Connie Holtel
1965 – 2026

Connie Elizabeth Holtel, born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1965, lived a life rooted in the city she called home from beginning to end. She passed in 2026 at the age of 61, leaving behind a story worth celebrating.

Connie was many things to many people, but to her sister, she was irreplaceable. That bond, the particular closeness that exists between sisters, shaped who she was and how she moved through the world. She carried Cincinnati in her, and Cincinnati carried her, a life lived fully in the place where it began.

To celebrate Connie is to honor the quiet but powerful ways a person leaves their mark. She was 61 years of laughter, loyalty, and love. She was a sister in the truest sense, steady and present, the kind of person whose absence is felt in ordinary moments, in a phone call not made, in a joke that would have landed perfectly, in the comfortable silence only someone who truly knows you can provide.

Her family holds her memory with gratitude rather than grief, remembering not what was lost but what was given. Connie Elizabeth Holtel lived in Cincinnati, loved deeply, and left the world richer for having been part of it. She is remembered, she is celebrated, and she is dearly missed.

Connie leaves behind her son Patrick Wade Stevens; daughter Caryn Noel Bray; sister Shawna Turner and nephew Branden Hudson. Preceded in death by her parents Clarence and Lucille Holtel; her partner of over 25 yrs Rick Moquin; and recently her brother John R. Saylor.

Connie was cremated with her ashes to be shared among her family to scatter in all the places that had meaning for Connie.