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DONOR PROFILE
Karl Holzmuller and Sherry Chavers
"Seattle is in my head, but New Orleans is in my heart,” says Karl Holzmuller. He and his wife, Sherry Chavers, have lived most of their lives in the state of Washington. Karl grew up in Seattle; Sherry, who was born in Baton Rouge and spent her early years in Fort Worth, Texas, has lived in Anacortes, Washington, since she was about 10. In 1982 the couple made a day trip to New Orleans while visiting Sherry’s family in Baton Rouge. Their lives have never been the same. The city fed Karl’s lifelong love of music and the couple’s mutual interest in history and culture. Over time their trips to New Orleans became more frequent and longer in length. Karl distinctly remembers sitting in the courtyard of the Napoleon House drinking Pimm’s Cups on the morning they were supposed to return to Anacortes after one of their visits: “We looked at each other and both said, ‘We don’t want to go home, we want to stay here.’” Sherry muses, “Now I could never get Karl to go six months without a visit to New Orleans.”
Karl grew up loving to read, listening to music, and exploring history. After receiving a bachelor’s degree and doing graduate work in psychology at Western Washington University, he worked as a mental health counselor with children and families. It was in this capacity that he met Sherry, who was serving as the director of the Head Start program on the reservation of the Samish Indian Nation near Anacortes. The couple married and raised Sherry’s daughters, Sarah and Molly. Both Karl and Sherry became dedicated to education. After receiving his master’s in education, Karl served for 15 years as an elementary school counselor, a job from which he recently retired. Sherry, who also holds a master’s degree, has been an elementary school teacher for 30 years. A writer of short stories and poetry herself, Sherry says, “It is such a blessing to watch writers develop.”
While Sherry had explored New Orleans as a child, the 1982 visit was Karl’s first. Once he had discovered the city, he began to delve into its history. In about 2000 he read Barbara Hambly’s A Free Man of Color. It was his introduction to the fact that a population of free colored people existed in New Orleans prior to the Civil War, and Karl was fascinated. While perusing the book’s acknowledgments, he encountered a reference to Pamela Arceneaux, senior librarian/rare books curator at the Williams Research Center. Karl wrote to Pamela, expressing his interest in further information on the topic of free people of color. Their correspondence brought him to the research center on his next visit to New Orleans, and from that moment Karl has been awed by the resources of The Historic New Orleans Collection. He is now a regular at the research center, and Pamela has become “a treasured contact and friend.”
In addition to utilizing the research center, Karl and Sherry make it a point to see every exhibition that The Collection presents. “There is a discriminating eye and a good strong sense of what truly communicates historically the various cultures, antiquity, and bohemian
quality of New Orleans in The Collection’s exhibitions,” says Sherry. “It feels like there has been a lot of scholarly endeavor on the part of many people because there is such a selective eye.” Hurricane Katrina was a turning point in the couple’s relationship with The Collection. “Post-Katrina was the first time we saw The Collection in the context of community involvement in addition to scholarly pursuits,” says Karl. “Our view of The Collection was broadened from that of an institution that serves visiting researchers to one that reaches out to the community as well. It was at that point that we made the decision to begin supporting The Collection financially.” The institution’s stewardship of the financial support it receives makes the couple quite comfortable with their decision. “It’s really obvious from the work that The Historic New Orleans Collection does for the community that the money is respectfully and thoughtfully used,” says Sherry. “We know that it is going toward things that will enhance people’s understanding of New Orleans and the surrounding region.”
The Historic New Orleans Collection Quarterly 13