Godspeed, Cheryl Holdridge

Annette Funicello, Cheryl Holdridge and Doreen Tracey

My original Mouseketeer friend Doreen Tracey emailed this morning to say that Cheryl Holdridge, another of the original Mickey Mouse Club crew, died yesterday.

It was a followup to this email on Monday:

A quick note letting you know, that Mouseketeer Cheryl Holdridge is under “hospice care” at home for her remaining days. Cheryl has been battling cancer for two years. As the second day of the New Year rolled in, her extended family and friends visited her at St. John’s Medical facility in Santa Monica showering her with love. (It was quite a party, and the nurses almost kicked everyone out for disturbing the  other patients on the ICU floor.) Now she is going home to look at the Pacific one last time. Yesterday, she said she will miss all of us, as if to say, she is going someplace where she can’t see us for awhile. Mouseketeer Tommy Cole came yesterday, and that’s when it hit me how much I will miss my friend the Countess.

Doreen said there will be a memorial service within the next couple of weeks.

Born June 20, 1944, Cheryl joined the Mickey Mouse Club during its second season.

She became a Countess on Nov. 7, 1964, when she married Woolworth heir Lance Reventlow, whose father was a Danish nobleman. Reventlow was killed in a light plane crash near Aspen, Colo., in 1972.

Cheryl was widowed a second time in 1999 when Manning Post, her husband of 23 years, died.

And, yes, Annette Funicello is still with us, despite a 17-year ordeal with multiple sclerosis.