Obituary: Yvonne Holgerson Dies

The following is an obituary submitted to Patch by Dee Funeral Home about Yvonne J. (Clyburn) Holgerson. If you are a funeral home and would like to submit an obituary, email samantha.mercado@patch.com.

Yvonne J. (Clyburn) Holgerson – beloved mother, grandmother, sister, and teacher who made a lasting impact on the lives of hundreds of students over 45 years – passed away late at night on March 7th, after a progressive illness took a turn for the worse. Yvonne was a true trailblazer of the modern era: in the 1960s, this young Black woman from a blue-collar family traveled all over Europe; married a Swedish-American man she met in Stockholm, and raised two biracial daughters; and returned to a stellar teaching career in the 70’s long before “working moms” were the norm. Yvonne was raised in Englewood, New Jersey, part of the post-Great Migration generation whose families had left the apartheid of the Jim Crow South to seek opportunity in the North. Her destiny was shaped early on by her father who, reading a teacher’s praise of his daughter’s intelligence, told Yvonne she was never to come home with a bad report card (she never did). A voracious reader, she developed a desire to travel and explore the world revealed in her books. After graduating from Jersey City State College (she later earned a Master’s in Education from Patterson State College), she taught for several years in New Jersey before realizing her childhood ambition by accepting a position teaching overseas. While teaching at the American Embassy School in Bonn, Germany, Yvonne traveled with friends every possible weekend to Switzerland, Paris, and Luxembourg. On vacations, they visited Scandinavia, Russia, and Finland. Tall and slender and Black and beautiful, Yvonne turned heads all over Europe, dated a German Baron, and worked as a runway model in several fashion shows. Two years later, she transferred to the American School in Paris (where she had an apartment by the Champs Elysees and drove her red Triumph convertible all over the city). On a visit to Stockholm, she met a handsome young Swede who turned out to be Swedish-American; they eventually returned to the States and married (the same year that the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Loving vs. Virginia struck down the last state laws prohibiting interracial marriage). They had two daughters, Helena (Lani) and Rachel, eventually settling in Sudbury, Massachusetts where the girls attended school. It wasn’t long before Yvonne heard the call of her own career and returned to teach at Mason Rice elementary school in Newton, remaining there 14 years. After taking a few years off, in which she helped to raise her first grandchild (Rachel’s son Jamie), she resumed teaching fourth grade at the Fiske School in Lexington, where she stayed 17 years until retirement. Colleagues fondly remember Yvonne as not just an inspiring, excellent teacher, but also a “Presence” (with a capital P) thanks to her dignified bearing and elegant appearance. With beautifully coordinated, tasteful clothes, jewelry, and handbags, she arrived everyday dressed with the care that most people expend only for special occasions. She also inspired the best in her students, whose enjoyment of and pride in their work was obvious to the whole school community. But the defining quality of Yvonne’s classroom was her ability to touch a child’s heart in a way that allowed his or her true qualities to take root and flower. Yvonne is survived and missed immeasurably by her two daughters, Helena Holgersson and Rachel Hitchcock, and their husbands (both helpfully named Jim), plus her eight beloved grandchildren: James (Jamie), John, Kieran, Matthew, and Aodhan Hitchcock; and Lailah, Lucero, and Danilo (Danny) Shorter. She is survived as well by younger sister Andrea Kim Burnett and niece Emily Burnett. Family and friends are invited to Yvonne's funeral service on Wednesday, March 17th at 1 pm in the Farrar Chapel of the Dee Funeral Home, 27 Bedford Street, Concord Center. Burial will follow at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord. Arrangements are under the care of Dee Funeral Home & Cremation Service of Concord. To share a remembrance or to offer a condolence in her online guestbook, please visit www.DeeFuneralHome.com.