Obituary of Constance Marie Holtz

Constance Marie Holtz, 80, former teacher and resident of Great Falls, VA for over 42 years, passed away on Monday September 11, 2017.

Only child of Lawrence and Marie Miller of Green Bay, Wisconsin, Connie was a graduate of West High School. She studied English and History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. There she met Thomas R. Holtz, who she married upon graduation in 1959.

In the 1960s and 1970s she and her growing family moved to Connecticut, California, and Texas, before settling down in Great Falls, Virginia, her home since 1975. She was a highly active member both of St. Luke’s Catholic Church mission parish in Great Falls, and later a founding parishioner of St. Catherine of Siena Catholic Church ever since.

She devoted her life to education. Most of her career was in elementary education in the Fairfax County Public School System, primarily in special education programs. Starting at Great Falls Elementary School in 1979, she would later teach at Floris Elementary (Herndon) and Hunters Woods Elementary (Reston) in the 1980s and 1990s. Additionally, she taught adult English as a Second Language through Hogar Hispano. Within the church she taught Confraternity of Christian Doctrine classes at the parishes of St. Paul (Houston, Texas) and St. Catherine of Siena.

Connie was extremely dedicated in public volunteer service, notably working as an ambulance volunteer aid for emergency medical technicians in Harris County, TX during the early 1970s. In recent years, coinciding with the military service of her son Michael, she served as the Family Support Group leader for B CO, 323 MI BN, US Army, during the Battalion deployment to Iraq in 2003.

Connie had a great passion for music and art. She worked as an instrumentalist, primarily on guitar. for choirs at the parishes of St. Paul and St. Catherine of Siena Catholic Churches; at the latter, she also organized and directed the bell choir in the 1980s and 1990s. She played the guitar since the 1970s, and was a violinist in an amateur string performance group in recent years. Throughout her life she continued to learn how to play (primarily string) instruments from around the world, learning the autoharp, mandolin, dulcimer, recorder, Celtic harp, Turkish baglama, and oud.

Connie’s mother taught her needlecrafts, which she continued for the rest of her live. She practiced knitting, needlepoint, and other arts. Even during her last days, she was knitting caps for hospitalized newborns in at risk conditions. Additionally, she took up oil painting in her retirement, and had recently been learning the techniques of icon painting.

She was a life-long learner interested in cultures and languages from around the world. Over the years she had studied Russian, Spanish, Mandarin, and Kiswahili, and had learned elements of American Sign Language. She had a great interest in travel by rail and by ship.

Widow of Thomas Richard Holtz, Sr. (together for 54 years), she is survived by daughter Marie Kolls of Fairfax, VA, her three grandchildren, and her sons Thomas Holtz, Jr. of Upper Marlboro, MD, Michael Holtz of Arlington, VA, and Dominic Mark Holtz, O.P. of Rome, Italy.