Patricia Terry Holland, wife of Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and former counselor in the Young Women general presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, passed away peacefully on July 20, 2023, after a brief hospitalization in the hospital. She was 81 years old.
Funeral services will be held on Friday, July 28, 2023 at 11:00 a.m. (Salt Lake City time – add 8 hours) in the theater at the Salt Lake City Conference Center. The public is invited to participate. The funeral will also be broadcast and a link will be provided as soon as available. There will be no public funeral home. She will be buried in St. George, Utah.
Temple Square is always beautiful in the springtime. Gardeners work to prepare the ground for General Conference. © 2012 Intellectual Reserve, Inc. All rights reserved.
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Patricia (Pat) Terry was born on February 16, 1942 and raised on a farm in Enterprise, a small pioneer community in southern Utah. Pat is the daughter of Maeser and Marilla Terry.
“I come from a community of faith where the whole community practiced and taught it. I couldn’t get away with anything,” she recalled.
Pat milked and herded cows, drove tractors, and skipped school in the fall to harvest potatoes. “I was a pretty tomboy.”
She also grew up hearing about the strong beliefs and faith of her pioneer ancestors, which influenced her throughout her life.
“I learned everything I know about the gospel from my mother when I was little,” she said. “She loved to study, she loved to read, and she studied the things of the gospel, and she imparted them to her children and especially to me. I was the only girl with five boys for most of my life. When I was sixteen, a little sister was born.”
55690.jpg June 7, 1963. Patricia T. Holland and her husband, Jeffrey R. Holland, on their wedding day. 2020 by Intellectual Reserve, Inc. All rights reserved.Download Photo
Early in her high school years, her family moved to the nearby community of St. George, Utah, and as a shy and low-confident newcomer to Dixie High, she quickly demonstrated her charitable behavior and made many new friends. One of these friends was “the nicest boy in school,” Jeffrey Holland, whom she dated, wrote to while he was on a mission in England, and eventually married on June 7, 1963 in the St. George Temple in the Utah, after a five year courtship. She and Jeffrey have three children, Matthew, Mary Alice and David, thirteen grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
Pat attended LDS Business College (renamed Ensign College) in Salt Lake City and is a graduate of Dixie College (now known as Utah Tech University) in St. George, Utah. She studied piano and voice with teachers from Juilliard in New York City. She supported Jeffrey while he earned master’s degrees at Brigham Young University and Yale University and worked for the Church Educational System.
“It literally allowed me to complete my education while she continued to study and walked away from a music career to come home and marry me,” Elder Holland said. “I can’t stress enough the incredible gift one spouse can give to the other.”
The Hollands’ children grew up in the tight economic conditions of graduate school, moving frequently to adjust to the elder Holland’s new employment. They finally found themselves in the spotlight when Elder Holland was called as president of Brigham Young University in 1980.
“She was a mother to the whole campus,” Elder Holland said. “We wanted to be the parents of that campus.”
Pat has worked diligently to keep the children in as normal circumstances as possible. She once said to him, “Even though they grew up in unique circumstances, I didn’t want them to think of themselves as unique.”
Pat will be remembered for her commitment to faith and service and her love of family. His son Matt, now a General Authority Seventy, said family table conversations are among her dearest childhood memories. “Each night we had a kind of family home evening filled with laughter, compliments, encouragement, interesting conversations, testimonies, and expressions of love,” she said.
Pat has dedicated her life to Church service, serving four different times as Relief Society president and working in Primary and Young Women organizations. In 1984, with many responsibilities as the wife of a university president, she was called as a counselor of Ardeth Kapp in the Young Women general presidency. Despite everything, she found the time to be calm and to draw closer to God through prayer.
Pat’s cumulative years of service in the Church have focused on women of all ages, reminding them of their important contributions and responsibilities in their various roles. In a public address, she said: “If your role or calling is one of support—and many of us will often be in that role—we need to study and prepare enough to make it clear to the world that we are not apologizing because we are strengthening families, but that rather we are pursuing our most important priorities, personally, socially, and theologically. We will be noticed. We should be a light upon a mountain […] to clearly teach the truth about our priorities and privileges as women in the Church.”
Sister-Patricia-HollandYoung Women general presidency, Ardeth G. Kapp, and counselors Maurine J. Turley and Patricia T. Holland, in the Salt Lake Tabernacle during the October 1984 general conference. 2020 Intellectual Reserve, Inc. All rights reserved.Download Photo
In addition to her life of Church service, Pat is the author of several books, including the award-winning A Quiet Heart, and Strength and Stillness: A Message for Women. She is also the co-author, with her husband, of “On Earth As It Is In Heaven” and “To Mothers: Carrying the Torch of Faith and Family”.
On another occasion, Elder Holland said, “His faith has always been purer, more powerful, and stronger than that of any other person I have ever known. He is a very charitable person. He gave and gave and gave his time and his lifelong love of him.”
Pat’s faith in Jesus Christ has blessed the entire Church. At one worldwide gathering for young adults held earlier this year—broadcast from his native St. George, Utah—offered young adults a simple approach to religious life: “Have faith in God, hope that He will help you, and receive the charity that allows Him to work through you to accomplish what only you can do.”
“You can’t get these blessings by chasing them,” he concluded. “Please stop running to the point of exhaustion. Be calm, stop. Simplify. Be meek, humble of heart and pray. I testify that miracles happen when we slow down, when we calm down, and when we kneel. Everything the Father has can one day be yours. A truly hopeful way to face your future.”