W.Va.'s first female secretary of state has lived life of public service

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http://www.wvgazette.com/News/200910100357

Earlier this month, Secretary of State Natalie Tennant traveled to Helen Holt's Washington, D.C., home to hear her story. Tennant's office produced a video of the interview to honor her place in history.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- In 1955, Helen Holt took a seat in the back corner of the West Virginia House of Delegates. Her husband, Delegate Rush Holt Sr. of Weston, had died of cancer. The governor had appointed her to finish his term.

Other delegates offered Helen her husband's seat in the second row. She stayed in the back.

"I could watch everybody, and they couldn't see me," she said.

The schoolteacher from small-town Illinois was 41 at the time. She would spend the rest of her career in public service.

Two years later, Gov. Cecil Underwood appointed her West Virginia's first female secretary of state. Later, the Eisenhower administration picked her to start a program to build nursing homes throughout the country.

"At the time, I didn't realize I was a pioneer," she said in a telephone interview with the Gazette-Mail. "It is only in recent years that I realize what a pioneer I was."

http://www.wvgazette.com/News/200910100357