Harlan Holladay

Harlan "Dick" or "Doc" H. Holladay died Sunday, June 23, 2019. He was 93.

He was born in (Old) Greenville, Missouri, Dec. 10, 1925, the second child of Franklin and Johnnie Mae Croy Holladay. The family moved to Cape Girardeau in 1928, where Dick attended Franklin, Broadway and May Greene Elementary schools. During a number of summers, he visited his paternal grandmother and aunts, uncles and cousins at "the old home place," now Holliday Landing off Highway 67 north of Poplar Bluff, Missouri. A Boy Scout, he attended Camp Lewallen, where he was also on the staff for three summers, and earned his Eagle Scout. He also served as a paper carrier for the Southeast Missourian.

After graduating from Cape Girardeau Central High School, he started college at Southeast Missouri State before being drafted into the Army in spring 1944. He did basic training at Camp Hood in Texas, before sailing to England in November 1944. His division crossed the English Channel a month later. His troop ship, the Leopoldville, was torpedoed and sank outside Cherbourg Harbor on Christmas Eve. During and after the war, he served in Brittany and southern France before being transferred to the Austrian Alps and Vienna. In Austria he learned to ski and enjoyed going to the museums and the opera; all would remain lifelong interests. Discharged as a staff sergeant, he returned to Cape Girardeau, where he resumed his education at Southeast.

During a stint at Washington University, he met his wife, Ruffena Calbert of Clinton, Kentucky. They married in January 1950, at the same time as he finished his Bachelor of Science in education at Southeast. He earned a Master of Arts in art at the University of Iowa in 1951.

Returning to Missouri, he taught art in high school and served as the first art supervisor for Poplar Bluff Public Schools until 1953. He also taught in the summer programs at Southeast Missouri State, from 1953 to 1955 at Des Moines Technical High School, and from 1955 to 1958 at the University of Nevada. Alongside teaching, he pursued an active painting career, submitting paintings to numerous open-juried exhibitions sponsored by prestigious, nationally recognized museums. These paintings occasionally won prizes and/or were purchased by the museums.

From 1958 to 1961, Dick worked on a doctorate at Cornell University, where he wrote a dissertation on children's drawings and taught as a faculty replacement in two departments. In 1961, he took a position at St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York, where he would spend the rest of his career. At first the only faculty member in the Department of Art, he taught both studio art and art history. By the time he retired as the first L.M. and G.L. Flint Professor of Fine Arts in 1991, the department had grown to seven faculty members. During his tenure at St. Lawrence, he was able to spend several sabbaticals in Europe, including a year teaching at the American College of Switzerland and several semesters in Italy. He took students to study art in Florence, Rome and Greece, and he directed the university's London program in the fall of 1982. He participated in two summer seminars of the National Endowment for the Humanities, studying Renaissance art and architecture in Venice and Roman mosaics between 300 and 1300 in Rome. Summer travels also took him all over Europe.

In 1995, Dick and Ruffena moved to Cape Girardeau, and in 2008 to Saxony Village on Bloomfield Road. During his long retirement, he frequently played golf as a member at Kimbeland Country Club and enjoyed regular trips to the Metropolitan Opera simulcasts at Carbondale, Illinois. He and Ruffena also visited family historical sites and pursued their interests in the history and scenery of Cape Girardeau and the region.

He is survived by his wife, Ruffena Holladay; their three children, Joan of Tucson, Arizona, and Zurich, Switzerland, and her husband, Daniel Hofmann; Carol of Oswego, New York; and Jeffrey of Mount Morris, New York; two grandchildren, Andy Gardner and his wife, Betty, of Fulton, New York, and Julia Gardner of Palm Beach Gardens, Florida; and two great-grandchildren, Emily and Andrew Gardner; his sister, Kitty Mazina, of Charlotte, North Carolina; and numerous nieces, nephews, and their children.

He was predeceased by his parents; an older sister, Dorothy; and a younger brother, Joe.

Friends may call from 10 to 11 a.m. Saturday at Ford and Sons Mount Auburn Funeral Home in Cape Girardeau.

Memorial service will be at 11 a.m. Saturday at the funeral home, with the Rev. Dr. Barry Winders officiating.

Memorial contributions may be given to the Harlan Holladay Memorial Fund at Southeast Missouri University Foundation.

Online condolences may be made at fordandsonsfuneralhome.com.