Burlington woman was a community pillar wherever she lived, including in Ottawa, Canada, where a city park is named in her honor
Sylvia Heininger Holden, a pretty, happy “butterfly” of a lady whose kindness was so renowned that National Public Radio reported on it, has died in Vermont, at age 94. During recent years in her very long life, she was known for flitting about Burlington in a little red car to deliver flowers, chocolate, books, magazines and other small comforts to people she knew and some she did not. Wherever she lived over the decades, Holden became a pillar of communities, from Montreal’s West Island to the Glebe neighborhood in Ottawa, Canada, where a city park is named in her honor. She was a member of the senior yoga group at Burlington’s Heineberg Club until her death on June 5, 2024. Sylvia embodied positiveness. When a cataract operation left her eyes sensitive to light, she made vintage and novelty sunglasses part of her look. Uncomfortable pumping gasoline, she found a new friend at the station to help, every time. She enjoyed giant books, marking choice quotes with slips of paper or reading them aloud to family. Peter Kurth’s Isadora was read back-to-back with dance pioneer Duncan’s own 1927 autobiography. Sylvia clipped newspapers and magazines, with a knack — said her old friend Karl Raab — for sending people what they were interested in. In recent years, Sylvia accompanied Alfred and son-in-law Michel Laverdiere on expeditions by Subaru to the Charlevoix region of Québec, Montréal, Ottawa and to Massachusetts and the Adirondacks. As a mom, Sylvia preferred good manners in feral children who took responsibility. Sylvia’s late husband, Clem Holden, a Green Mountain Club member who was one of Bolton Mountain’s trailblazing “Old Goat” skiers, died in 2020, at age 97. Like him, Sylvia was blessed with good health to near the end of her life. Around May 5, she and her son Alfred, 66, caught COVID-19. While they both got through it, it took a toll on Sylvia’s immune system, enabling undiagnosed cancers, which moved swiftly. She died surrounded by friends at the McClure Miller Respite House in Colchester. With the assistance of staff from A.W. Rich Funeral Home, Sylvia was spirited away in an honor procession, with family and friends carrying electric candles. Sylvia Holden was born Sylvia Frida Heininger at Mary Fletcher Hospital in Burlington, Vt., on November 22, 1929. Her family noticed a birthmark in the shape of an airplane, at a time when her father,…
Burlington woman was a community pillar wherever she lived, including in Ottawa, Canada, where a city park is named in her honor
Sylvia Heininger Holden, a pretty, happy “butterfly” of a lady whose kindness was so renowned that National Public Radio reported on it, has died in Vermont, at age 94. During recent years in her very long life, she was known for flitting about Burlington in a little red car to deliver flowers, chocolate, books, magazines and other small comforts to people she knew and some she did not. Wherever she lived over the decades, Holden became a pillar of communities, from Montreal’s West Island to the Glebe neighborhood in Ottawa, Canada, where a city park is named in her honor. She was a member of the senior yoga group at Burlington’s Heineberg Club until her death on June 5, 2024. Sylvia embodied positiveness. When a cataract operation left her eyes sensitive to light, she made vintage and novelty sunglasses part of her look. Uncomfortable pumping gasoline, she found a new friend at the station to help, every time. She enjoyed giant books, marking choice quotes with slips of paper or reading them aloud to family. Peter Kurth’s Isadora was read back-to-back with dance pioneer Duncan’s own 1927 autobiography. Sylvia clipped newspapers and magazines, with a knack — said her old friend Karl Raab — for sending people what they were interested in. In recent years, Sylvia accompanied Alfred and son-in-law Michel Laverdiere on expeditions by Subaru to the Charlevoix region of Québec, Montréal, Ottawa and to Massachusetts and the Adirondacks. As a mom, Sylvia preferred good manners in feral children who took responsibility. Sylvia’s late husband, Clem Holden, a Green Mountain Club member who was one of Bolton Mountain’s trailblazing “Old Goat” skiers, died in 2020, at age 97. Like him, Sylvia was blessed with good health to near the end of her life. Around May 5, she and her son Alfred, 66, caught COVID-19. While they both got through it, it took a toll on Sylvia’s immune system, enabling undiagnosed cancers, which moved swiftly. She died surrounded by friends at the McClure Miller Respite House in Colchester. With the assistance of staff from A.W. Rich Funeral Home, Sylvia was spirited away in an honor procession, with family and friends carrying electric candles. Sylvia Holden was born Sylvia Frida Heininger at Mary Fletcher Hospital in Burlington, Vt., on November 22, 1929. Her family noticed a birthmark in the shape of an airplane, at a time when her father,…