Reverend Mother

Sister Mary Melanie Holliday

R.S.M.
Holliday prior to her life in the convent
Church
Personal details
Born
Martha Ann Holliday

December 14, 1850
Jonesboro, Georgia, U.S.
DiedApril 19, 1939
Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.
DenominationCatholic Church
Parents
  • Robert Kennedy Holliday
  • Mary Anne Fitzgerald
Occupationabbess, nun, nurse, schoolteacher

Sister Mary Melanie Holliday R.S.M. (born Martha Ann "Mattie" Holliday; December 14, 1850 - April 19, 1939) was an American Catholic nun. As a member of the Sisters of Mercy, she served as Mother Superior at the Convent and Academy of St. Vincent de Paul in Savannah and at the Convent of the Immaculate Conception in Atlanta. While living in the convent in Savannah, she worked as a schoolteacher in the affiliated academy. When Holliday moved to the convent in Atlanta, she worked as a nurse at St. Joseph's Infirmary. She is believed to be the inspiration behind Melanie Hamilton and Carreen O'Hara in the novel Gone with the Wind, which was written by her second cousin once-removed, Margaret Mitchell.

Biography

Holliday was born Martha Ann Holliday in Jonesboro, Georgia on December 14, 1850. She was one of eight children of Captain Robert Kennedy Holliday, a Confederate military officer and quartermaster who served in the 7th Georgia Infantry during the American Civil War, and Mary Anne Fitzgerald, whose family owned Rural Home Plantation.[1][2][3] She was a cousin of the gambler and gunfighter John Henry "Doc" Holliday and of the landowner and businesswoman Annie Fitzgerald Stephens.[4]: 300 [5] She had a close relationship with Doc Holliday, frequently writing to him throughout her life.[4][6][7]

During the Civil War, Holliday and her mother and siblings took refuge in Valdosta on the farm of her uncle, Henry Burroughs Holliday.[7] They stayed in Valdosta from October 1864 until the war ended in May 1865.[7]

She entered the Sisters of Mercy at the Convent and Academy of St. Vincent de Paul in Savannah, Georgia in 1883, taking the name Mary Melanie, after Saint Melania the Younger.[6][8] She was a member of the order for fifty-six years. After living in the convent in Savannah, she taught at Sacred Heart School in Augusta and later became the mother superior there. She then served as Superior of the Convent of the Immaculate Conception in Atlanta and worked as a nurse at St. Joseph's Infirmary. She was often visited by her second cousin, Maybelle Stephens Mitchell, and her cousin's daughter, Margaret Mitchell.[8]

She died at the age of eighty-eight at St. Joseph's Infirmary and is buried in the Sisters of Mercy lot in Westview Cemetery.

Holliday was the inspiration behind the character Melanie Hamilton, and possibly Carreen O'Hara, in the novel Gone With the Wind.[6][8][9]

References

  1. ↑ "Robert Kennedy Holliday". MusketWars.org. Retrieved February 9, 2022.
  2. ↑ "Fitzgerald House". Tomitronics.com. Retrieved February 9, 2022.
  3. ↑ "DocFacts". TombstoneTimes.com. Retrieved February 9, 2022.
  4. 1 2 Holliday, Karen Tanner (2001). Doc Holliday: A Family Portrait. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 978-0-8061-3320-1.
  5. ↑ "Historical Figures". MaryDoriaRussell.net. Retrieved February 9, 2022.
  6. 1 2 3 "Doc Holliday's Family Affair". VictoriaWilcoxBooks.com. August 3, 2016. Retrieved February 9, 2022.
  7. 1 2 3 "Doc Holliday". Lowndes County Historical Society Museum. Retrieved February 9, 2022.
  8. 1 2 3 Breig, James (May 14, 2020). "'As God Is My Witness': The Catholic Roots of Gone with the Wind". FranciscanMedia.org. Retrieved February 9, 2022.
  9. ↑ Kelly, Jacques (March 22, 2003). "Tracking down a tale of nuns and 'GWTW'". The Baltimore Sun. Retrieved February 9, 2022.
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