Marie Hollowell reached out to bless others the world over

I just read that 82 percent of Americans believe in an afterlife. Marie Hollowell was certain of it. She planned to go to heaven someday and rejoin her mother, her husband, and her daughter, all of whom had died younger than seems right.

She didn't spend her life waiting to go to heaven, though. Mrs. Hollowell, who died Dec. 11 at a nursing home in Spokane, filled her 88 years with adventure, service and fun, and she left behind many friends who will miss her as much as she missed her departed family members.

Seven years ago, I heard about a woman who spent some of her spare time making pillows for homeless people. I visited Mrs. Hollowell in her tidy University District apartment and learned about more than pillows.

Mrs. Hollowell was born in Frankfort, Kan., in 1913. She never had a chance to know her mother. She told me, "She lost her life for me at my birth. I can hardly wait to get to heaven to see her."

Mrs. Hollowell married Homer Hollowell when she was 19, and they had two children. But they had been together only seven years when he died of a heart attack and she was left to raise a 5-year-old daughter and a son who was not yet 2.

Thirty years later, she suffered another major loss when her daughter Chloris, then 35, died from a blood clot in her lungs.

"I don't have any bitterness," Mrs. Hollowell told me, "I don't know what God's full reasons for it were."

Despite all that, Mrs. Hollowell lived a life full of joy and never lost the faith she'd learned from her father, a Free Methodist minister.

Her friend, Barbara Donor, says, "Her first love in her life was her Lord Jesus Christ, and that's where she got her love and that's what she gave back. Her mission was to share that unconditional love with everybody that was a part of her life."

Fifty years ago, Donor, fresh out of high school, showed up at Central College in McPherson, Kan., and walked into the dormitory Mrs. Hollowell supervised. Donor wasn't in the best of moods, but Mrs. Hollowell gave her a big hug and began an unwavering friendship.

Mrs. Hollowell had gone back to school and gotten her teaching certificate after her husband's death and would spend much of her work life counseling young women, working as a dorm mom.

She came to Seattle from Kansas and from 1955 to 1964 she was dean of women at Seattle Pacific College (Seattle Pacific University now). Then she was director of residences at Beirut College for Women until war broke out. She came back to Seattle and worked as assistant director of Bellarmine Residence Hall at Seattle University. Later she filled in as house mother in sorority houses at the University of Washington.

She liked living in Lebanon and went back in the 1970s to form a Christian commune, but had to leave again when it became unsafe for Americans.

After that, she spent some time in Taiwan running a sorority house. She told me in 1995, "I just love to cross cultures, because you're so challenged to see what you can learn from it."

Her son, Rex Hollowell, a retired professor of philosophy, says his mother was respectful of other cultures. "She would ask Beirut College for Women girls, 'What does your faith tell you to do?' She was a committed Christian, but she thought that since she was in Beirut she had to listen to what they said."

He says he was profoundly affected by her values, though she never preached. "She didn't ever talk to me about values, she just lived it."

The year we talked, Mrs. Hollowell was beginning to show signs of Alzheimer's disease. In March 1996 she moved to Spokane to be near her son.

Donor, who spoke at the memorial service yesterday, says, "Even when she lost her capacity to think and things got confused, at the core of her being she was always reaching out to bless someone with a hand pat or her sense of humor."

That's what people remember, that she was always reaching out.

Joyce Price, who attended SPC from 1957 to 1961, says, "I can still see her striding purposefully across campus, having a kind word for everyone. She loved to walk around Seattle, and she was always helping the down and out."

If she thought of something that needed doing, she'd do it. One friend remembers her taking a can of spray paint from her purse and obliterating pornographic graffiti from the walls of her bus stop, saying no one should have to look at that.

When she passed some people sleeping on a sidewalk, she thought they'd be more comfortable if they had pillows, so she made them some, then made a habit of sewing pillows for homeless people.

Price says Mrs. Hollowell wasn't "a preachy person or a goody-goody-two-shoes. She had so much love and she was able to spread her love to you so that you felt accepted and whole when you were with her. You didn't have to be a certain way to be Marie's friend, you just had to be yourself."

Last year, Price started an effort by the SPC Class of 1961 to create an endowment fund in Mrs. Hollowell's name. The endowment will provide scholarships for junior or senior psychology majors who intend to pursue a career in school counseling.

Remembrances can be made to the Marie Hollowell Scholarship Endowment, Seattle Pacific University, 3307 3rd Ave. W., Seattle, WA 98119.

Mrs. Hollowell has gone on, but her friends and family (she has five grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren) want to perpetuate the good works that she did on Earth.

Jerry Large: 206-464-3346 or jlarge@seattletimes.com.