Guthrie’s Helen Freudenberger Holmes (1915 - 1997) will be honored in Saturday’s ‘89er Parade. A beloved Mayor of Guthrie, long-time active member of the American Legion, journalist, historian, teacher, and Major of the Women’s Army Corps, Helen Holmes is still very remembered in Guthrie, in Oklahoma, and across the nation.
Major Holmes has been posthumously inducted into the U.S. Army Women’s Foundation Hall of Fame, the Oklahoma Historians Hall of Fame, the Oklahoma Journalism Hall of Fame, the Oklahoma Women’s Hall of Fame, the Oklahoma State University College of Arts and Sciences as a Distinguished Alumna. She even has her own Wikipedia page.
Her long list of firsts include the first woman to earn a master’s degree in Agriculture Journalism from the University of Wisconsin; the first woman to teach journalism at Oklahoma A&M; the first woman in Oklahoma to be sworn in to the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps; and the first woman from Oklahoma to serve in the military in WWII.As a journalist, she became editor of the Maud Daily Enterprise, Flying Farmer Magazine, and the Guthrie Daily Leader; and she wrote a two-volume history of Logan County, as a historian. She was also a wife and a mother.
In 1979 she was elected Mayor of the City of Guthrie, Oklahoma. Many talk highly of her and remember her hard work for the City of Guthrie and the American Legion.
Helen Freudenberger Holmes epitomizes the theme for this years’ ‘89er Parade: Women of the Military. She was a great leader, a great soldier, and an amazing woman. Look for her son, Major William J. Holmes, and daughter, Andrea M. Volturo, in a yellow Mustang convertible in Saturday’s parade.