Biography
Jean Holladay was a nurse, mother of four, and grandmother from Massachusetts who became one of the most committed serial Plowshares activists of the 1980s, taking part in three actions: Plowshares Number Four (1982), AVCO Plowshares (1983), and Trident II Plowshares (1984). She is the mother of Plowshares Number Twelve activist Martin Holladay.
Plowshares Number Four custody reconstruction
The original January 1983 report names all seven and dates the action and arrest to November 14, 1982. It reports December 22 release on a promise to appear, after initial imprisonment. This 38-day detention is separate from the later sentence, so time outside prison is excluded.
The May 20, 1983 disposition was two months. A separate record preserves that sentence without equating sentence length with time actually served or copying the initial arrest into later custody.
Issue 17 explicitly reports release at sentencing on May 20 with credit for time served. The later admission is unresolved; it is not assumed to have been continuous since November.
Sources: The Nuclear Resister 14, January 14, 1983, pages 3–4; issue 17, June 6, 1983, page 5; issue 18, July 7, 1983, printed page 6; Art Laffin participant chronology.
Separate AVCO initial detention
The original Nuclear Resister 19, August 23, 1983, page 1 names Jean Holladay, describes the July 14 arrest and reports the group's July 22 recognizance release. This supplies the missing AVCO initial-detention record; her other cases are unchanged. Contemporary report. The primary appellate opinion also names her among the AVCO defendants. Appellate opinion. Named trial footage is a licensed-photo lead, not an imported portrait.
Separate December 1983 AVCO detention
The original February 12, 1984 Nuclear Resister, physical page 6 / printed page 5, AVCO Plowshares Guilty, individually names all seven defendants. It reports their December 16, 1983 conviction, sentence, immediate jailing and release later that same day pending appeal. This short post-verdict interval is recorded separately from July 14–22, 1983; the intervening period is not counted as incarceration. Concurrent versus consecutive terms depended on prior records and is not individually assigned without evidence.
The report also distinguishes the December 20 return of John Pendleton and Jean Holladay. That later imprisonment is not assigned to the other five. The contemporaneous report confirms Pendleton's February 6 release but only forecasts Holladay's early-March release, which must not be entered as an exact actual discharge.
The March 28, 1984 Nuclear Resister, physical page 4 / printed page 3, explicitly lists Jean Holladay as recently released. This establishes an actual 1984 endpoint at YEAR precision only; January 1 is a storage placeholder, not a discharge day.
Distinct pretrial detention and sentence-era custody
Complete original pages in NR027 and NR035 were visually reviewed. Earlier separately documented cases remain distinct. Identified reusable portrait, exact later admission and independently corroborated final discharge remain unresolved. No private family details from the newsletter are reproduced.
Seventeen days actually served in a separate Draper case
The Draper Labs update individually names Jean Holladay with Suzanne Belote and Paul Hood as having recently served seventeen days in jail for a December 1981 action at Draper Lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts. They declined community service after their appeal was denied. This is actual completed service, not just an imposed term, but exact admission, release and sentence days are not printed. December 1981 dates the underlying action, not the later jail admission. It is distinct from her AVCO and Trident episodes.
Separate 1983 episode and contemporary limits
The original Groton report individually names Jean Holladay with Martin Holladay and Kathleen Rumpf as arrested during their June 20, 1983 canoe protest alongside the USS Georgia. It explicitly says Jean was released June 30 while the other two remained held. This ten-elapsed-day initial detention is separate from the 1982 Plowshares Four case, the later July AVCO detention and the recently documented Draper service. A canoe-protest charge is not inferred from a separate land-blockade group’s disorderly-conduct charge.
The Nuclear Resister No.18, July 7, 1983, original pages 1, 3.
For the separate August 9, 1982 Draper action, the contemporary report confirms sentence service began August 23 and ended in release two weeks later, with community service for the remainder. This is distinct from the seventeen days served for the December 1981 action.
