Holden, Isabel, 1913-2007

Volunteer; Animal welfare advocate.

Isabel Anderson Holden was born in Montclair, New Jersey. She attended Bennington College in Vermont. In 1937, she married Richard S. Holden and they had a daughter, Constance Holden. The Holdens moved to Northampton, Massachusetts in 1948 where he was president of the Northampton National Bank. Richard Holden died in 1998. Isabel Holden, also known to her friends as Matthew, was a horsewoman, animal lover, local historian, and was active in civic and intellectual life of Northampton. She served as vice president and then president of the Northampton Historical Society (now Historic Northampton) from 1955 to 1981; published articles on local history; volunteered at the Veterans Administration Hospital and later for Hospice; and taught music for several years at the Smith College Campus School. She was also involved with the SPCA; was a Friends of the Forbes Library, and a member of the Monday Afternoon club, which she joined in 1951. In her later years Holden moderated seminars for Learning in Retirement on pastoral poetry, Scotland, and Shakespeare. She also was also a major contributor to the Shakespeare Oxford Society (defending Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, as the true author of the works of Shakespeare). The Holdens lived on Round Hill Road in Northampton and had a summer home in Salisbury, Vermont.