of her death, Barbara Holt was a child of Tulsa, and spent most of her life rooted in the soil of her beloved native city. Born Barbara Ann Dunham, she was the daughter of Stephen E. Dunham, the proprietor of Independent Lumber Company in Tulsa, and Lois Mabel Dunham, a teacher and homemaker.

Barbara attended Pershing Elementary School, graduated from Central High School in 1947, and attended the University of Tulsa, where she was a member of the Tri Delta sorority. She was married to Jack Russell Holt of the Tulsa Fire Department, a marriage that resulted in five children, all now with families of their own. In addition to raising her large and lively brood, she served as the longtime executive assistant to Marion Parry, vice president of the Zebco Company. After retirement from that position, she enjoyed a career as a legal secretary at several firms in the Tulsa area.

She was unfailingly gentle and reserved in her manner, but that appearance could be misleading. Beneath her quiet reticence and charm was a woman of formidable and unfailing strength, unwavering loyalty, keen intelligence, and a heart as big and accepting as the prairie sky. Those who knew her love and friendship knew that, whatever their failings and foibles, they had found in her a light that would never fail.

She lived in an exemplary way, a life marked by extravagant generosity, kindness, and joy, a life of deeds rather than words, devoted always to her large network of family and friends, and in her volunteer work for many local organizations, such as the Gilcrease Museum, the Tulsa Chamber of Commerce, and the Tulsa International Airport.

Her boundless curiosity about life was reflected in her love of travel—she had been almost everywhere in North America and Europe—and in her being an avid reader, who even in the weeks before her passing was still devouring novels and biographies at the rate of two or more a week. (Such was her respect for the printed word that she made it a rule always to finish every book that she had started, no matter how bad it was.) But more than anything, her love of life was reflected in her love of people. Even in her nineties she was always making new friends, and once she made a friend, that friend's children and relatives were automatically her friends too. The gate of her heart was never closed.

For so many people, probably many more than she could imagine, she was the person they could always count on, a steadying anchor amid life's storms. Although we rejoice that she has now passed on to the peace of God's eternal presence, we mourn the loss of her physical presence in our own lives. But she will never cease being a spiritual presence in our hearts and minds: our counselor, exemplar, and friend.

In Tulsa, she attended Boston Avenue Methodist Church; upon moving to Norman in 2017, she became an enthusiastic and faithful member of All Souls' Episcopal Church in Oklahoma City.

Barbara is predeceased by her parents, Stephen E. Dunham and Lois Mabel Dunham, and by her brother Norwood Dunham and sister Carolyn Dunham Nerdrum. She is survived by her children and their spouses: Jack Russell Holt, II (Natasha) of Freeburg, Pennsylvania; Pamela Holt Luhrs (Rob) of Thornton, Colorado; Julie Holt McClay (Wilfred) of Norman, Oklahoma; Lisa Thomas (Terry) of Sand Springs, Oklahoma; and Timothy Norwood Holt, of Tulsa; by grandchildren Matthew Thomas, David Thomas, Andrew Thomas, Daniel Thomas, Parry Holt, Lyla Holt, Adam Luhrs, Emily Luhrs, Mark McClay, Barbara Dunham McClay, and Tristan Holt; and by great-grandchildren Brandon Thomas and Madeline Thomas. She is also survived by nephews and nieces too numerous to list, although there is no record of her ever having forgotten the birthday of a single one of them.

To view the service Livestreamed, copy this link at paste it in the search bar-

https://www.oneroomstreaming.com/view/authorise.php?k=160445632084044