But their daughter was willful and defiant, unconcerned that the man she loved was her cousin. The judge and his wife strongly opposed the engagement, for everyone knew that a union of first cousins resulted in offspring that were physically, and oftentimes mentally, impaired. Byblood they were uncle and nephew, which meant that Mattie was Holliday's first cousin. Judge Holliday was the brother of Holliday's father. ![]() All of Atlanta, it seemed, loved a scandal. The situation was aggravated by the betrothal announcement of Mattie and Holliday, early in 1876. But his welcome was lukewarm, and at times bordered on frosty, in the household of Judge Holliday. HOLLIDAY, D.D.S., and he was readily accepted into the professional community. The shingle outside his office read JOHN H. Last year, upon graduating from the Baltimore Dental College in Maryland, Holliday had established his practice in Atlanta. He had survived the war, and the Reconstruction Era, to attain prominence in the new South. Holliday, was a judge on the fifth superior court. Like the phoenix of myth, Atlanta had risen from ashes after the Civil War. The house was on Peachtree Road, north of the city proper, in one of Atlanta's finer residential enclaves. Her arm tucked in his, she chatted on about plans for their wedding, set for June 6. Holliday sat beside Mattie on the porch swing, cloaked in the warmth of a gentle April breeze. The evening was lit by a primrose-yellow moon. ![]() Somewhere inside himself, he was struck by a bitter irony. He stepped through the door of the office, and turned south along Piedmont Street. "Would that make her a bride or a widow?" Yet, presuming on their friendship, he couldn't resist a personal question. He knew Holliday was engaged to be married, and he told himself that it was none of his business. The matter-of-fact tone piqued Eckhart's curiosity. "Take down my shingle," Holliday said simply. "What will you do with your dental practice?" He watched as Holliday shrugged into his suit jacket. Some men, particularly one with a future in dentistry, would have accepted their fate with far less equanimity. The sooner the better, John."Įckhart thought Holliday, who was barely twenty-four, had taken the news with a maturity beyond his years. "Somewhere out West, perhaps Colorado or Texas. Atlanta is no place for a man with consumption." "Maybe longer if you relocate to a drier climate. Yet now his look was closed and inaccessible. He was tall, with ash-blond hair and a brushy mustache, and penetrating gray-blue eyes. "I see." Holliday nodded, silent a moment. ![]() "Your lungs are in an advanced stage of deterioration." Even now, eleven years following the end of the war, tuberculosis was still rampant throughout the South. Younger men, their condition weakened by general hardship and the shortage of proper foods, were particularly susceptible. I've seen too much of it in the last few years."Ī generation of Southerners had contracted the disease during the Civil War. The correct term is 'pulmonary tuberculosis.'" "You havewhat's commonly called consumption. "God, I wish it were someone besides me! Why didn't you go to another doctor?"Įckhart dropped his stethoscope on the desk. "Dental college should have taught you the difference." "You should have known better," Eckhart grumbled. "These things sometimes linger on after a hard winter." He swabbed phlegm from his mouth with a handkerchief. Holliday was wracked by a sudden, harsh cough. Tom Eckhart was a friend as well as a physician. His trousers were too large, and when he tucked the shirttail into his waistband, he had to buckle the belt to the last notch. He slipped into his shirt, which hung loosely on his thin frame.
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