Ethel Holt—known by generations of taxpayers as "The Nice Tax Lady"—has been preparing tax returns on the same manual typewriter and adding machine, and greeting her clients with the same friendly smile, for 65 years.

Holt's business started with 10 or so tax returns that she prepared on the dining room table in her Armourdale home, which was washed away in the flood of 1951. Undaunted, she rescued her typewriter and adding machine from the mud and silt and settled in a house in Kansas City, Kan. Bad luck followed her; that house was destroyed by a tornado.

Holt refused to let misfortune discourage her. She and her husband, William Holt, a Kansas City, Kan., police officer, moved to a house on North 13th Street in Kansas City, Kan. He finished off the basement for her office, and business flourished.

By 1954, Holt was preparing 300 returns a year, virtually every client returning year after year. Her business steadily increased. She now has more than 3,000 clients and occupies her own building at 6510 Metcalf Ave. in Overland Park.

"I hated to leave that basement. I really did," she said.
Even after moving to her present home in Overland Park in 1985, Holt continued to use the basement office for 10 years. She erected the building on Metcalf in 1995.

"In the early days I worked from 7:00 a.m. until 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning, some days for 20 hours," she said. "I had curtains on the basement windows and I would go for days without knowing whether the sun was shining or not. I lived on boxes of chocolates and Cokes."

Holt got into tax work by chance. The day after she graduated from Ward High School in 1939, she was on an airplane to Washington, D.C., to apply for a clerical job with the FBI.

"I was taking a test in the FBI building when a man walked up behind me, put his hand on my shoulder, and said, 'You're doing fine.' I was concentrating hard so I said 'Don't bother me!' Little did I know it was J. Edgar Hoover," Holt said with a laugh. "I got the job anyway."

While she was with the FBI, she noticed a sign in a building across the street: the Internal Revenue Service was advertising for part-time help.

"I thought it might be interesting, so I started working nights for the IRS and days for the FBI," she said.

She attended workshops on weekends to learn about tax work. That went on until Christmas 1944, when Holt decided to return home. A year later, she and William married and moved to Armourdale.

"I liked tax work and inquired about a job with the IRS here," she recalls. "The supervisor told me that with my knowledge and experience, I should go into business for myself. So I did. Sixty-five years later, with a few setbacks along the way, here I am!"

To add to Holt's string of misfortunes, William died unexpectedly from a heart attack in 1972, the day after he retired from the police department. He was only 55.
"It took me a long time to get over it," she said, "but life has to go on."

Holt has never advertised. People just found her through word of mouth and kept coming back.

"When they leave, most people say, 'Put me down for the same time next year,'" Holt said. "My book for next year is full. I've always tried to make people happy, and it pleases me that they keep coming back. I'm proud they have that kind of confidence in me."

Holt's son Ron and his wife, Ellen, joined the business in the 1960s. Her daughter, Brenda, came on board in the 1980s. Her other sons, Dennis and Gary, help out during crush time.
"We're all Holts at Holt's Tax Service," she said with a chuckle.

Holt still gathers all the information on that same typewriter and adding machine. Then Brenda puts the finished returns on the computer. They've had a direct line to the IRS for the last three years, keeping information in the returns confidential—and she was not at all reluctant to move into the electronic world.

Holt still has a lot of clients who've been with her 50 years or more, but the last of her "originals" died about two years ago, she said.

Holt will be 90 in December and has no thought of retiring.
"I enjoy people. I treat them like I want to be treated, like family," she said. "It's important that their visits here are pleasant."

During tax season, she works from 9:00 a.m. until late at night, sometimes midnight. After tax season, her office is open Monday through Wednesday, primarily for business clients.

---