Johnston, Holroyd and Associates
Princeton, West Virginia
The Law Office is Closed
Robert E. Holroyd 1931-2019
Robert E. "Bob" Holroyd of Princeton, WV, joined his beloved wife, Emilie Adams Holroyd (d. 2009), in the Hereafter on Sunday, October 27, 2019. He proudly served his cherished country in the United States Marine Corps and his treasured Mountain State in a variety of roles, both public and private. He leaves behind a grieving family and community.
"I never worked a day in my life," he’d say before explaining that his love of the law as expressed by the U.S. Constitution made his 61-year legal career a joy rather than a chore. He advocated for a better world for regular people and was particularly concerned with legal, medical and educational sectors.
Until his stroke, Bob kept a full work-week calendar, with half-days on the weekend. His regular schedule included Friday breakfast in the Princeton Community Hospital (PCH) cafeteria. He was very involved with the hospital as a founder and board member, then as general counsel until his passing.
Bob followed his mirror-twin brother, Fredrick Fairfax "Fred" Holroyd II of Charleston, W.V. (m. Sarah Gott Holroyd), into the world at Princeton Memorial Hospital on September 15, 1931. They were the second and third sons of Virginia Lazenby Holroyd, deceased, a daughter of Bluefield, W.V., grocer Robert Edward Lazenby, also deceased. Their older brother, Frank Jackson "Jack" Holroyd Jr., and younger sister, Diane Holroyd Nichols, predeceased Bob.
His father, the late Frank Jackson Holroyd, M.D., was the son of Athens, W.V., native Fredrick Fairfax "Uncle Doc" Holroyd and Hattie Shoemate Holroyd, both deceased. Uncle Doc bought ponies for his grandsons and later they accompanied him horseback as he provided medical care to patients across southern West Virginia and western Virginia. Sometimes, they just rode for fun.
As a student in Mercer Street Grade School in Princeton, Bob would sweet-talk his teachers into letting him and a few friends take field trips to watch cases at the Mercer County Courthouse, a few blocks from the school.
"If a particular case got gruesome or racy," he recounted, "the judge would wave us out and tell us, 'now you boys go on back to school.' It got hot in that courtroom with all those people in it, so the windows were usually open. We'd go sit under them and listen to the good parts."
Later, at Princeton High School, Bob served as captain of the debate team. He was known to tell boastful Ivy League graduates "I graduated from Princeton" and let them find out which Princeton on their own. After high school, he majored in political science at West Virginia University. In 1952, he volunteered for the United States Marine Corps to serve during the Korean Conflict.
Bob had earned his sergeant's stripes by the time he met Emilie at St. Mary's College in Raleigh, N.C. He'd gone to the school to visit his Bluefield cousin, not knowing she’d been confined to campus. Emilie, one of the cousin’s school chums, agreed to go out with him instead. After a courtship, part of which Bob spent on duty in Cuba, they wed, lived briefly in married housing at Camp Lejeune, N.C., and had their first child in 1954.
U.S.M.C. granted him reservist status the same year. He returned to Morgantown, W.V., with his young family and began earning his Juris Doctorate degree. After finishing, he worked as a National Labor Relations Board intern in Washington D.C. before returning to Princeton and joining established attorney W. Broughton Johnston, deceased, to form the Johnston, Holroyd & Associates law firm.
In 1966, Bob built a house on Courthouse Road, where the couple raised their three living children: Elizabeth "B" Holroyd of Chapel Hill, N.C. (m. Forrest M. Covington, Jr.); Magistrate William Frank "Bill" Holroyd of Princeton, and Mary Jacqueline "Mary-Jacq" Holroyd, Esq., of Athens (m. Samuel Hay Gardner). The couple never fully recovered from the loss of their infant son, Robert Edward Holroyd Jr., in 1958. They did not publicize their tragedy, preferring to direct their energies toward the living and to avoid uncomfortable discussions when they would rather talk about the needs of their community and state.
To say that Bob was family oriented is like saying the Bluestone is a little wet. He gloried in his grandchildren, Emilie Elizabeth "Bess" Dolin of Thailand (m. Gene Bunyaraksh), Emma Hay Gardner of Charleston (m. Mickey Z King-Fowler), Robert Allen "Bob" Gardner of Morgantown (m. Erin Colleen Gardner), and Elizabeth Burney “B” Gardner of Fairmont, W.V. (m. Caleb Davis). Bess brought her daughter, Meeta (b. 2013), for long annual visits with her great-granddaddy, so Bob got to spoil her for six years.
He is also survived by 12 nieces and nephews and a number of grand- and great-grand nieces and nephews.
Bob liked working with his hands and learning new skills. Over the years, he added stone and brick masonry to his woodworking capabilities, ultimately expanding the house with a garage on one end and a master bedroom on the other end, "to balance it out."
The late Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) tapped Bob in 1960 to serve as the southern West Virginia campaign chairman for presidential candidate John F. Kennedy, who overwhelmingly won the state, and both Bob and Emilie saw a way they could make a difference in their corner of the world: Democratic politics, as they felt it stood up for ordinary people.
Their political adventures first put Bob into the Mercer County Assistant Prosecutor office from 1961-1964, the same year he won election to the WV House of Delegates, where he successfully supported the repeal of the death penalty. He said it was not the place of a failable system to take lives.
He also served as Mercer County Prosecutor from 1965-1967, where he saw a need for law enforcement personnel to better understand civic rights and the law. He wrote the first state handbook on search and seizure to distribute to police officers. He was a consultant to the Governor’s Committee on Crime Anti-Delinquency, Correction, and a member of the International Association of Chiefs of Police. He was also an instructor on Criminal Law and Procedure at West Virginia State Police Academy and taught West Virginia Basic Police Science Courses at Institute. He was a guest instructor at Bluefield State College and an adjunct professor at Marshall University.
He served two terms on the West Virginia State Democratic Executive Committee and became a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1976, helping nominate Jimmy Carter for President.
His love of the law and respect for the US Constitution can’t be questioned. Any time someone complained about some rule or law, he’d quickly suggest they make an effort to change it through political and legislative action.
He had much to be proud of, but would list his work with the WV School Building Authority and the Mercer County 911 Committee among his most recent good causes. He was a member and officer in Princeton’s Junior Chamber of Commerce and an active member in the Princeton Rotary Club, and is a current member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars-VFW, American Legion, Elks, Moose, Mercer County and West Virginia’s State Bar Associations.
Accolades and accomplishments are appropriate and expected in an obituary, but the reality of Bob Holroyd stretched immeasurably far beyond the columns of ink herein; it reaches still, and always will, far beyond.
Funeral services to celebrate the life of Robert E. (Bob) Holroyd were held at 2:00 P.M. on Saturday, November 2, 2019 from the Burns Wornal Chapel of the Memorial Funeral Directory and Cremation Center.
Burial followed in the Athens Cemetery with military graveside rites provided by the U.S. Marine Corp.
The Bridge Builder
by Will Allen Dromgoole
An old man going a lone highway, Came at the evening, cold and gray, To a chasm vast and deep and wide Through which was flowing a sullen tide; The old man crossed in the twilight dim; The sullen stream held no fears for him; But he turned when safe on the other side And built a bridge to span the tide.
“Old man,” said a fellow pilgrim near, “You are wasting strength with building here, Your journey will end with the ending day; You never again will pass this way, You have crossed the chasm deep and wide, Why build you this bridge at the eventide?”
The builder lifted his old gray head, “Good friend, in the path I have come,” he said “There followeth after me today A youth whose feet must pass this way. This chasm that has been naught to me, To that fair-haired youth may a pitfall be; He too must cross in the twilight dim, Good friend, I am building this bridge for him.”
--As found typed on a page in the office desk The Bridge Builder