Alliance Times Herald - 3/28/1950, Grant County Tribune - 3/30/1950, Lincoln Journal Star - 3/23/1950

Many men and women in the Hyannis community were saddened by the death of Mrs. Jennie Shelden Holden, 89, of 4720 Randolph, Lincoln, who had lived in Tabitha Home almost three years. Mrs. Holden was a teacher in the Hyannis community for many years. She numbered among her pupils a large portion of the present adult population of Hyannis and the surrounding ranch area. Music at her service included "The Old Rugged Cross" and "Going Home." Pall bearers were all former pupils of Mrs. Holden – John and Ed Becker of Ashby; Kurt and Rolf Brenneman, Bill Curtis and Bill Perrett of Hyannis. Survivors include two daughters, Mrs. Marion Rieter of Indianola, Neb. and Mrs. Besse Leamer of South Sioux City, Neb., and four grandchildren, Harry Ashley of Hay Springs, Neb.; Donald Ashley of Indianola, Neb.; Norris Leamer of South Sioux City, Neb.; and Evelyn McDermott of Wayne, Neb.

Additional Information

Who would have thought that a little girl born on the prairies of Iowa just before the Civil War would have a chance to live in the tropical paradise of Hawaii? Nancy Jane "Jennie" Ellis was born in Delhi, Iowa, on Aug. 15, 1860, the daughter of Levi and Elizabeth (Hazeltine) Ellis. She told her grandson that she remembered seeing her father come marching home from the Civil War. She attended the Delhi Public Schools through the eighth grade in 1877, age 16. The following April she was hired to teach in a one-room school in Nugent's Grove near Coggon, Iowa. There she met Albert E. Shelden, a prosperous farmer, and they were married at her mother's home on March 17, 1881. 

In 1900 Albert and Jennie, Harry (16), Besse (13), and Marion (3) moved to a cattle ranch in Cherry County in the Sandhills of western Nebraska. They also took Jennie's mother, Elizabeth Clair, recently widowed following the death of her second husband. They spent the first year in a sodhouse on the property while their new frame home was being built. In 1902 Jennie took over teaching at Farrell School on the Farrell Ranch, a one-room school not far from her home. In 1906 she became a teacher at the Primary School in nearby Hyannis. Part of her duties included putting on a musical with the students at the Hyannis Opera House in 1909. Jennie was active in the Order of Eastern Star – Golden Rule #134 and served as Worthy Matron in 1919 and Grand Martha at the State Grand Chapter in 1914 as well as the Lady Maccabees and King's Daughters through the Congregational Church.

With Hyannis located on the Burlington railroad, it was easy for the Sheldens to make several trips back to Iowa each year and to welcome relatives and neighbors to their home. Their son Harry died in 1904 so Albert sold the ranch and the family moved into Hyannis. In November 1914 they moved into a "modern and commodious residence" on Education Hill with 25 steps up to the front door from the street. Both Besse and Marion had weddings in the home with 100 and 150 guests respectively. Albert died following a short illness in 1924. His brother's widow, Jessie Sheldon, and their daughter, Sybil, took Jennie to Lahaina in Maui, Hawaii, where Sybil had a teaching job for the year. Jennie wrote articles on Hawaii for The Grant County Tribune which were published in each issue for a year starting in November. Jennie returned to Hyannis in 1925 and continued being active in the community.

While visiting friends in Iowa, she ran into a former colleague, Judson Holden, and they were married January 4, 1930. Following a honeymoon trip to the south, the couple lived in Delhi where Jennie was elected President of the Delhi Woman's Club and of the Delhi High School Alumni Association. The couple participated in the Silver Lake Garden Club and traveled back to Nebraska to visit friends and relatives, moving back to Hyannis from January 1935 to April 1936. At that point they moved to the Beal farm near Delhi, Iowa, owned by relatives of Jud through his first wife Emma Beal.

On November 23, 1941, the couple was in a bad car crash. Jennie was thrown through the windshield and received bad cuts on my head. By 1943 Jud would end up living with his son in Des Moines where he died in 1944. Jennie went to live with her daughter Marion in Lincoln before they moved back to Hyannis. Her health necessitated a move to Tabitha Home in Lincoln where she died on March 23, 1950, just five months shy of her 90th birthday.