Isabella Holder

Isabella Allen, was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad on the 23rd of July in

1929. She was the fourth child of Mrs Miriam Gordon Allen of Tobago and

Mr John Allen of Montserrat. She follows Albertha Baby, Caroline Neezy, and

Frank, her elder sibs, and precedes Rudolph, Sybil, 

and Irving, her younger (all deceased). 

Following the death of her mother, Isabella, then 5, was sent to the

Tacarigua Orphanage near Tuna Puna where she spent seven challenging years

but completed her elementary education and kindled a love for memorization

of prose and verse. When her father, a seaman, returned home permanently,

Isabella was removed from the orphanage and reunited with family at the

residence of her stern aunt Christiana Moore. There, young Isabella worked

the farm, delivered the milk, and scaled the fish under the eye of Tanty Moore.

Upon the death of her aunt, Isabella returned to her birth home and was

reunited with her father and younger sibs for a while before immigrating to the

United States in 1952.

At the age of 23, Isabella found herself in Harlem New York, residing with her

paternal aunt Mae and sponsored by her elder brother Frank. Following her

faith in God and dreams to create things of beauty, Isabella made the bold move

to find her own apartment in Brooklyn. To make ends meet she sewed medical

uniforms in three garment factories, enrolled in typing school, and attended

public night school, stating “I did not wish to become a public charge.”

Isabella met John Holder of Port of Spain through mutual friends and married

on April 27, 1957. Isa and John had five children, John Alan, Gerard Brandon,

David Whitney, Justin Ernest, and Micah Alonzo, whom they raised in the

Bedford-Stuyvesant and Flatbush neighborhoods of Brooklyn. She worked as

a banking clerk and as a seamstress, later becoming a dedicated PTA member

and school crossing guard where she was greatly admired by 

students, parents,and teachers despite the social segregation of the 1960s. 

She later supported her husband, an optical distribution manager, with his business endeavors, then re-ignited her love for fashion by working at Macys in Manhattan for many years.

Despite her abrupt illness and passage, Isabella Holder was full of life, wit, and

opinion. She had a flair for fun and fashion, was a beloved Nana to 9 amazing

grand- and great grand children, was an incredibly devoted mother to five boys,

and was a woman of enduring faith in God through countless obstacles. She

is survived by her loving husband John and her very grateful and adoring sons.