Standing on her own two feet and smiling, Margaret Holder opened her own 100th birthday party.
“This was a surprise for me,” Holder said on Oct. 19. “I appreciate you all coming and I love you all.”
Applause shook the undercroft of historic Lutheran Church of the Epiphany, which was packed with family, friends, and local officials.
Holder moved from the Bronx to Hempstead with husband Lancelot Holder and their son Lance in the 1960s. Once established in the village, Holder, who held a degree from the Fashion Institute of Technology, continued with her 34-year career as a professional milliner. She and her family also began their six-decade membership in Church of the Epiphany.
In 1993, at age 68, with former Mayor James A. Garner and son Lance Holder at her side, Holder opened Margaret’s Millinery in Hempstead. For many years, she supplied the village with her own line of sophisticated hats and accessories.
Last Sunday, a long table in the church undercroft displayed hats that Holder had made for parishioners across the decades.
Hundredth-birthday citations for Holder from New York state, Nassau County, the Town of Hempstead, and the Village of Hempstead stood proudly at the center of the display. The undercroft glowed with white-and-gold decorations. Decorative miniature hats made by church member Cora Daniels for the occasion brightened the room’s pillars. Enticing aromas from a dozen and a half hot-food trays filled the space and even floated upstairs into the grand church chapel.
Holder’s granddaughter and main caretaker, Kanisa Holder, had organized the event with a large team from the church including Pastor Emilce Erato, Mistress of Ceremony Lynda Straker, Church Council Vice-President Sonia Saravia, and Evangelism Committee Chair Doreen Davis.
Deputy Town Supervisor Dorothy Goosby, Deputy County Supervisor Anissa Moore, Nassau County Comptroller Elaine Phillips, Nassau County Legislators Olena Nicks and Scott Davis, Hempstead Village Trustee Tanya Carter, the Office of State Senator Siela Bynoe, and other officials paid their respects to the “birthday girl.”
Saxophonist Daniel Chapman sweetened the air throughout the ceremony.
As the meal began, so did the family tributes. One of Holder’s nephews, Walter Bell III, contributed a heartfelt prayer, saying, “I hope that God blesses us all to live that long … and to see the strength that Aunt Margaret has and the love that she has.”
Leroy Jackson, Jr., a member of the R&B group Black Ivory since 1971, belted out a soul version of “Happy Birthday” to introduce the cutting of the cake.
Holder’s many nephews, nieces, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, with Epiphany church members, then shouted through several rounds of “Happy Birthday to Ya.” Great-grandson Cyrus Holder began to read out his great-grandmother’s biography. But he set it aside and spoke from the heart.
“For me, every time I take my [great-] grandmother to the grocery store, it’s a celebration that she can still walk, she can still talk,” he said. “We’re thankful that all the people here share the same feelings about her, a kind person that just wants to take care of everybody.”
