Patricia Lee Holley

Patricia Lee Holley was born in White Plains, NY on May 24, 1956 to Dorothy Christopher and William J. Roach with 2 other siblings, Sharon and Phil. She always preferred to be called Trish and as a child she had a passion for horses and as a teenager, she still had that same passionate love for horses so she got a job at a local stable, where she learned to ride and train horses. As a young woman, she played the bass fiddle and a guitar with a group of friends in their own band and traveled around the East Coast. She enjoyed the traveling to new places, singing and of course playing her bass fiddle or guitar. She fell in love with a Navy man, Gary Walker, who happened to be her brother’s best friend, got married and traveled to Spain with her new husband and 2 identical twin step-sons that she loved and helped raise as her own, Rick and Mike Walker, where she gave birth to Raymond Walker on December 3, 1978 and Christina (Tina) Marie Walker on June 27, 1980.

In 1984, she divorced and moved back to the US with Raymond and Tina. She got a job with IPTM in 1985 and bought a house on Lippizan Drive shortly after. In 1991 she met her soulmate, Joseph C. Holley (Chris). Chris was a Shriner at the time and Trish participated as a Sheba which is basically a female Shriner. Some of the pictures you’ll see are from the Shriners’ Balls.

Some of the things they enjoyed at that time were camping with the kids and summer family vacations to Silver Glen Springs and Salt Run by boat and usually stay at Anglers’ Paradise, which is like a hotel on the water. They did Silver Glen at least once a year and Jenny Springs at least twice a year for many years.

(Chris)Then we got into shooting and teaching the kids the do’s and don’ts of gun safety. On our first trip we didn’t really know where we could go, so we hopped in the car and wound up in Osceola Forest. I knew there was allot of land out there and we came across an empty cow field. We got out there and started shooting whatever we could find off the side of the road, (mostly cans), we got bored with shooting so I picked up a cow patty and threw it and I think I hit Raymond in the back with it, of course he didn’t know what it was, (laughs). My son Dustin was there, so he picked one up and slung it, neither one of them knew if it was ok to hit me with the cow poop, but when a smile and a grin appeared on my face, the Game Was ON!! Before we knew it there were cow patties flying all over the place and in the car, Tina would come out from behind the car and throw one and then hide back behind the car again and Trish was trying to roll up the windows as fast as she could, trying to get out of the way. But that day was a blast, nothing but smiles on everyone’s faces. It was shortly after that that Trish started saying, “And the adventure continues…”

As the kids got older, Trish and Chris were able to go out and enjoy vacations on cruise ships to places like the Bahamas. They got into shooting bigger guns at long range, they both loved to shoot at a place in Osceola Forest that was a 200 yard rifle range, (Chris) we had some friends go with us several times. The grandkids were still too young to go, but we do have some pictures of our oldest grandson, William out there with his .22 Ruger. We would shoot those and it got awful expensive so we got into reloading. I got Trish to do the weighing out of the powder because that was the most difficult part, so then all I really had to do was press the bullets, I knew more about that anyway. We did that for years. While out on the range, you’d have to watch her because she’d sneak in there and out shoot you! It wasn’t unusual for her to have the winning score at the end of the day. We were shooting pistols, as you’ll see on display her favorite concealment carry gun. As time moved on we decided that Osceola was too far to travel so we started getting into sporting clays. Which is basically you walking down a trail in the woods and up to a station, hit a button and clays come flying out of the woods. And again, you’d have to watch out for her out shooting you. For about 8 years we belonged to a club called WW Sporting Clays. During that 8 year period she probably put away 15,000 clays with the Berretta here on display, that was a big deal. And we started bringing some of the grandkids out shooting with us every other weekend, it was a grand time until they closed down. But through that we got into hunting deer, turkey and quail. You’ll see pictures of the quail in the slideshow as well. We brought down 54 quail that day, which was very exciting.

With the gun range shut down, we were sitting around with nothing to do, so we decided to go to Home Depot. We’re walking around, she wanted some flowers for the yard and I saw a grapevine, I said, you know what would be some fun? If we grew some Muscadine grapes and made our own wine, she thought it was a great idea. That was 2015 or 2016, it took a couple years for the grapevines to mature and we bought 3 more grapevines. So we started making wine and getting more and more each year, but the only problem we were having was the raccoons were eating hundreds of grapes, of course the grapevines would have thousands of grapes on them, but they’d get up there and eat hundreds of grapes a night. So we started trapping them and releasing them in a forest outside the neighborhood. We always keep a trailcam outside and even still today, I sometimes see a raccoon every once in awhile. That’s why we changed our lines from Holleys’ Vineyard Wine to Coon Harvest, which you’ll see in the slideshow as well. And that’s when the adventures started winding down.

She worked for IPTM for 35 long, happy years and retired in August of 2020.

Beloved Wife, Lover, Best Friend and SoulMate Forever.

A memorial service for Patricia will be held Friday, January 7, 2022 at 11:00 AM at Hardage-Giddens Funeral Home, 11801 San Jose Blvd, Jacksonville, FL 32223.

Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.hgmandarin.com for the Holley family.