Sister Mary Melanie Holliday (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 A savanna or savannah is a mixed woodland-grassland (i.e. grassy woodland) ecosystem characterised by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the Canopy (forest), canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to rea ...

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. She was a cousin of the gambler and gunfighter John Henry "Doc" Holliday and of the landowner and businesswoman

Annie Fitzgerald Stephens Annie Elizabeth Fitzgerald Stephens (December 23, 1844 – February 17, 1934) was an American landowner, businesswoman, and political activist. She was born to a prominent planting family in Clayton County, Georgia and grew up on the family plan ...

. She had a close relationship with Doc Holliday, frequently writing to him throughout her life. During the Civil War, Holliday and her mother and siblings took refuge in

Valdosta Valdosta is a city in and the county seat of Lowndes County, Georgia, United States. As of 2019, Valdosta had an estimated population of 56,457. Valdosta is the principal city of the Valdosta Metropolitan Statistical Area, which in 2021 had a ...

on the farm of her uncle, Henry Burroughs Holliday. They stayed in Valdosta from October 1864 until the war ended in May 1865. 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. 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 An abbess (Latin: ''abbatissa''), also known as a mother superior, is the female superior of a community of Catholic nuns in an abbey. Description In the Catholic Church (both the Latin Church and Eastern Catholic), Eastern Orthodox, Coptic ...

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. 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''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Holliday, Mary Melanie 1850 births 1939 deaths American people of Irish descent 19th-century American Roman Catholic nuns American women nurses Catholics from Georgia (U.S. state) People from Jonesboro, Georgia Roman Catholic abbesses Schoolteachers from Georgia (U.S. state) Sisters of Mercy Women in the American Civil War 20th-century American Roman Catholic nuns