MEET BARB KOLICH
Finding Patience Historian
“Sometimes you don’t choose a town; the town chooses you.” This statement could not be more true. In August of 1993, we were getting ready to relocate from a small farming community in Western New York to the Triangle. I poured over all the maps, pamphlets and new home guides that our real estate agent had sent us. He was encouraging us to look at the north Raleigh area as it was closest to where my husband would be working. I remember sitting at my kitchen table in my 1890s farmhouse and seeing this tiny dot on the map "Holly Springs" I said aloud...let's live there! My husband looked over my shoulder and pointed on the map the distance from Holly Springs to where he would be working. Sigh. too far. After being shown house after house in the Crabtree area and hating the congestion and craziness....my husband brought me out to Holly Springs. Our first sights were laundry on clotheslines and old homes with big front porches. I was in love. We bought a house that day...and well, I guess Holly Springs choose me and I am so glad she did. I have loved Holly Springs before I even set foot in town. I have enjoyed sharing the wonderful history of our town. I look forward to the next Finding Patience production and know you will too.”
Barb served as the Holly Springs Town Historian for around 20 years, connecting the dots between the past and the present. She has spent countless hours tracing family trees for residents, pouring over historical documents and collecting stories. Barb’s research has been essential to sharing and preserving Holly Springs history. Without her decades of research, Finding Patience would not have been possible.
In 2008, Barb wrote the book, Holly Springs (Images of America: North Carolina), which has served as an excellent resource for anyone interested in Holly Springs history.
Check out the book on Amazon!
Holly Springs (Images of America: North Carolina)