Zeta Mae Holm

Zeta Mae Holm, a devoted wife, mother, grandmother and great-grandmother, passed away peacefully on August 13, 2025 at Carlsbad By The Sea Retirement Community – just 8 days shy of celebrating her 101st birthday.

Born in Suamico, Wisconsin on August 21,1924 to Walter and Pearl Olsen, Zeta will be remembered for her warmth, cheerful spirit, positive attitude, and strength. She was a devoted Green Bay Packer fan, seldom missing a game on TV. Her recent prized possession was an autographed football signed by the entire team for her 100th birthday.

Zeta is survived by her daughter Cathy Johnson (Kenneth), stepson Randall Holm (Elisa), eleven grandchildren and eighteen great-grandchildren in addition to nieces Kathy Bell (John) and Janet Cowan. She was preceded in death by her second husband Odvar Holm (d. 2022), first husband Norman Woest (d.1972), her parents, brother Randy Olsen, and many other aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends.

The family would like to thank the Care Center and entire staff at Carlsbad By The Sea for Mom’s loving care for 27 years.

At Zeta’s request, there will be no service and she will be interred near Green Bay, Wisconsin. Before she passed, she made it known that she had a wonderful life and to be sure to tell everybody she loved them.

Below is Zeta’s story she dictated to Dr. Lauren Largo in the Care Center at Carlsbad by the Sea. Lauren then read this story at Zeta’s 100th birthday party.

Zeta Holm – My Life, My Story

When you walk into my room, the first thing you’ll see is a large Green Bay Packers blanket, and a few other Packers memorabilia scattered around the room. I remember we would often go and watch the team train, since they lived so close to my apartment at one point. They’d hang around close to where we lived and when the players were through with training, we would watch them ride their bicycles back from the gym. I knew Vince Lombardi and Curly Lambeau well, from the taverns where they would visit often. Curly was always at one particular bar in Green Bay, the Beaumont Hotel, where I would always speak to him, and we’d exchange a few words each time. When I was a little bit older in my 20s and had an apartment while I was working in Green Bay, my roommates and I would have some of the Packers players over for dinner. One player named Ace Lewis would drink a quart of milk with dinner! My roommate Marilyn would go out with them every once in a while. I was, and still am, a big Packers fan.

But my story doesn’t start in Green Bay. It starts about 10 miles north in a town called Suamico. My childhood wasn’t like anyone else’s. We were poor, and my mother had to work hard to put food on the table. I had one brother, Randy, though we grew up separately because our mother sent us to live with family after our father left us. Randy grew up with Aunt Jamie and I grew up with my grandmother. Aunt Jamie wasn’t as nice as our grandmother, so I always felt bad for him. We went to two different schools – he went to West High in Green Bay and I took the school bus to another school. Later in life, he went on to join the Navy where he received a medal for his service. After he came home, he was not the same. He looked ghostly, like a skeleton, and unfortunately he came home with a drinking problem. He did marry a nice woman and had a few children, but he was in his 40s when he died, probably from the drinking.

Growing up separately and without my mother was difficult. She didn’t have a car, so the only time I saw her was when she could get someone to drive her. My uncle owned a tavern in Suamico, so she soon started working there. She worked so hard – she scrubbed the floors and carried kegs up and down the stairs. Every day she would make a big pot of chili and cook hamburgers for anyone that wanted them. All for $8 per week, which went towards my bus fare. I didn’t see her much, and I was sad many times because of that. I even had to sign my own report card, which made me terribly sad each time. I remember crying one Mother’s Day because I was so upset that I didn’t have a mother to celebrate, and I missed her so much. But despite all that, I knew that she loved me, and I never doubted that for a second. That’s all that mattered. One day she noticed that everyone had a bike except for me, that I was the only one that walked around town. So, she talked my uncles into each giving $8 and she gave her own $8 from that week to buy me a bike so I could ride around with the other kids. Boy, was I proud of that bike. She worked so hard, but she also knew how to have fun. She loved to go out and have a good time out on the town. She even took me barhopping for my 21st birthday, and by the end of the evening, we had so much fun laughing and bar-hopping that she thought it was her birthday!

My grandmother was old-fashioned. Every night, I would read the Bible, and she’d pray for us and then we would end with the Lord’s Prayer. Every night. On Friday nights when the sun would go down, there would be no playing, no games, nothing. There were other rules she had – I couldn’t wear makeup; I couldn’t curl my hair. Despite the rules, I never rebelled. I knew it wasn’t easy for her either, raising her daughter’s child. Not long ago, Edith – my old girl-scout leader who I admired very much – was on her dying bed and I stopped by to see her. While we chatted about old memories, I said to her, “I don’t know what I would have done without my grandmother.” She said, “Zeta! What would your grandmother have done without you?” And that was our special relationship summed up. I went shopping for her, I wrote her letters for her, I read to her every night and prayed with her every night. And I had always thought about what she had done for me, never the other way around. But Edith changed my perspective that day.

Despite a difficult childhood, I went to a good high school. I liked school – I liked the fact that there were so many assignments, and our assignments were put up on the board for someone to see (although, sadly, my mother was never there to see them). Dorothy was one of my best friends growing up. She taught me how to drive, she let me borrow dresses for dates, and we would go to the school dances together and have sleepovers afterwards. We rode bicycles around town and even played at the roller rink a few blocks away from my grandmother’s house. I had a lot of good friends, and even a boyfriend, who would save a seat for me on the bus. His name was Hank. We dated for about 3 years, and I still blow him a kiss whenever I see the number 22, since that was his favorite number. He was a year ahead of me, and so when he graduated from high school, he left for college and we split up. He was my first love, and we were good for each other in high school. It’s good when you go through high school to have someone like that. And I really enjoyed my high school years. Even years later, I remember bringing my husband to my high school reunion. We were sitting at the bar when someone in my class came over to my husband and said, “You know, your wife was the best-looking woman in our class!” and my husband turned around to me and said, “Still is!”

When I graduated from high school, I didn’t take off the summer like most kids did. I rented a room in Green Bay and went to vocational school to learn how to use a comptometer. And I became pretty good at it. I stayed in Green Bay for a while after school and met a friend who worked at the department store, Gerry, and another who was in school with me, Hazel. We had three of us in a 2-bedroom apartment and we would each put 50 cents in the bowl for sugar and groceries together. They would bring some bread and cheese from their farms back home, and one of their cousins would visit us often and bring a pint of ice cream. We would sit down together and eat the whole thing!

Unfortunately, after you go through vocational school, and someone offers you a job, you take it. I wanted to become a secretary and to learn to type faster. But when the department store offered me a job, I had to go work. My job was to add sales tickets. I was good at my job, but I never balanced! I would add it over and over and over again. I spent so many hours trying to get those cards to balance. It was two years later that I found out why. After a co-worker in our office passed away, my boss went to clear out her office. He came back to me and said, “Zeta, do you want to know why you never balance?” I walked into her office to jars full of change that she had been keeping for herself. No wonder I could never balance!

I worked for 10 years at that department store in Green Bay. At that time, I was dating around, but I wasn’t married. I was ready for something new. I bought a car and talked my two girlfriends into driving across the country to California with me. I’d always liked California – my aunt lived there, and I had visited her before. She had fresh squeezed orange juice by my bedside every morning, and I loved the palm trees and the sunshine. Once I was in California, I never looked back. Then I met Norman.

He worked for Title Insurance & Trust Company, and he was tall and handsome. He already had a daughter, Cathy, and as far as anyone’s concerned, she’s my own daughter. I even set her up with her current husband, Scooter. She always said she wanted to marry a doctor. So naturally, when I was organizing my singles Christian group at my church, I met a lovely gentleman studying to be a doctor. After church, the single people hated going home alone to eat their Sunday meal after church, so we would organize meals for the group to eat together. So, like any good mother, I invited the surgeon and encouraged Cathy to start coming to the meals. Eventually they got married and had four children, so it’s safe to say my plan worked. She still calls me every Friday and she sends me goodies every now and then. But it wasn’t always easy. Unfortunately, Norman died suddenly at the age of 48 of a heart attack. I continued taking care of Cathy during that time. When people ask what I’m most proud of in life, I say raising Cathy. She is a wonderful daughter, wife, and mother to her children. We’re real close, and we love each other a lot.

When I first got to California, I worked for a company called Royal McBees. I worked one week out of every month in San Francisco, and I would take the train Monday morning. Friday afternoon my boss would take me to the Palace Hotel where we would have a martini, just before taking me to the airport to go back home. I was teaching them how to use the comptometer. In fact, I was so good, that they even offered me a job in Milwaukee to help there. But I turned them down. It would have been good money, but what good is that if you’re not happy? And I liked work. I met a lot of wonderful people.

My second marriage was to Odvar, and we were married for 45 years. He was a Boeing engineer, and very handsome. It kept him busy because we were living in Santa Monica at the time and his work was about 45 miles away. He was so easygoing, and he cared about me so much – that I always knew. We loved to travel together –we went to Norway a few times, and we made several trips to Maui which I always loved. Our travels took us once to Canada where we had high tea at the Princess hotel, and I do love a high tea. We lived a wonderful life together, but later in life he developed Alzheimer’s. After that, he just wasn’t the same. It was hard taking care of both of us. But I really enjoyed the years that we had together. He was the love of my life – he was so sweet and kind. He didn’t have to have a lot of money, but what he had was what I needed: love.

As I approach my 100th birthday this year, I look back on my life and I don’t think I would do anything differently. Maybe a different roommate in Green Bay. But other than that, I wouldn’t change much. My relationships in my life were so important to me, and I had some special ones (still do!) I’m grateful for living a full life and the happy moments I shared with the people I love.