Ella Virginia Houck Holloway
(Mrs. Reuben Ross Holloway)
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Maryland Patriot and protector of the Flag of the
United States and the National Anthem- The Star Spangled
Banner. She was the guiding force which convinced Helen
and John Charles Linthicum to work on her behalf to
introduce and support legislation recognizing the song
as the official national anthem. Recognition of the
anthem by Congress was just one part of the development
of what might be considered the "cult of nationalism" by
the children of the post civil war period-the children
of the Gilded Age.
Birth: Sep.
3, 1862
Baltimore City
Maryland, USA
Death: Nov. 3, 1940
Baltimore City, Maryland,USA
Mrs. Reuben Ross Holloway demonstrates
the proper way to hold the flags of the United
States and Great Britain at the same time
Reuben Ross
Holloway Geneology
The
ancestry of Reuben Ross Holloway is traced through
maternal lines to Edward
Foulke, who was born in Wales, May 13, 1651, came to
America in 1698, and died
November 8, 1741. His wife, Eleanor, born in Wales, died
in Gwynedd,
Pennsylvania, January 16, 1733. The line of descent from
Edward and Eleanor
Foulke to Reuben Ross Holloway is traced through their
daughter, Margaret
Foulke, born in Wales, who died, March 23, 1717, in
Pennsylvania. She married
Nicholas Roberts, who died in 1733. The line continues
through their daughter,
Elizabeth Roberts, born June 11, 1723, died May 29,
1790, who married, February
12, 1743, David Humphrey, son of Robert and Margaret
(Evans) Humphrey, of
Gwynedd, Pennsylvania. Their daughter, Elizabeth
Humphrey, born in Gwynedd,
March 13, 1761, died in Baltimore, Maryland, April 29,
1847, her husband,
Sabritt Bowen, surviving her. Eleanor Humphrey Bowen,
daughter of Sabritt and
Elizabeth (Humphrey) Bowen, was born in January, 1792,
died November 2, 1874,
married Robert Holloway, of Virginia, born in 1786, died
January, 1863, leaving
a son, Charles Thomas Holloway. He married Anna Harden
Ross, they the parents
of Reuben Ross Holloway, to whose memory this review is
devoted.
Charles
Thomas Holloway, son of
Robert and Eleanor Humphrey (Bowen) Holloway, was born
December 25, 1827, died
in Baltimore, Maryland, March 17, 1898. He was an
influential man of his day,
head of the Charles T. Holloway Chemical Fire Engine
Company of Baltimore, a
company devoted to the manufacture of a fire
extinguisher and a chemical fire
engine, both inventions of Charles T. Holloway, and
bearing his name both as an
inventor and maker. He married October 12, 1854, Anna
Harden Ross, born July
13, 1830, died January 31, 1909, daughter of Reuben and
Sarah Ross.
Reuben
Ross Holloway, son of Charles
T. and Anna Harden (Ross) Holloway, was born in
Baltimore, Maryland, June 13,
1855, and died in his native city, December 13, 1908.
After finishing his
school years he became associated with his father in the
manufacture of the
special lines of the Charles T. Holloway Chemical Fire
Engine Company, and
when, in 1898, the father passed to the spirit land, he
was succeeded by his
son as head of the business. Mr. Holloway continued the
manufacture of the
Holloway extinguisher and chemical fire engine for some
time, then sold his
right, title, and interest, to the American La France
Fire Engine Company, and
from that time until his death was manager of the
Baltimore branch of that
company, and a member of its board of directors. He was
a member of high degree
in the Masonic order, and belonged to several social and
patriotic
organizations, among them the Sons of the American
Revolution, he serving the
local chapter as treasurer.
Reuben
R. Holloway married, January 28, 1892, Ella Virginia
Houck, daughter of Dr.
Jacob Wever and Susannah (Porter) Houck. Mrs.
Holloway survives her husband, a resident of Baltimore,
with two children,
Virginia Leslie, born November 18, 1892, married, April
26, 1913, Ernest Smith
Jeffries, their children: Ernest Smith (2) Jeffries,
born April 2, 1914;
Virginia L. Jeffries, born July, 1916; Charles Thomas
(2) Holloway, born March
22, 1897, married June 20, 1918, Frances A. Fuller, of
Worcester,
Massachusetts.
Ella
Virginia (Houck) Holloway traces her ancestry to
Lieutenant Robert Porter, of
Back River Neck, Porters Bar, Maryland, an officer of
the Revolution. He was
born in 1757, died March 16, 1810. He was commissioned
first lieutenant in the
Third Regiment of Maryland Troops, February 20, 1777,
resigned in April, 1777,
married Susannah Buck, born in 1772, who died September
1, 1845. The line of
descent is through their son, James Porter, born in
1797, died September 30,
1843. James Porter married November 26, 1829, Elizabeth
Frances Todd, born
January 29, 1809, died in July, 1860, daughter of
Bernard and Mary (Green)
Todd, of an ancient Maryland family (q. v.). The
line continues through
Susannah Porter, daughter of James and Elizabeth Frances
(Todd) Porter, born
September 26, 1832, died in May, 1911. She married,
November 15, 1852, Dr.
Jacob Wever Houck, and they were the parents of Ella
Virginia Houck, widow of
Reuben Ross Holloway.
The
Todd ancestry of Ella V. (Houck) Holloway begins in
Maryland, with Thomas Todd,
of "Toddsbury," Gloucester county, Virginia, in 1664,
who settled at
the North Point farm in Baltimore county, Maryland, now
called "Todd's
Inheritance," which is still in the possession of the
family. v He was a
son of Thomas Todd, who is mentioned in the records of
York county, Virginia,
in 1642, and who bought land in Gloucester county in
1652. His eldest son,
William, patented 500 acres in that county, in 1666.
Thomas Todd served as
burgess of Baltimore county from 1674 to 1675. His will
dated April 11, 1676,
was the first recorded in Baltimore county. He died on
board the ship
"Virginia," bound for England. Thomas Todd married Ann
Gorsuch,
daughter of the Rev. John Gorsuch, Vicar of Walkam
Parish, Herefordshire,
England, and granddaughter of Sir William Lovelace.
Their children were:
Thomas, of further mention; Christopher; James; William;
Phillip; Joanna;
Frances and Averilla.
-Spencer, Richard, Henry, Genealogical and
Memorial Encyclopedia of the State of Maryland, 1919.
Virginia Leslie
Holloway and Ernest Jefferies had a third child, Eleanor
Gorsuch, born May 19, 1920 in Hamilton, Ontario.
Eleanor
married Ellicott Gordon Ellicott of Baltimore, Maryland,
son of Maurice Tyson Ellicott and Eugenie Marie Dryden.
-Marilyn Ellicott
When a wag asked what she
would do if
she were taking a bath and heard the song, she
curtly replied, "Young man,
I stand when I hear 'The Star-Spangled Banner.'"
-Rasmussen,
Frederick, N., McClatchy-Tribune usiness News, march 11,
2006
The morning salute to the flag.
On the latter, Holloway proposed that every adult and
child begin their day
that way.
"I
believe it
would be a patriotic thing if parents each morning
gathered their children
around them, and, after saying grace, if they do, to
salute the flag before
breakfast. The flag could be hung in the dining room or
parlor."
She
was known as a
fanatic about standing when seeing or hearing "The
Star-Spangled
Banner," so a wag asked her what she would do if she
heard it while in the
bathtub.
"Young man, I
stand when I hear `The Star-Spangled Banner,' " she
replied.
-Baltimore
Sun
In
1938,
at a Rotary Club luncheon here, she described how
respect for the flag
once "averted a panic at sea in the midst of a
storm." She said in
her remarks: The third-class passengers on ++ the
steamship President Harding
fell to their knees in prayer on the storm swept
deck of the liner, when
60-foot waves disabled the craft. According to her
story, the chief steward's
mate walked among them and said, " 'You are sailing
under the American
flag. The ship cannot sink.'
"It didn't," Mrs. Holloway told her audience. With
that mystic
observation, she allowed the audience a few moments
of silence to draw the same
moral from the story that she had.
-http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=66345425
The Hat
She always appeared in public
wearing a tall shako, a cylindrical beaver hat
with plume, that rose a foot above her head.
"The
general
contours of my hat and the Constitution of the United
States must remain
unchanged," she told The Sun in 1937.
"Some persons said she loved
it because it resembled the Shot Tower,
next to where she was born," observed the newspaper.
Center left