Reeves Aaron Holder

Mr. Reeves A. Holder, age 96, passed away January 12, 2024 at the Woltz Hospice Home in Dobson, NC. He was born May 15, 1927 in Surry County, the eighth of ten children, to Verlin and Bessie Holder. Five days later, Charles Lindbergh made the first solo non-stop flight across the Atlantic Ocean, an event that presaged the life of young Reeves.

Reeves graduated from Mountain Park High School in 1944, where he had driven the school bus since age 16. At 17, he learned to fly at the Swan Creek air strip in a Piper J-3 cub, soloing after only 6 hours of instruction and no manual. After high school he briefly worked at the Glenn L. Martin aircraft factory in Baltimore, MD, before enlisting in the Army Air Corp. On October 14, 1945, he married his high school sweetheart, Mary Miller, in Washington, DC, where she was working at the time for the O.S.S. Immediately thereafter, he spent a year of WWII duty at the Yokoto Air Force Base in occupied Japan. Upon returning, he and Mary moved to Tulsa, OK, where he graduated in 1947 as an Airline Maintenance Engineer (with FAA Aircraft Mechanic and Aircraft Engine Mechanic licenses, and Instructor Ratings) from the Spartan School of Aeronautics. The newlyweds then returned to Elkin, where Reeves explored his interest in photography by working for T.A. Redmond's photography studio, before they returned to the capitol for him to graduate from the National School of Photography in Silver Springs, MD in 1949. Still itching to fly, Reeves re-enlisted in the Army for a second tour of military duty, stationed at Fort Bragg, NC. There he graduated from the Army Test Pilot School (1956) and served as an Army aircraft test pilot and aircraft maintenance officer. Reeves flew as a research pilot during the final above-ground nuclear bomb test in the Nevada desert test site. The atomic bomb, code-named "Smoky" in the Operation Plumbbob series, was detonated on August 31, 1957.

After leaving the military, during the winter of 1958 until January 1959, Reeves flew as a commercial helicopter pilot for early oil surveys in Alaska by Standard Oil and Atlantic Richfield, just as the territory gained statehood. This adventure came to an end when his helicopter broke through the ice, plunging him into a frozen pond. He managed to extract himself, but not without badly injuring his knee, requiring him to return home to recover. Back in Elkin, Reeves and Mary established a unique business on North Bridge Street in 1960, called "The Portrait Studio". Reeves did award-winning portrait and wedding photography, while in the same building, Mary started Elkin's first Merle Norman Cosmetic Studio, and Reeves's sister, Emily H. Southard, ran her beauty salon.

But in 1963, the opportunity came for Reeves to get back into the air, so that year he became the corporate pilot, maintenance officer, and aviation manager for Springs Industries in Fort Mill, SC. During this time his FAA Commercial Pilot license carried Single Engine, Multi-Engine, Instrument, Helicopter, and Glider ratings. He worked the remainder of his career with Springs, enjoying the company and the people he worked with, as well as the opportunity to pilot a Lear Jet during his last years there.

Upon his retirement he and Mary returned to their homeplace in Elkin. He designed and built a new home, using 200-year-old logs from the old Venable house he grew up beside. He enlarged the fruit orchard, continued his annual vegetable gardening, played guitar with an informal band of good friends, and looked forward to annual pheasant-hunting trips to North Dakota.

When Mary died in 2009 he carried on alone, taking up cooking and learning to preserve the vegetables from his garden. For his 80th birthday, he was able to renew his pilot's license; he said, "Now, when people ask what I do, I don't have to say 'retired'; I can just say that I'm a pilot." Indeed, Reeves was a pilot to his core. He had internalized the physics of flight and the management of air across a wing in the open-cockpit Cub when he was seventeen and continued to refine and respect that relationship across every experience, in many and varied helicopters, fixed-wing aircraft, jets, and gliders. He once said, "I'll fly anything."

The last year of his life, at age 96, Reeves grew the largest garden he had in years, with a walk-behind tiller. And on his birthday, his friend Sandy Shore took him up in an open-cockpit to land on the grass strip at Swan Creek, where he had soloed 78 years before.

Reeves is survived by his only child, Martha Holder (Jeanne Sept), his brother-in-law Joe B. Guyer, Sr., many cherished nephews and nieces

including Ben Williams, great-nieces and nephews, great-great-nieces and nephews, cousins, and dear friends, Zane Parker and Sandy Shore.

He was preceded in death by his wife of 64 years, Mary Muriel Miller Holder, parents, W. Verlin and Martha Ettis "Bessie" Tucker Holder, brothers Fred A. Holder, Roger J. Holder, R. Quentin Holder, Raymond V. Holder, sisters Phosie H. Cockerham, Emily H. Southard, Wilda H. Gentry, Bonnie H. Burchette, and Betty H. Guyer.

The family extends special thanks to nephew Robert Guyer, to caregivers Retha Holbrook and Felicia Potts, to his many physicians and home health staff, and to other friends and family for their kind assistance during Reeves last months.

A graveside service will be conducted at Bessie's Chapel Church cemetery on Sunday, January 21, at 2 pm. The family requests masks be worn, please, to protect family members struggling with health issues. Viewing will be from 2 to 4 p.m. on Saturday, January 20 at Elkin Funeral Service, 560 NC Hwy 268 W, Elkin, NC. Family will not be present.

In lieu of flowers, donations may made to the Bessie's Chapel Church Cemetery Fund, c/o A.V. Cockerham, 114 Calloway Lane, State Road, NC 28676 and Mountain Valley Hospice, 968 N. Bridge Street, Elkin, NC 28621.