Holmes is known best for her biblical trilogy which began with the novel Two From Galilee, a love story about Mary and Joseph, published by Fleming H. Revell.
She met engineering student Lynn Mighell (pronounced mile), a native of Holstein, at a writers' workshop at the University of Iowa.
Holmes also wrote a twice-weekly syndicated family-life column, "Love and Laughter," for the Washington Evening Star newspaper from 1959 to 1973.
[1] She attracted a loyal audience with her commonsense parables and pick-me-ups published in such volumes as Hold Me up a Little Longer, Lord and Secrets of Health, Energy, and Staying Young, an ode to the miraculous properties of nutritional supplements.
Sitting beside her thirteen-year-old daughter, near the hay, Holmes felt transported back to "the fields and barns" of her Iowa childhood.
On this night, a long time ago, there actually was a girl having a baby far from home...in a manger, on the hay...and I thought, astonished: "When Mary bore the Christ child, she couldn't have been much older than my Melanie here beside me!"
In 1981, physician George Schmieler contacted Holmes after reading I've Got to Talk to Somebody, God and tracing her unlisted phone number through relatives.