A memorial for Annie Marie Holt, Hawaii, 1851

Annie's memorial stone
installed at Oahu Cemetery, 5 July 2012

In March I blogged about a fundraising effort to raise a memorial for Oahu Cemetery for Annie Marie Holt, who died there in 1851 at the tender age of nineteen.  She had sailed from Boston with her sister to be reunited with her father, Robert William Holt.  Annie died soon after her ship, the Gentoo,  landed in Honolulu.  Annie was the first Holt to be buried at the Oahu Cemetery.  Now there are generations of Holts and other family members buried with her.

Annie's mother,  Anne Marie (Jone) Holt also died young at age 21 leaving two baby daughters.  She was the sister to my 4x great grandmother, Catherine Plummer (Jones) Younger, who died young at age 27 after having at least four children.  Annie Marie Holt in Hawaii was my first cousin, five generations removed.

The fundraising effort was a great success.  In fact, Charles Holt, who was in charge of the memorial, was afraid of raising too much money!  He had to close the fundraiser after just a few weeks, since he already had more than enough to buy and install a nice memorial stone and bronze plaque.  The leftovers will be used for leis, and a celebration with the rest of the Holt family coming soon.

Since the Holt family is spread all over the Hawaiian islands, and all over the continental United States as far as Boston, technology was a great part of this fundraiser.  Email sent the word out quickly, and PayPal was used to collect the donations.  A website was set up for everyone to track the fundraiser, and to share stories and photos.  A Facebook group for the Holt family had already been up and running for a long time before the fundraiser, but regular updates were posted there, with links to the website and comments from Charles Holt and all the Holt Ohana.

I've never seen a family association jump into a project with such enthusiasm.  In a few weeks the money was raised, and in a few months the memorial was ordered, cast and delivered. On July 5, 2012, the stone was installed at Oahu Cemetery in the spot believed to be where Annie was buried in 1851, next to the current Holt family plot along the wall at Nu'uanu Avenue.  I hope to visit this spot this fall when I return to Hawaii.

To see the webpage about Annie's memorial, click here:
http://www.hawaiiholts.com/Intermission.html

To read my blog post from March 2012 about Annie Marie Holt's memorial fundraiser:
http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2012/03/annie-maria-holt-1832-1851.html

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Copyright 2012, Heather Wilkinson