Marion E. Holley (later Hofman, May 17, 1910 – December 15, 1995) was a US track and field athlete who competed in the 1928 Summer Olympics as a high jumper and went on to many years of service in the Baháʼí Faith.

Raised in Visalia, California, Holley excelled academically and athletically at Stanford University, where she was a member of the debate club, a pianist, and a standout athlete. During her studies at Stanford, Holley competed at the 1928 Summer Olympics, placing 9th in the high jump category.

After graduating with honors, Holley experienced a spiritual transformation, formally embracing the Baháʼí Faith in 1932. She became a pioneering leader in Baháʼí youth work across the United States, contributing to major Baháʼí publications and helping develop programs at Baháʼí schools.

In 1945, she married David Hofman and moved to the UK, where she served in national Baháʼí institutions and managed the George Ronald publishing company. Later, she supported her husband’s work with the Universal House of Justice in Haifa. Holley remained active in Baháʼí service and education until her death in London in 1995.

Early days

Born May 17, 1910, Marion Elizabeth Holley Hofman was the first child of Grace Bruckman and Harry Holley living in Visalia, California. Bruckman was a Leland Stanford Junior University graduate and while there was a social organizer and a violinist.*

In 1905, Bruckman was employed as an assistant in the Physics Department. Harry was a successful waterworks civil engineer active in Tulare County from circa 1900 through 1963.He was involved, with older brother Carl, in the Mt. Whitney Power Company around 1900: . He was water master of the Kaweah River from 1918 to 1963.*

Harry and Grace married on July 2, 1906 and lived in Visalia, CA Harry was employed from 1917 by the Kaweah and St. John's River associations during some court battles over river management. There is very little about the family or Marion before her college years.

Mother Grace and daughter learned of the Baháʼí Faith from about 1917 from Disciple of ʻAbdu'l-Bahá Isabella D. Brittingham. Brittingham was in Portland Oregon in 1917, had been there before,* and had a residence in Santa Barbara in 1918. Grace was secretary of the Visalia Baháʼí Spiritual Assembly in 1925, the year of its first election.

Youth Holley had experiences in college such that she lost her faith in God and encountered some kind of crisis, as commented on by Baháʼí sources. The details are not clear, but after her college career, she wrote of the challenges that youth face. Certainly, she was popular and her academic success was not just in sports, though the public commentary about her college career was remarkable because of her sports achievements. She followed her mother, attending Stanford University.

Stanford 1926–27 freshman year Holley attended her mother's alma mater, Leland Stanford Junior University, starting in the fall of 1926, when she was 16 years old.

She was noted in the school newspaper as active in the Stanford women's debate team. Her team's position, already in the lead among the audience before the debate, increased its lead after. She studied social sciences at Stanford but it was not commented on by the public coverage of her career.

Though there is a lack of coverage on her sports activities up to this point, in the spring freshman semester at Stanford Holley was a named member of the women's all-star basketball team. This is the first sign of her athletic career that could characterize most of her college career as documented in the newspapers. That year she was also accepted by the Delta Delta Delta sorority. She was also in the Women's Glee Club concert broadcast on KFRC as part of an instrumental trio playing the piano to Drigo's "Serenade". In May Holley broke records in the running broad jump as it was called then called, and high jump.

1927–28 sophomore year With the announcement of women's participation in the 1928 Olympics,* It was also the first Olympics where women wore shorts in any event. See coverage of women sports activities at Stanford increased, and Holley was one of those whose achievements were taken more and more note of. At 17 at her first meet of the sophomore year she won the 50-yard dash, high jump and team relay race for the Northern California Athletic Club. Soon after, she tied in the high jump, set a campus record in the hop step and jump, and in an event in October came behind another in the high jump because she set a new world record. Holley was also the sophomore field hockey captain.

In February Holley was named to a committee that managed a three-college meet that year held at Stanford. For the event Holley was a sports official for the basketball events. It was also announced she would train for the Olympics. Richard Templeton was her coach. She also played as the forward of the sophomore women's basketball team, and was the basketball manager for the teams. She was noted representing Stanford in a track meet in March, and in April was recognized as one of five women to try-out to join the Stanford Daily student newspaper. Holley also attended exhibition fundraising for the Olympics. In May Holley set a new record for throwing a basketball on campus and then went on to a weekend meet.

Holley was nominated for the Women's Athletics Association (WAA) Board vice-presidency in the spring semester and won.

Holley set a new Stanford high-jump record that summer, and made the 1928-9 all-star track team for Stanford but was not a point leader in overall sports achievement. That summer Holley was also elected to the campus "Women's 'S' Society".

Holley took third place in the regional trials for the Olympics in the high jump though she had improved her height 2" at the meet. The list of contenders for the final Olympic trials was trimmed among fundraising limits to 20 in June and the Pacific teams headed to Newark, NJ for the American finals. She tied for second place in the high jump there, passing the trials, to join the American Olympic team in July.*

Ultimately she placed 9th in the high jump at the Olympics held in Amsterdam, Holland. She was photographed with Doris Metcalf, and Rose Mallor. See also Women at the Olympics. She returned aboard the S S President Roosevelt, Aug 22, 1928.institutional link; individual link, New York, Passenger Lists, 1820-1957 for Marion Holley, 1928; Ancestry.com. 2010.

1928–29 junior year At the junior year at Stanford in November, Holley was the field hockey junior team center forward. She also joined the 3rd annual student session of the Institute of Pacific Relations among the 25 delegates. The group discussed racism towards far-eastern Orientals. Despite not being active in the college club of Baháʼís or their meetings, Holley was listed in the Bahaʼi World directory of contacts.

In January Holley was elected captain of the juniors basketball team, one of four block 'S' lettered women, and was on the All-Star basketball team, as well as the Junior Class team. Holley was elected president of WAA and was a delegate to the nation conference of the organization. While there she presented a paper on how the Olympics connect with women's athletics in college, and co-led a discussion as part of the Sixth Annual Athletic Conference of American College Women (ACACW) when it had opposed women further participating in the Olympics with a result of the ACACW changing the position. Holley was again on the tri-college meet committee a week later. In the meet of juniors and freshmen Holly won the 50 and 100 yard dash, the high jump, and the running broad jump, (out of 11 events total.) Holley was then named to the New Gymnasium Committee, (later named "Roble Gymnasium Building".) The plans for the new gymnasium for women had been submitted for approval and the 1929-30 committee would advance the work for a new women's gym. In the May, inter-class meet Holley was the overall high-point winner while breaking the campus record in the broad jump she had set herself, winning three first places on her own and being on the winning team of the relay. She won the 100 yard dash, 100 yard low hurdles, and running broad jump. Though the seniors won the overall standing the news lead that Holley broke three campus records in the final inter-class meet of the year, in running broad jump, basketball throw, and 100 yard dash. She was the individual point champion making the highest points possible. Over the same period Holley also addressed a discussion of the women's gymnasium in the campus newspaper co-writing a letter-to-the-editor defending the progress made in getting a new gym for women. She continued to serve advocating for the new gym into May. And as president of the WAA, Holley and her appointed team of people updated the WAA handbook following the revision of the election procedures for the organization, (so now the looser for president automatically becomes vice-president.)

The Holleys had a guest in the summer of 1929 - Holley's roommate Joyce Lyon (later Dahl) was invited to Visalia and their high Sierra cabin, after both Lyon and the Holleys went to the 3rd Geyserville Baháʼí School, a precursor of Bosch Baháʼí School, and the family exchanged Christmas gifts for the end of 1929 (or 1930.)

Though Baháʼís were visible in the campus newspaper, and the club existed across several of her years there,*

she never appeared associated with the Baháʼís on campus. She was listed in the Bahaʼi World directory as attending Stanford for 1928-9.

Senior year Things changed significantly in her senior year of 1929-1930. In the fall of 1929, Holley arranged to do a year of advanced work at the University of California at Berkeley in anthropology with Professor Edward Winslow Gifford. She was not mentioned in any 1930 sports coverage or thereafter, save for contributing to a report recommending the Olympic games for women; the committee suggested that better health conditions and opportunities for meeting socially with other athletes be allowed. She was back at Stanford in the fall of 1930. She was admitted to the Phi Beta Kappa honor society in November 1930, and finished as part of the Stanford class of 1930. Sources say she finished her Stanford degree summa or magna cum laude.

After college Crisis Though home from college, and elected to the Spiritual Assembly of Visalia, she felt agnostic and alienation from the Baháʼí Faith. During this time her family was visited by leading Baháʼí women Martha Root and Keith Ransom-Kehler. Root was in the San Francisco area in the fall/winter of 1930-1 before going to the Geyserville Baháʼí School in January 1931,* and then in Feb a guest of the Bosches - She was brought down from the San Francisco area by Ella Cooper - while Ransom-Kehler left for a world-wide trip from San Francisco in the early winter of 1931-2. Though Ransom-Kehler did not specifically discuss the religion with her, Ransom-Kehler gave many talks per week, and Holley gained an intellectual appreciation for the religion and re-declared to the Pasadena Baháʼí Spiritual Assembly in early 1932. In another year, Holley would begin writing in part about the difficulties youth faced.

Activity

In June 1932 it was announced Holley was a committee member for producing the Baháʼí World volume 5. To it she contributed the article "A new cycle of human power", saying, "…whether the evidence is small or great, local or universal, it indicates an attitude which has pervaded our society - an attitude minimizing the possibilities of the spiritual, or, if you prefer, disregarding those non-material values which contribute so profoundly to character". She ends by underscoring the "challenge which demands investigation… For what right does any man walk abroad, and call himself a citizen of the world, if be not cognizant of its condition and enamored of its promise?"