Leona Holbrook: A Pioneer of the Past Who Shaped Our Present Day Profession
LEONA HOLBROOK: A PIONEER OF THE PAST WHO SHAPED OUR PRESENT DAY PROFESSION
Donald J. Lawrence, Ed.D, Professor, Department of Advanced Studies, Azusa Pacific University
Presentation at the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance Annual Convention, Salt Lake City, Utah, April 27, 2006
In 1981, during my doctoral work at Brigham Young University, I was privileged that first summer session, to take Dr. Ruel Barker’s course “History of Physical Education”. Dr. Barker shared with us that one of the great leaders in the profession, Dr. N. P. Neilson was scheduled to speak to our class about his involvement with AAHPER and how he was influential in AAHPER’s growth and development throughout the years. As Dr. Neilson shared with us that day, I grasped an appreciation that history is a predictor of the future, and, if we do not capture the stories and legacies of those that have gone before us, the part they played in the grand scheme of things would be lost forever.
Dr. Barker, Reid Gunnell and Eugene Nelson were influenced by N.P. to take the challenge of writing a collection of short biographies on the first 100 American Academy of Physical Education members. Barker completed his biographical narrative of thirty-four leaders in 1971. Nelson completed the second phase of the project with another thirty-four members in 1972 and Gunnell completed the collection in 1973.
Barker, Nelson and Gunnell created a particularly unique method of biographical study. Their short biographical analysis of leaders lends itself to study and research of leaders without the usual “dead ending”. Professionals can now, within three volumes, capture a glimpse of their heritage and project possible directions for their future.
Throughout centuries man has recorded history diligently. His penchant in this activity speaks of his desire to leave a portion of himself and his world to those who will follow. Such is the case in man’s desire to record the lives of those around us who have
had a considerable impact on our world. They are and have been such powerful models and influences on our individual lives as well as our discipline and profession as a whole.
Boswell states that “I esteem biography as giving us what comes near to ourselves” (Novarr, 1986). But, in our modern world, the state of biographical production is not as healthy as it was in the past. Hormberger and Charmley’s observations seem to reflect our present day society’s attitude:
Biography seeks to do what only the greatest art has ever done: to convey
the feel of an individual’s experience, to see the world as a single person saw
it. Few biographies last. Not only do certain subjects seem, over time, to be more
less interesting, but the frame of interpretation, the cultural luggage, can change
so comprehensively, that the important biographies of one age are the library
discards of the next (Hormberger, 1988).
This attitude is precisely why biographies of great leaders must be recorded. Someone once said “that a page of history is worth more than a book of dialogue and man’s meaningless present day logic”. There is much to learn from those that have pioneered in the profession and disciplines of health, physical education, recreation and dance. But the time is short. Once they leave us, their hidden thoughts, their unspoken feelings and the story of life from their perspective is gone forever.
In 1981, I decided to continue the work that Barker, Nelson and Gunnell had begun. Seeking N.P. Neilson’s and Ruel Barker’s guidance, my dissertation became the fourth volume of the original biographical collection of great leaders from the American Academy of Physical Education. I had the privilege of traveling around the country in the summer of 1982 interviewing eight out of the twenty-five members in my original research who were still alive. They were all normal, ‘down to earth’ folks with whom I sat for hours and listened and recorded their stories. H. Harrison Clarke, Franklin Henry, Laura Huelster, Helen Manley, Simon McNeely, Gladys Scott, Frank Sills and the great Carl Troester.
Twenty-five years later I have pursued that same path. Over the past few years I realized that many of the great leaders who have influenced and given our profession and discipline direction, were members of the American Academy who were growing older and their stories of influence were not being recorded. Last fall I took a long-overdue sabbatical and traveled around the United States with the sole purpose of capturing the personal stories of those that had followed my original collection of great leaders. I had identified fifty-four Academy members who, by their membership numbers and age needed to be interviewed. Folks like 93 year old John Cooper from Indiana University who invented the jump shot in basketball and was considered the ‘Father of Biomechanics’, and 92 year old Margaret Fox from the University of Iowa who challenged the domination of men’s athletics , Ann Jewitt from the University of Georgia, and others needed to have their stories recorded. Once again, as I sat and recorded their legacies, I able to see historically, from their perspective, how the movement of our discipline and profession molded us into who and what we are today.
However, one of those that I had written about I did not have the honor to interview. For Leona Holbrook, one of Utah’s most distinguished and well-liked leaders of our profession had passed away in 1980, one year prior to my enrollment at Brigham Young University. It is her that I have chosen to highlight in this presentation this morning, for those of you who live and work in Utah, and specifically for those of you who knew and worked with her, the Salt Lake City AAHPERD Convention needs to hear about one their own who gave so much to all of us, and asked so little in return.
I begin with a Holbrook quote since it truly depicts her philosophy of leadership: “True leadership, instead of being concerned with the personal success of the self, is concerned, rather, with the success of others and the cause which we share” (Holbrook, 1965).
Leona Holbrook’s life exuded the essence of what she termed “true leadership”. She was one of those rare individuals who took charge in leadership roles without being motivated for personal gain. She was author, administrator, teacher and above all, a caring friend.
Holbrook was born in 1909 in the tiny farming community of Lehi, Utah to a young medical doctor, Horace Cook Holbrook and his wife Leona Garn. Here Holbrook spent the first six years of her life. As a young child she not only contracted the usual childhood diseases, but also had to endure a severe mastoid infection which left her partially deaf for the remainder of her life.
Because of her poor health, Holbrook spent much of her childhood in the house watching her mother paint and played school with her brother Horace. Although her brother read to her, he did not help her learn to read. It was her mother who taught her the basics, and by the time she was six, she was indulged in the twenty volume set of the Books of Knowledge, and was always reading Dickens, the Bible, the Book of Mormon, and stories from Roosevelt’s African Game Trails. She even read portions of her father’s medical book, Gray’s Anatomy.
Growing up in a family centered home, Holbrook benefited from a father who took his role seriously. Each one of the children was always given “special time” and nicknames from their father. “Bony lony” and sometimes ‘tony lony” were fun names that her father would call her. Ironically, the nickname “tony” stuck and all her life that name would follow her (Rasmus, 1971).
In 1915 Dr. Holbrook and his wife were called by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints to serve as missionaries to New Zealand. For the next three years Leona and her family served the church in Auckland. It was from this early childhood experience of living in another culture that Holbrook later claimed gave her the sense of traveling adventure. Her international work and influence well documents that claim.
While she was in school in New Zealand, she was ridiculed by her fellow classmates for not being able to play the games that the locals played. Coupled with the constant teasing by the New Zealand children concerning her American clothes, accent and customs, she began to feel rejected, withdrew and chose to pursue her education rather than attempt to play with the New Zealand children.
In 1918 she returned from the mission field and settled, with her family in Bountiful, Utah. Ironically, while attending Liberty School, she experienced the same classmate ridicule from her American fellow students. They laughed at her newly acquired British accent and were constantly teasing her about her lack of knowledge of how to play American games at recess.
This caused her to work even harder in school. She studied and learned French. She became one of the best writers in the school and she was one of the top spellers at Liberty. With this accelerated success in her academics, at the age of 13 she was placed into East High School in Salt Lake City. Two years younger than her classmates in the ninth grade, Holbrook experienced her first step into what would become her future, physical education.
A young physical education teacher, Treiste Pearson, introduced her to the game of field hockey. Although she had never experienced the game prior to Pearson’s introduction, Holbrook later recalled and interesting observation. She could not disassociate the teacher from the sport or the instruction. From that experience, unknowingly, she began to formulate a philosophy of teaching that would be the guiding principle for her entire career and that was to place the student’s welfare and an individual’s self-worth above all else.
She eventually excelled in field hockey, leading East High School to the 1924 city championships. Later in the spring, she also became an accomplished track and field athlete, winning first place in the city championships in the hurdles, high jump and the basketball throw. That year Holbrook was invited to become a member of the Inner Circle Club at East High School. This was a group of selected students that were given the opportunity to lead, direct and officiate physical education classes. Only those who had accomplished a high degree of scholarship and athletic prowess were members of this most elite club in the school.
During those years, Holbrook engaged in a myriad of youthful activities. She taught Sunday School, and was involved in her church youth group. She participated in athletics and loved to hike the Wasatch Mountains. However, as Von her brother claimed, her curiosity always brought her back to the books, where she enjoyed studying life. During their hikes he claimed it could sometimes be frustrating in that “she not only made it a hike, she made it a nature study course” (Rasmus, 1973).
Within three years, she had accumulated enough credits to graduate and in the fall of 1925, at the age of sixteen, she became a freshman at the University of Utah.
Although she enrolled in such courses as archeology, art, botany and geology, Holbrook’ search for the old, familiar joy and satisfaction of physical activity, led her to choose physical education as her major. She participated in basketball, field hockey, horse back riding, track and field and baseball. An indication of her athletic ability became evident the summer between her freshmen and sophomore year. She learned to play tennis, a skill which she quickly mastered, winning and placing high in both university and city-wide tournaments. This led her to another sport, paddle tennis, and she quickly became one of the most advanced players in the university.
At this time in her life, Leona was also beginning to develop her interpersonal and leadership skills. She joined The Women’s Athletic Association which had the responsibility of planning and organizing women’s athletic competition and events. She served on their board her first three years of college and became the president of that organization her senior year. As she experienced her first WAA conference in Arizona, she recalled that this was one of her first significant steps in her own professional growth and development. She observed, for the first time in her life, the importance of the unification of professionals as it related to the promotion of the profession.
Holbrook was a “doer’. She was active in the Phi Epsilon Phi social sorority, served as a sports columnist for the university newspaper, and became so interested in art that upon graduation, she not only had fulfilled her requirements for the physical education major, but lacked only one unit towards an art major. Her love of art continued throughout her life which is evidenced by her collection of art from all over the world. In addition, she continued to “run her mother’s household” for unfortunately her mother was severely ill. In the summers she was hired as a playground director in Kaysville, Utah.
In 1929, following her graduation from the university, she was hired to teach physical education at West Junior High School in Salt Lake City. Her students fell in love with her. She quickly captured the respect of her students by doing what came naturally to her, developing meaningful relationships by making each student feel special. This characteristic, by the way, was always evident as she continued that practice not only with her students, but, to all she met along life’s way. As I spoke with those who knew and worked with her, I discovered that Leona Holbrook always saw the good in people and made them feel special. Her students at West always called her K. S. Claimed one student, “It was years before I realized that K.S. meant ‘Kid Sis’ (Rasmus, 1971).
After three years of success at West Junior High, Holbrook was asked, and she accepted a teaching position at West Senior High School. She taught and coached at West during the school year but her summer time interest led her to the outdoors where she became a director of one of Herbert Hoover’s Federal Experimental School Camps for Women. During her first summer she operated a women’s camp for the YMCA in upstate New York. The following summer she directed a camp in New Hampshire. Eventually she returned to Utah to become the assistant director for the All American Girl Scout Camp (Rasmus, 1973).
Amidst all of this, she completed her Masters degree at Columbia Teachers College in New York City.
In 1937 she applied, then accepted a teaching position at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. She was soon asked to assume the chairmanship of the Department of Physical Education for Women. As an administrator, Holbrook saw her goals become a reality as enrollments increased, facilities were enlarged and the curriculum was expanded.
But through all this, her love for students never diminished. She continued to introduce each student to an appreciation and knowledge of the environment about them as a part of her overall ‘whole person’ educational philosophy. It was not unusual for her to stop her lecture in the middle of class, and tell the students to look about them, to put their eyes to the hills and reflect an appreciation of God’s creation and to take time to discover where they fit in this world. Saturdays were used to take students into the mountains for hikes, picnics and skiing. Students loved her.
However, during her beginning administrative and teaching career at BYU, certain professional positions and beliefs began to emerge. She claimed not to be a women’s rights activist, as she continually insisted that her accomplishments stood on their own merits regardless of sex.
“. . . . quality of knowing and doing can be engaged in worthily by a person of
either sex, as a human and as a civilized being, without jeopardizing any
personal qualities of a given sex” (Holbrook, 1962).
She was a woman who communicated her professionalism through her dress, actions and speech. She had no interest in joining those who fought for status, yet her success as a woman professional serving in prestigious leadership positions among men did much to advance women’s image and capability in a profession dominated by men. It is interesting that my study of her revealed that instead of concerning herself with “women’s rights” and getting involved with the “battle of the sexes”, she suggested that those who seek such attention might profit more by engaging in what she claimed was the “quality knowing and doing” and by this gaining one would gain recognition “without jeopardizing any personal qualities of a given sex” (Holbrook, 1962).
She exemplified this position by her accomplishments in physical education. In her early years at Brigham Young, she promoted and initiated a wide program of sports opportunities for women while serving as advisor to the Women’s Athletic Association. In 1945 Holbrook met with other chairpersons of women’s physical education and athletic departments and formed the Intermountain Association for Physical Education for College Women. She was elected vice president, then president and a new “side career” of serving the profession and discipline began.
In 1950, 1965 and again in 1971, Leona Holbrook was such a strong role model for the women at Brigham Young University, the women’s student body honored her as the Outstanding Women Faculty member. It was also in 1971 that she completed her doctorate at Columbia University. Although the completion of the degree was important to her, she continually stressed that learning for learning’s sake was to be more highly revered than a degree in everyone’s lifetime (Holbrook, 1973).
She continued as chair of the Women’s Physical Education Department at BYU, and remained in that position until her retirement. In 1959 she was elected president of the organization, the Western States Physical Education for College Women and in 1964 she was asked by the nominating committee of AAHPER for permission to add her name onto the election list for AAHPER’s president-elect. In 1966 she became the forty-ninth president of the American Association of Health, Physical Education and Recreation.
Her list of leadership accomplishments and contributions are too many to present here, but allow me to share but a few. In 1968 she was chosen to serve on the Board of Directors of the United States Olympic Committee, one of the first two women ever to be selected. In 1972 she was the only woman appointed to the Bi-National Commission for Professional Interchange with the United States and Mexico. During that year she also served as chairman of the Provo River Park Development Committee.
Holbrook was not only a valuable member of committees and commissions, but she was one who was sought after as a speaker. Vary rarely did she refuse a friend or colleague when asked to speak at special occasions. Prior to her term as president of AAHPER, she wrote, published and gave proceedings to over 60 articles concerning physical education and presented over 90 major and minor addresses. Known and respected by her colleagues as a supporter of causes and not personalities, she was even willing to speak on behalf of the minority when it was “politically not the thing to do” (Rasmus, 1973).
In 1969 she received the R. Tait McKenzie Award and in 1975 she was honored with the highest and most prestigious AAHPER award, The Gulick Medal. She had also received numerous Honor Awards from both the Southwest District AHPER and Utah’s AHPER. The Utah Recreation and Parks Association gave her the distinguished Service Award and she is listed among Who’s Who in the West, and Who’s Who Among American Women. She was elected Fellow Number 174 in the American Academy of Kinesiology and Physical Education, and served in 1975-76 as their president.
However, after a bout with cancer, Leona Holbrook died in 1980, leaving the many that loved and respected her, saddened by her departure.
This past fall (2005) as I sat in the Penn State historical archives section of their library where the Academy archives are housed, and also in the Brigham Young University Special Collections Library, I had the privilege of reading many of her manuscripts, letters, and speeches. Coupled with my previous research I began to discover that Leona Holbrook’s life had certain aspects that contributed to her success as a leader. Here are some of those qualities that I feel we all could benefit from.
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- She was someone who modeled the way. Her personal and professional life was without reproach. She lived a life of honesty, integrity and sincerity. No one could speak ill of her neither within the halls of BYU nor outside of the university. What a tribute to a principled life well-lived.
- Holbrook always exhibited tremendous drive and determination. This was evident in her early childhood as she fought to overcome her physical impairment as well as her cultural dilemma of moving from the U.S. to New Zealand and back. She never let the kids get her down.
- She was a product of good upbringing. And, may that be a lesson to us all that regardless of our personal and professional goals, family, as exhibited by Leona’s father, should always be paramount in our priorities.
- Holbrook always placed the importance of the individual above her own status. Everywhere she went, and everyone she met always expressed that when they walked away from her, they felt uplifted and important. This past fall I had the privilege of interviewing 92 year old Margaret Fox, the former chair of the Women’s Physical Education Department at the University of Iowa. Dr. Fox recalled that whenever Leona would return from the summer for an early AAHPER Executive Committee meeting, she would bring everyone a gift from whatever country she visited during the summer. “She was always so appreciative of us, of the volunteer jobs we would do for her throughout the year. And I feel that her sincerity was never politically motivated” (Fox, 2005). What a great example she is to us regarding the ‘living out’ of that part of her life’s philosophy.
- All great leaders possess the ability to challenge the system. Holbrook never took “no” for an answer. She just moved on to find a way to make it work. That is why so many of the women on the faculty at BYU loved her. She found ways to accomplish what women needed done during that historical period of time when women were seeking greater status in physical education and athletics. But she did it with a dignity and professionalism that should be modeled today.
- She taught and lived wholeness. Life was not just physical activity, but a journey of learning, loving, and emotional development. But what was most important to her was her faith and strong spiritual commitment which guided her every step of the way.
Allow me to say in closing, please, take a look around your own backyard, so to speak, and identify those at your schools, universities, your districts or your state, and capture their stories before it is too late. In fact, start with your family! As the grand lady of Utah has shown us today, there is much to be learned from history. Never let that opportunity go by. Capture it, record it and then share it. And, besides, it is always a pleasure listening to a story!
Thank you!
References
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Fox, M. (Personal Communication, November, 2005).
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17, (2), 51-52.
Holbrook, L. (1962). Sports, womanhood and you. The Foil, pp. 15-20.
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Hormberger, J., & Charmley, J. (1988). The troubled face of biography. New
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