George Martin Holloway

GEORGE MARTIN HOLLOWAY

Mr. George Martin Holloway, 98, of Durham NC, died on May 7, 2022 at the Hock Family Pavilion in Durham NC.  He was born in Hickory, North Carolina, attending school there and then in Maryland outside of Washington DC, where he enlisted in the US Army during World War II.

He was in officer training when he was called to serve in Hawaii in 1944 and then in the Palau archipelago in the Western Pacific through the end of the war.  In September 1945, after the Japanese surrender, his unit was surprised to discover 500 British Indian prisoners who had been captured in Singapore and held by the Japanese in the northern part of the island of Palau. George and others in his unit escorted the thin and sickly soldiers to their base on the island of Peleliu where they were given some rations for which they were very thankful. George was among the last soldiers to return home from the Pacific.

After the War, George entered the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill under the GI Bill.  He graduated in 1948 with a degree in Communications.  He moved to the Philadelphia area where he entered Drexel University, then called the Drexel Institute of Technology, to obtain a Master’s Degree in Library Science.  There he met Lisabeth Marie Feind, also getting the same degree. They married in 1951 and had two sons.  George’s career as a librarian spanned 35 years, including over 30 years for the Free Library of Philadelphia.  He was the head of the Educational Films Department since its inception in 1959. He started the system of loaning films, which were all in metal cans and requiring a projector, to other libraries and the public. He was awarded the city’s Librarian of the Year in 1965.

In 1982, George and Lisabeth retired to Boone NC where he volunteered and was on the board of Watauga County Library, as well as working for Meals on Wheels, and producing many weavings inspired by photographs he had taken from travelling the Globe. He loved baseball, UNC Chapel Hill and the movies.

Beloved wife and mother Lisabeth died in 2011 after almost 60 years of marriage. George is survived by son, George N. Holloway of Orlando, Florida, son Jim Holloway and spouse Linda Varblow of Chapel Hill, and two grandchildren, Jesse Varblow Holloway of Ann Arbor, Michigan and Jonah Varblow Holloway of Chapel Hill.

Online condolences can be made at Hudson Funeral Home

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