Dear Friends,
These past months have been so very exciting. My last trip was in February to our CSL convention in Denver and the wonderful celebration of my 85th birthday, thanks to the many people who participated with me.
And then, pause. Outside activities pretty much came to a halt. No more senior center card games or Mahjong, shopping without standing in a line outside and around the building, being with friends. But after adjustments in daily life I found there was so much to be done. How did I previously have time for all the social activities?
Right now my desktop is covered with activities that are in progress. In about June a conversation came up at the end of one of our Archives meetings – there seem to be plenty – that there was a wonderful interview with Anna Holmes, also known as Mother Holmes, in the Science of Mind magazine, August 1947 issue, and wouldn’t it be great to learn more about her and her probable influence on the beginnings of the Religious Science/Science of Mind movement. Remembering the letters from Anna to Ernest and Hazel that are in the archives, I thought that would be a wonderful story that needed to be told. So, if you know me, I immediately dug in to find where I needed to go to research Anna’s life.
Of course we have Ernest Holmes: His Life and Times by one of his brothers, Fenwicke, and we have six handwritten notes from Anna. I searched other books by Reginald Armor and remembered I had taped an interview with Reg in 1975. I of course got side-tracked and realized that tape needed to be transcribed and also digitized. [I’m working on that now.] Another gift given to me for the Archives a few years ago is what I call a Diary/Journal of the ancestry, along with stories, of the Holmes family. This, of course, includes Anna Columbia Heath Holmes, as grandmother to Jerome, the author of the Diary/Journal. Scattered throughout the Science of Mind magazine, dedications in books and elsewhere is poetry written by Anna.
And so I attempted to put it all together and create Anna’s story. I found it very interesting. In my mind’s eye, I saw a young woman, slight in stature but strong and willful as you might imagine one of the many pioneers traveling across America. But, that is not the way Anna traveled to California and that story is told in the book.
I hope that many people are interested in Anna’s story: the life she lived growing up, meeting her future husband William Nelson Holmes, giving birth to nine boys and her devotion in raising them, the life changes in moving to California, and the beginnings of the Institute of Religious Science and School of Philosophy and her part in it, and the many activities and recognition awards she received for those activities.
Here is a sample of Mother Holmes’s writing:
Life is a school which all must attend. The same Intelligence being in each, it is the task and high privilege of the individual to so develop his God-given powers that he shall not remain in the kindergarten, but may, by practical use of the lessons learned in this grade, – lessons of the need of manifesting love, joy, harmony, peace and poise, – go on to each advancing grade, ever increasing in the knowledge and understanding of the One who is in all, overall, and through all. That the event called death shall be an open door to a grade beyond this plane, where he will continue to expand throughout all eternity.
Anna Columbia Holmes. Foreword in Your Spiritual Power: A Collection of Inspirational Writings by Ernest Holmes.
To learn more about Anna’s life, pick up a copy (or two) Mother of a Mystic: Life of Anna Columbia Heath Holmes is now available at your book store, on Amazon, and as an e-book.
Rev. Dr. Marilyn Leo, Founder