Peter Nelson Holly, beloved husband, father and grandfather, went to glory on July 6, 2026, in Kennewick, Washington. He had liver cancer and congestive heart failure.

He was born in Torrance, California on February 17, in the year of our Lord 1951, the middle child of five boys to Wilson C. Holly and Ruth K. Peterson.

Growing up in the suburbs of Los Angeles near the beaches of Southern California, he loved to surf as a teenager and belonged to an amateur surf club called T. D. S. C. (Torrance District Surf Club). He spent hours and hours surfing every chance he could. He loved all sports, but surfing was his favorite!

He graduated from Narbonne H.S. in Harbor City, California class of 1969. This was during the Vietnam war, and his draft number was coming up so in March 1970 he enlisted in the US Army. He was trained as a radio operator and was sent to Pirmasens, West Germany, a small town near the French border. It was a small Army Post with about only 30 personnel. They became a family and Peter made some good buddies and a few German friends that he kept in contact with for the first few years after he completed his three-year tour. While there he traveled extensively by train all over Western Europe and the UK. Even getting a military hop and visiting Greece, where he stayed a week touring the island.

Upon his return stateside, he enrolled in Crafton Hills College, in Yucaipa, California, where he got his Associate of Arts degree in 1975. He then enrolled in Cal State University of San Bernardino going part-time until he graduated with his Bachelor of Arts degree in Child Development in 1979.

While he was attending Cal State, he lived with his grandfather in Mentone to help him out as he was in his mid-nineties. It was a short commute, and Peter loved to hear all his grandfather's stories of when he was a buckboard minister driving his horse and buggy all over the prairies of the Midwest planting churches. His grandfather's name was Rev. John Martin Peterson born in Plum City, Wisconsin, a small Swedish community, on October 22, 1882. He went to seminary in Chicago Illinois. He lived to be 101 years old.

In 1978, in Peter's second to last year of college he met and married Donna L. Beauvais from Burlington, Vermont. Grandpa Peterson at the age of 96 along with his son Dr. James A. Peterson, also a minister, performed their marriage ceremony in Calimesa, California on November 4, 1978. Peter believed it was very important for a mother to stay at home with her children in their formative years, so Donna was a stay at home mom for the first 10 years of their marriage.

In 1980 Peter re-enlisted in the U. S. Army and was accepted into the Officer Candidate School at Fort Benning, Georgia. However, he broke his ankle in the first two weeks and had to drop out. He could have returned to the program after it healed, but decided to stay in the Non-Commissioned Officer ranks. Having always loved airplanes, he then decided to train as an aircraft mechanic and completed that school at Fort Eustis, Virginia. He was assigned to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, where he worked on the Golden Knights Parachute Team, keeping those planes operating in tiptop condition. He loved to go flying with them.

In 1982 he was assigned to Stuttgart, West Germany with the 73rd Combat Intelligence Company, 2nd MI Bn. Peter was the Crew Chief overseeing about 30 young men. He spent very long hours working on OV-ID Mohawks. It was a tumultuous time for Americans in Germany at that time and, unfortunately, several military and civilians lost their lives from explosives planted at favorite public gathering places in Munich and other locations around the country. The Berlin wall had yet to come down. It was common to shop on base and be evacuated out of the building because of a bomb threat. Even so, he and Donna made some lifetime friends who they stayed in touch with over the years.

Peter's last duty station was Ft. Huachuca, Arizona. There he worked with Steve Remily, a good buddy who he had also worked with in Germany. They were assigned to 1st MI Bn, 111th MI Brigade. Peter loved the desert surrounded by the Huachuca Mountains and used to drive for miles around on his motorcycle sometimes taking Donna or the kids for rides. In 1988 he decided to leave the military after 11 years of active service and go into a field closer to his heart. All his life God had given him a great compassion for other people, especially those who were hurting emotionally. So, he decided to go into the mental health field.

After leaving the army, he worked as a Psychiatric Technician in a private mental hospital called Ramsey Canyon Psychiatric Hospital outside of Sierra Vista, Arizona. Sierra Vista is the town that grew up around Fort Huachuca. The hospital eventually closed and no longer exists today.

Next, both Peter and Donna had family in the Pacific Northwest who wanted them to move closer. So, in 1991 they moved to Wenatchee Washington. Peter first worked in Nespelem on the Colville Indian Reservation as a caseworker with troubled youth. It was a 180 mile round trip commute so he stayed on the Reservation during the week and came home on weekends. After about nine months, a case management position opened up at Chelan/Douglas Mental Health in Wenatchee, where he continued to work until 1995.

That same year, they pulled up stakes and moved to Clearwater, Florida. Peter worked as a case manager for the County Mental Health in St. Petersburg, Florida. After nine months, they had had enough of Florida and moved back to the Pacific Northwest, settling in McMinnville, Oregon near his older brother Nevin in 1996. It was a neat college town. He worked in a group home for troubled young men. Peter had a tender heart and loved people and they loved him back, especially children. He was a great listener and generous with his time with endless patience.

In 1998 Peter started working for Grant Mental Healthcare in Moses Lake, Washington. He worked in case management and other positions there until 2002 when he decided he wanted to do Individual Therapy. He enrolled in a three-year post grad program online with City University of Bellevue, Washington. He graduated in December 2004 with a Master of Arts degree in Counseling Psychology and became a Licensed Mental Health Counselor with the State of Washington. He continued to work for GMH until December 2008. He had specialties in Spanish, Native American, and Families, but counseling one-on-one with the Chronically Mentally Ill population was his passion. He retired in July 2019 from Willapa Behavioral Health in Long Beach, WA.

Besides surfing being a passion of Peter's, he also loved music and taught himself to play the guitar when he was 14. He learned by ear, but could read chords and was a good guitar picker. Donna loved it. In fact, she says she may have fallen in love with his guitar playing before falling in love with him.

He and his brothers were crazy about Bob Dylan at the time and Peter practiced endless hours so they all could sing together with his guitar. Peter was a very talented singer and guitarist, but was too shy to perform in public; but not in front of Family. He joyfully entertained his family and had a repertoire of a wide range of genres which included Rock 'n' Roll, Blues, Country, Folk Ballads, Christmas Carols, Hymns, and Children Songs. His oldest grandson, Zachariah, also learned to play the guitar and he and Peter would jam together for hours on the acoustic and electric guitar. We can only wonder if he's going to play for Jesus in heaven.

Peter accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior when he was eight years old at a Baptist summer camp in Big Bear Lake, California. In later years, he got closer to the Lord and from the moment he was given the diagnosis of liver cancer and only six months to live, he told everyone he encountered that he was going to heaven because he knew Jesus. Romans, 10:13 says, for "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."

Peter was well liked wherever he went or worked. He loved life and woke up every day with a smile, no matter what the circumstances were. He had a great sense of humor and was the sunshine of his home. He was always cheerful and brought laughter to his home. He will be sorely missed.

Peter was pre-deceased by his parents and younger brother Theodore Holly in 2003. He leaves behind his wife, Donna of 48 years in Kennewick, WA. Son Benjamin T. Holly of Tacoma, WA; daughter Meghann R. Anderson of Brownsville, TN; daughter Casey S. Holly of Prescott, AZ; daughter Jesse Ann Greenslade of Manchester, TN; oldest brother Marty Holly of Napa, ID and older brother Nevin Holly of Vancouver, WA. 16 grandchildren: Zachariah Herrera and Sydney Herrera; Sebastian, Tristan and Siobhánn Anderson; Isaiah, Cathy, Leeann and Arabella Greenslade; Ruth Holly, Nyadew, Maar, Chudier, Nyahoak, and Ran Rambang; and Deng Nhail. Also, several cousins he zoomed with twice a month for the last two years: Becky McDaniel of CA; Donna Peterson, Ingrid Peterson, both of NV; Dr. Roy Peterson, Charles Peterson, both of CA and Mary Talisman of NB.