Nancy A. Holman

04/07/2002

Retired Judge Nancy Ann Holman, 66, of Seattle, a retired King County (Wash.) Superior Court judge, a native of Adams, died Sunday at home after a long illness. Daughter of Henry and Helen Gattuso, she graduated from the former Adams High School. She also graduated magna cum laude in 1956 from Wheaton College in Norton and received her law degree in 1959 from Boston College Law School. She was a special student at the Harvard Law School in Soviet law as well as a student in the Middlebury College Russian language and literature program. On June 25, 1970, then Gov. Daniel Evans appointed her to serve on the King County Sup-erior Court, making her the first woman to sit as a judge on a Superior Court in the state of Washington. She retired from the bench in 1997. Judge Holman was a founding member of "Industrial Law Review," as well as a member of the editorial board of the Annual Survey of Massachusetts Law. During law school, she married James A. Holman in June 1957. Admitted to the Massachusetts bar in 1959, she began her career as a trial and appellate court lawyer in the Boston firm of Crane, Inker & Oteri. In 1961, she moved to Seattle, passed the Washington state bar and joined the firm of Elliott, Lee, Carney and Smart. During this time she became the first woman member of the Washington Defense Lawyers. Judge Holman helped found the King County Superior Court Family Law Department in 1981, and served as president of the American Association of Family Conciliation Courts. She taught at the University of Puget Sound Law School (now Seattle University Law School), the National College of the State Judiciary at the University of Nevada in Reno and Boston College Law School. Since 1970, Judge Holman had served on the board of trustees at her alma mater, Wheaton College. In recognition of her long-standing dedication to the college, she received an honorary doctor of laws degree in 1997. In 1990, she received the William O. Douglas Award from the Washington State Trial Lawyers Association. In 1997, she received the Outstanding Judge Award from the Washington State Bar Association and was awarded Boston College Law School's most prestigious honor, the St. Thomas More Award. She married McDonald Sulli-van in 1978. Besides her husband, she leaves two daughters, Carrol Holman Varner of Seattle and Alexandra Holman Ovenshine of California; a son, Dr. Andrew Holman of Seattle; a step-daughter, Bess Sullivan of Seattle; three stepsons, Jeff Sullivan of Bremerton, Wash., Lee Sullivan and Tim Sullivan of Madison, Wis., and nine grand-children. Remembrances can be made to the Judge Nancy Ann Holman Washington State Scholarship Fund, Wheaton College, Norton, MA 02766.

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