It is with great sadness that the Class of 1976 officers report the death of Holly Lee Wiseman April 17, 2020, suddenly at home in Mobile, Ala.

Born and raised in Mobile, Holly came to us after graduating from Julius T. Wright School. At Princeton she roomed with Nancy Edelman in the Princeton Inn and majored in French. Holly spent her junior year abroad at the Sorbonne in Paris. Her senior thesis was titled, “L’Intellectuel Engage: La Guerre Civile d’Espagne et Les Ecrivans Francais.” Classmate Mark Soich remembered her as “a bright spirit when I knew her.”

After Princeton Holly graduated from Boston University Law School in 1979 and settled in Birmingham, Ala., working first at the U.S. Attorney’s Office, then joining the firm Markstein, Morris and Liles as an associate. She also ran a small experimental theater and tried her hand at play-writing. Holly moved to Austin in the role of director of the Texas Attorney General’s Antitrust Division, where she achieved the largest antitrust judgment ever obtained in Texas at the time.

In the 1990s Holly moved to our nation’s capital as a trial lawyer in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. She also took a pause to pursue her dream of creative writing, graduating in 1993 with an M.F.A. from the Iowa Writer’s Workshop.

Classmate and colleague Gerard Hogan recalled, “Holly and I worked together for almost a decade in the Criminal Section of Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division in Washington. Holly was a first rate prosecutor, obtaining convictions in numerous police excessive force, racial violence, and human trafficking cases. It was in the trafficking cases that Holly truly shined, as she had an uncanny ability to empathize with and gain the trust of victims with whom she, on the surface, had little in common. Holly was also well known for her superb writing skills, producing legal briefs and fiction of the highest quality; which was not surprising, given her degree from the Iowa Writer’s Workshop – the Princeton of writing programs! But Holly’s greatest strength was her gift of friendship, and I was a beneficiary of that gift for many years. Many a young lawyer remarked at the gentle guidance, unfailing kindness, and great patience, as they were starting out in their careers. She loved to laugh, even at herself, but never at others. Holly’s uniquely bright spirit will be missed by many friends and former colleagues.”

For 15 years at the Department of Justice, Holly handled voting rights cases, prosecuted hate crimes, police brutality and human trafficking cases. In 2000 she received the John Marshall Award, the highest honor given by the Department of Justice, for prosecuting the first case under the U.S. Trafficking Protection Act. For several years Holly worked abroad as a Department of Justice consultant advising the governments of Moldava, Tanzania, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Kazakhstan, and Turkey. She returned to the United States in 2009 to help establish the Independent Police Monitor’s Office in New Orleans. 

In 2013 Holly returned home to Mobile, where she worked with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Alabama until her retirement in February 2020. Her passion for life extended far beyond her dedication to civil rights. She shared her deep love of literature by establishing an English language library in Krasnodar, Russia, and by teaching creative writing to inmates at the Mobile County Metro Jail. Her hobbies included singing in multiple local choirs, including Bella Voce of Mobile, playing the piano, and sewing quilts.

The Class officers extend deepest sympathy to her five siblings, Dr. Merrel Wiseman, Valery Smith, Dr. Carole Norden, Jay Wiseman, and David Wiseman, and to her many nieces and nephews. The family plans to hold a memorial service at a future date in Mobile.

Holly will be remembered at two different services on the Princeton campus scheduled for next year: the formal Princeton Alumni Service of Remembrance planned on Feb. 27, 2021 in the University Chapel, as well as at our 45th reunion Class Memorial service planned on May 22, 2021.

The Princeton Class of 1976 will always hold, in honor and affection, the name of Holly  Lee Wiseman.

Undergraduate Class of 1976