Hollister, Martin Alva (1875–1960)

Martin A. Hollister served as president of several conferences in the United States, president of the East Caribbean Union Conference, and as an associate secretary in the Medical Department of the General Conference.

Heritage and Education

Martin Hollister was born on December 20, 1875, at Goleta, California.¹ His parents were farmer-turned-preacher George Emmons Hollister and wife Louisa Jane (Martin). There were eight children in their family: Elsie Irabell (b. 1874), Martin Alva (b. 1875), Anna Laura (b. 1877), Mamie (b. 1878), Maurice (b. 1879), Arthur Ai (b. 1888) and Lorena Ellen (b. 1895).² Martin was a third-generation Seventh-day Adventist, his grandmother, Mary Hollister, being a convert in California about 1874.³

Martin’s elementary education was completed at public schools in Goleta and Jolon. He advanced to Santa Rosa High School and Healdsburg College. During his college days he was baptized by Elder William Healey. He worked at various occupations including shoemaking, horticulture and managing a fruit cannery. In 1898 he graduated from the St. Helena Sanitarium School of Nursing.⁴

Ministry in the Western U. S.

Hollister worked as a nurse until 1905. He was one of the first male nurses to be employed at the Glendale Sanitarium near Los Angeles.⁵ During this period, in 1902, he married Helen Adelia McIntire. Their only child, Bernice Audrey, was born in 1903.⁶

In 1906 Martin transferred from nursing into the management of the Vegetarian Cafeteria in San Diego. After six years in this role, he joined the ministerial team of the Southern California Conference in March 1912. He was only there until the end of the year and was then appointed to the Arizona Conference where he engaged in evangelism and served as conference Sabbath School secretary. He was ordained at the Phoenix camp meeting, November 22, 1913.⁷ Hollister became involved with the Dry Federation, a coalition of organizations advocating the temperance cause. He represented the Seventh-day Adventist church as a member of the federation’s state executive committee both in Arizona and California.⁸

In mid-July 1914 Hollister became Young People’s and Missionary Volunteer secretary in the California Conference. Then, in May 1915, he was appointed as Home Missions secretary of the newly-formed Northwestern California Conference, a short-lived administrative unit (1915-1918) with central offices at Santa Rosa. He had scarcely time to settle when the Inter-Mountain Conference was organized and he was called there in early 1916. The territory included Utah, western Colorado and a portion of New Mexico. He was conference Religious Liberty secretary and a member of the executive committee. Once again, his stay was brief for in August 1917 he was recalled to his role as Home Missions secretary with the Northwestern California Conference. He also nurtured the Healdsburg church community, the one which he himself entered when he became a baptized member of the church.⁹

Conference Administration in the U.S. and the Caribbean

Frequent role changes and moves from place to place caused Hollister to refer to himself as a “grasshopper.”¹⁰ These circumstances persisted. In October 1918 he was appointed superintendent of the Nevada Mission and when it was organized as the Nevada Conference in 1920 he was elected its president. December 1920 brought yet another move, being elected president of the Tennessee River Conference with offices in Nashville. He held this position until March 1924.¹¹ One of the primary roles that fell to Hollister and other conference presidents during these years was to encourage members to support the church’s rapidly expanding world missions program. A 35% reduction in the world mission budget initially recommended at the 1923 Annual Council was pulled back on the premise that church members would give even more sacrificially, Hollister reported to the Tennessee River constituency.¹²

In March 1924, Hollister was elected president of the Kansas Conference. His role included the chairmanship of Enterprise Academy and the Kansas Sanitarium in Wichita, and membership on the boards of Union College in Nebraska, Boulder Sanitarium in Colorado, and Clinton Seminary in Missouri.¹³

At the General Conference session in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, June 1926, Hollister was appointed president of the East Caribbean Union Conference despite the fact he had no experience in the foreign mission field.¹⁴ The union, headquartered in Port of Spain, Trinidad, comprised three conferences: Guiana, Leeward Islands, and South Caribbean. The Mt. Roarima Indian Mission was located among the indigenous population near the convergence of the borders of Venezuela, British Guiana, and Brazil. There were 68 churches scattered throughout the widely flung area with a total membership of 2,954.¹⁵ Hollister remained a little more than two years before he was forced to return to America, suffering from anemia.¹⁶

Back in America he once again was given short-term assignments. He was chaplain at Hinsdale Sanitarium near Chicago, November 1928 through November 1929. He then returned to California for pastoral work, first in Fresno for seven months and then in Glendale for nearly a year.

In April 1931 he was elected president of the Indiana Conference, serving there until January 1934, when he transferred to the Illinois Conference as president for a little more than two years.¹⁷ Up to that point in time in his ministerial career, Hollister had served at 15 different locations in approximately 24 years.

Final Assignment and Retirement

In 1936 Hollister was appointed to be one of two associate secretaries in the Medical Department at General Conference headquarters.¹⁸ His early training as a nurse brought some acquaintance with the cause of healthful living that he was expected to advocate, though he did not himself enjoy robust health.¹⁹ He remained in this position until his retirement in 1942.²⁰

Martin and Helen Hollister returned to California for their retirement and after several moves they settled in the La Sierra area. Martin passed away on July 8, 1960, at Loma Linda.²¹ Helen passed away in Burlington, Iowa, on January 30, 1962, and was laid to rest in Burlington Memorial Park.²²

Sources

Bond, J. Ernest. “Arizona Conference Interests.” Pacific Union Recorder, June 18, 1914.

“Helen Adelia (McIntyre) Hollister.” Find A Grave. Memorial ID 118653204, October 14, 2013. Accessed December 8, 2022. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/118653204/helen-adelia-hollister.

Hollister, M. A. Secretariat Appointee Files, RG 21, General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists Archives, Silver Spring, MD (GCA).

Hollister, Martin A. “A Good Report.” Southern Union Worker, November 1, 1923.

Hollister, Martin A. “Light From Heaven on Healthful Living.” Inter-American Division Messenger, April 15, 1938.

Hollister, Martin Alva. Secretariat Missionary Files, RG 21, General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, Silver Spring, MD (GCA).

“Martin Alva Hollister.” FamilySearch. Accessed December 6, 2022, https://www.familysearch.org/tree/pedigree/landscape/2WN4-4GL.

“Martin Alva Hollister obituary.” ARH, August 25, 1960.

“Mary A. Hollister obituary.” ARH, February 3, 1910.

Seventh-day Adventist Yearbooks. General Conference of Seventh-day Adventist Online Archives. https://documents.adventistarchives.org/Yearbooks/Forms/Allitems.aspx.

Notes

1. “Martin Alva Hollister obituary,” ARH, August 25, 1960, 26.↩

2. “Martin Alva Hollister,” FamilySearch, accessed December 6, 2022, https://www.familysearch.org/tree/pedigree/landscape/2WN4-4GL; G. A. Stevens, “George Emmons Hollister obituary,” ARH, July 31, 1930, 28.↩

3. George E. Hollister, “Mary A. Hollister obituary,” ARH, February 3, 1910, 23.↩

4. Martin Alva Hollister Biographical Information Blank, May 23, 1934. Secretariat Files, RG 21, Record 114921, GCA.↩

5. Ibid.↩

6. “Martin Alva Hollister,” FamilySearch.↩

7. Hollister Biographical Information Blank, May 23, 1934, GCA; Ernest Bond, “Arizona Conference Interests,” Pacific Union Recorder, June 18, 1914, 3.↩

8. Hollister Biographical Information Blank, May 23, 1934, GCA.↩

9. Ibid.↩

10. Martin Hollister to Benjamin Beddoe, July 7, 1926, Secretariat Appointee Files, GC 21, Box 9862, File M.A. Hollister, GCA.↩

11. Hollister Biographical Information Blank, May 23, 1934, GCA.↩

12. Martin A. Hollister, “A Good Report,” Southern Union Worker, November 1, 1923, 3.↩

13. Hollister Biographical Information Blank, May 23, 1934, GCA.↩

14. Ibid.↩

15. Seventh-say Adventist Yearbook for 1927, 229,230.↩

16. Hollister Biographical Information Blank, May 23, 1934, GCA.↩

17. Ibid.↩

18. Seventh-day Adventist Yearbook for 1937, 15.↩

19. See for example, Martin A. Hollister, “Light From Heaven on Healthful Living,” Inter-American Division Messenger, April 15, 1938, 2.↩

20. Seventh-day Adventist Yearbook for 1942, 11.↩

21. “Martin Alva Hollister obituary.”↩

22. “Helen Adelia (McIntire) Hollister,” Find A Grave, Memorial ID 118653204, October 14, 2013, accessed December 8, 2022, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/118653204/helen-adelia-hollister.↩