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The Last One Left: A memoir by Barbara Holman
by Barbara HolmanPublish: Sep 08, 2026Book Overview
In The Last One Left, artist Barbara A. Holman looks back across sixty-one years of an extraordinary life shaped by family, survival, faith, love, trauma, art, and experiences she has spent decades trying to understand.Born during a Minnesota snowstorm with the umbilical cord wrapped twice around her neck, Barbara came into the world fighting. What followed was a life filled with moments that seemed to exist somewhere between the ordinary and the unexplained: an angel filling the night sky when she was eight, Gregorian voices heard on a city bus, a mysterious force that freed her from a deadly electrical current, a devastating automobile accident in Hawaii, and spiritual encounters that strengthened a faith she says never left her.
At the center of the memoir is a secret Barbara carried for forty-five years—the story of a shy sixteen-year-old girl who became involved with a famous, much older musician and remained emotionally connected to him, on and off, for decades. With the perspective of the woman she is today, Barbara finally examines what happened to that girl, what it cost her, and what it took to come through the other side.
But The Last One Left is about far more than one man.
It is the story of Lowell and Rosalie, the parents who formed the foundation beneath her. It is the story of generations of Holmans, Kvetenskys, and Stodolkas whose family lines now converge in one woman. It is the story of Hawaii, near-death experiences, friendship, loss, creativity, prayer, and the Wakanpi spirit figures that eventually began appearing beneath Barbara's own hands as an artist.
Above all, it is a story about truth—and about finally refusing to let that truth disappear.
Barbara is the last one left in three branches of her family.
The bloodline may end with her. The stories will not.
