U.S. Army Major (Ret.) Helen Freudenberger Holmes was a trailblazer. She was an Oklahoma journalist, historian, mother, teacher, politician, and Women’s Army Corps officer.
Holmes was born Dec. 16, 1915 – the daughter of German immigrants. She graduated as valedictorian from Coyle High School in 1932 and earned a journalism degree at Oklahoma A&M in 1936. In 1942, Holmes was part of the first Officers Candidate Class of the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC). Her service ended due to medical disability.
After graduating from Oklahoma A&M she became editor of the Maud Daily Enterprise. She was the first woman to teach journalism at Oklahoma A&M, which became Oklahoma State University.
Holmes was the first woman in Oklahoma to be sworn into the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps due to the death of her mother, which resulted in her being sworn in before the rest of the first class of recruits.
She served in Washington, D.C, as the WAC’s public relations officer. She was promoted to captain as an intelligence officer. After a diagnosis of tuberculosis, she returned stateside and was among the first group of patients to be treated with penicillin. She was promoted to major and in 1948 retired from active duty. She passed away in 1997.
In 2019 and 2020 Holmes was posthumously inducted into the US Army Women’s Foundation, the Oklahoma Historians, the Oklahoma Journalism and the Oklahoma Women’s halls of fame and was named a Distinguished Alumna of the Oklahoma State University College of Arts and Sciences in 2021.
Her military uniform and several items were donated to the Oklahoma Historical Society in Oklahoma City and are on permanent display.
On Saturday, Nov. 15, Holmes and four other Oklahoma State University Veterans will be honored as part of the Oklahoma Military Heritage Foundation Hall of Honor. A ceremony will be held prior to the OSU-Kansas State football game at the Wes Watkins Center on the OSU campus in Stillwater and will be recognized on the field of Boone Pickens Stadium just before kickoff.
Holmes married Robert F. Holmes in 1949 and was widowed in 1962. The couple had three children, all of whom graduated from OSU. “She had many firsts,” Andrea (Holmes) Volturo, Holmes’ daughter said. “She accomplished so much from the start.”
In addition to her other accomplishments, Holmes served on the Guthrie City Council and in 1979 was elected mayor and served until 1981.
She wrote a two-volume history of Logan County, Oklahoma, from which she received many accolades, including from former United States Senator David Boren.
“I want to congratulate you on this memorable occasion,” Boren wrote in a letter to Holmes. “What you have accomplished is more than public service. By your efforts you have preserved the history of your city, Guthrie, for its citizens and the entire state of Oklahoma. Your compilation will keep the history of Guthrie alive for both new and future citizens to read and enjoy. No area of our state has been more important to the growth and success of Oklahoma than the City of Guthrie.”
While Holmes contracted tuberculosis in Germany, Volturo said her mother was placed in a sanitarium stateside to recover.
Volturo said during her recovery, her mother reflected on what she could do with her life and give back.
“She was in the military, and she contracted tuberculosis while serving in Germany, and it was advanced, and they sent her home to a sanitarium, and it was horrific,” Volturo said. “And back then, with tuberculosis, you weren’t expected to survive. She reflected while she was in the sanitarium and said I want to pay for my space. This is kind of how she looked at it. After she retired with disability, which is how we survived, she got into volunteer work.”
Volturo said her mother’s most significant accomplishment as a political leader for the architectural renovation of Guthrie.
As part of a committed group of community activists, there was a successful lobbying effort by the Oklahoma Congressional delegation to procure funding for brick sidewalks, streetlamps, and facade restoration. Federal appropriation and funding were $1 million.
This became the largest continuous Urban Development Action Grant in America at the time, exceedingly even that of New York City.
Guthrie became a model throughout America and other communities for historical renovation. This set the stage for the arts to flourish.
In addition, under Holmes’ leadership, Guthrie won a key lawsuit against Oklahoma City to protect its municipal water rights and expanded the city limits to capture business expansion for inclusion in the city tax base.
Mobile meals were also initiated in Guthrie. Finally, buses for the Aging Council were purchased when Holmes personally pledged her own funds as security to meet a tight deadline of only a few days and subsequently raised $35,000 in the community for a matching grant.
In 2024, the Major Helen F. Holmes Memorial Highway was designated in her honor in the town of Guthrie.
“She was very proud of her service,” Volturo said. •
story by Van Mitchell, staff writer
