Suzanne Arnote Holloway

Memorial Service
2:00 P.M. Saturday, January 12, 2019
John Knox Presbyterian Church
2929 E 31st St, Tulsa, OK 74105

Suzanne Arnote Holloway, born June 16, 1914, in Antlers, Oklahoma, died on December 25, 1918, in Oklahoma City, where she lived for five years after more than 40 years in Tulsa.  A talented, conscientious journalist, and fiercely independent, she retired from the Tulsa World at age 85,  a long-time restaurant critic and “Chef’s Choice” columnist for 24 years.  She made the “eat beat,” as she called it, and her restaurant reviews, into “must read” features of the World.  She never missed a deadline, despite combining career with caring for her husband during his late-life illnesses, being a superb mother to her three daughters and devoted grandmother to her five grandchildren.  She managed to “do it all” decades before the topic of women “having it all” became a public discussion.

A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Oklahoma, Suzanne was the second woman to serve as editor of the University paper, the Oklahoma Daily.  After graduation she began her career at the Daily Oklahoman, where she covered stories ranging from interviews with the wives of presidential candidates to the grim reality of Depression-era social service programs. 

Following her marriage to H. H. “Bill” Holloway in 1940,   his petroleum engineering career took them to numerous cities in Oklahoma and Texas; Baton Rouge, La, and Washington, DC. before they settled in Tulsa in 1964, the city she considered home.   Suzanne  raised three daughters who are grateful for the love of learning, literature, public service, the political process, and the importance of kindness and compassion she passed on to them.  She made sure that the first stop the family made in each new hometown was at the public library to get a library card, and she was known to stop to pull a few weeds between library paving stones on her way to the doors of often under-funded public libraries.  Suzanne was a longtime member of Tulsa’s John Knox Presbyterian Church, and she was grateful for the thoughtful sermons, wonderful friendships and opportunities over the years to be involved in outreach organizations such as “Neighbor for Neighbor” and others.  When she discovered that the closest grocery store to a family she was helping offered poor-quality produce at twice the going rate, she took them shopping at her own neighborhood grocery.

The last surviving member of a once-noted southeastern Oklahoma family, the Arnotes, who settled in cities such as Antlers and MacAlester prior to statehood, Suzanne was awed and inspired by the accomplishments of her parents who were impressively educated for the times.  Her mother was a teacher and elocution coach, and her father, a Valparaiso-educated lawyer.   Proud of her Native American heritage as an enrolled member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, Suzanne instilled that pride in her children and grandchildren.

As food became a greater focus of American culture and interest, Suzanne was an early chronicler of its importance as more than daily sustenance. She wrote about the bread makers, wine experts, emerging restaurants, the stories of the families behind the restaurants, and with the help of the talented Tulsa World photographers, created photos that inspired readers to create their own food adventures.  She was known to give gravy-making lessons to her grandsons at Thanksgiving, and create candy-making sessions that deteriorated into chocolate mustache-painting.

In lieu of flowers please consider making a donation in her name to Neighbors Along The Line, http://www.neighborsalongtheline.org/support/donate/