This morning I want to share a couple of books that document
the family connection to Margaret Mitchell and John Henry (Doc) Holliday of
Tombstone, Arizona fame. He was from Georgia and he is thought by many
(including myself) to be one half of the Ashley and Melanie story as he was
very close to his first cousin Mattie Holliday of Jonesboro, Georgia and when
he went west they corresponded until his death and afterwards his personal
effects were sent to her in Atlanta, Georgia.
May I suggest that
for those looking to know more about the Doc Holliday connection to Margaret
Mitchell and Gone with the Wind you consider a book by my friend Ben Traywick.
Ben is an historian who lives in Tombstone Arizona and has done exhaustive
research into Doc’s life in Georgia as well as his sojourn west. The book is an
easy read (and the print is pretty big for old people like me) and is full of
details and facts as well as a lot of excitement. I believe it is available
online but when I look for books I simply search thru google to find the best
deal (and now you know all my secrets).
The second of the
two books I will recommend today is The Irish Roots of Margaret Mitchell’s Gone
With the Wind by David O’Connell (nice Irish name). This book will also give
you some of the Holliday connection but will help you see how the Fitzgerald’s
come into play and how their home (Rural Home) would become the O’Hara’s Tara
in Margaret’s book. By helping you find the connection and the “thin red line”
that runs thru it all I hope that it will make you more determined to help save
Tara and also take time to come and visit the place of its birth, south of
Atlanta on that “red earth trail from Jonesboro to Lovejoy” (Wilbur Kurtz quote
in a letter to Edith Smith of Jonesboro).
Peter
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