Jul 14, 2015 2 min read

CHARLESTON, W.Va. – Helen Holt, the first woman to hold a statewide office in West Virginia, never considered herself as a pioneer.

“She always told me she was ‘just there to do a good job.’ I would argue with anyone who said she didn’t,” Secretary of State Natalie Tennant said in a Monday evening news release announcing Holt’s death.

Holt died Sunday from heart failure in Boca Raton, Florida.

She was 101, Tennant said.

Holt was appointed as secretary of state by Gov. Cecil Underwood in 1957 following the death of D. Pitt O’Brien. She was defeated in her bid for a full term in 1958.

She previously was appointed in 1955 to fill the unexpired House of Delegates term of her husband, the late Rush Holt Sr., following his death. He also had served one term in the U.S. Senate.

“Though she would never admit it, she was a political trailblazer for her time,” Tennant said. “She put the needs of her state and her fellow citizens above her own personal needs and her own personal grief.”

President Dwight Eisenhower appointed Holt in 1960 to implement a program in the Federal Housing Administration to set standards for long-term care facilities and to provide insured mortgages for construction of nursing homes meeting these standards.

Holt received an honorary degree from West Virginia University in 2013.

“West Virginia has lost one of its true trailblazers – although typical of so many of our citizens, she never felt comfortable with that label,” WVU President Gordon Gee said late Monday in a statement. “Whether it was in the state legislature, as secretary of state, or in her leadership roles in federal housing programs, Helen Holt lived to serve. She was a true treasure and a dear friend to West Virginia University. She will be greatly missed.”

Memorial services will be held July 19 in Boca Raton and Aug. 15 in Washington, D.C.