She does not name the immediate

cause of his death, though it may have been hastened by the weather that

winter: cold and snow before Christmas and ice storms that took down the

telegraph lines between Jonesboro and Atlanta. There was a rash of pneumonia

deaths that December of 1872, and Robert Holliday may have been one of

the victims, but there is no way to know.

5. Doc Holliday was "born

with a cleft palate [and] saved by the efforts of his uncle, J.S. Holliday."

Again, only anecdotal information, and no record to substantiate the story.

What Ms. Cary is referencing here is a claim that the baby Doc was saved

famous Dr. Crawford Long (a cousin to Dr. Holliday's wife).

A search of the journals of

Crawford Long, who supposedly administered the anesthetic in what would

have been a landmark plastic surgery on the 8-week-old infant, reveals

no mention of the case. Later Dr. Long wrote that, as a country doctor,

he had actually had so little experience with ether (the supposed anesthetic)

that he could not comment on its usefulness in surgery. Surely he might

have mentioned helping to save the life of his infant relative in such

a groundbreaking event. Modern plastic and oral surgeons agree that such

a surgery would not only have been difficult but next to impossible in

those days.

6. "Doc's mother died

of tuberculosis." More conjecture. According to Alice Jane McKey

Holliday's obituary in the Valdosta Watchman of September 1866, "She

was confined to her bed for a number of years, and was indeed a great

sufferer." There is no mention of the nature of her fatal illness.

While it could have been tuberculosis (and that makes a nice story, allowing

the disease to pass on to her son), it could have been any number of other

illnesses as well.

7. Doc's own tuberculosis "led

him west where he learned he could not make a living with his dental tools."

Actually, Doc made a very nice living with his dental tools in towns all

over the west. He owned or partnered in dental practices in Dallas and

Dennison, Texas; Piedras Negras, Mexico; Dodge City, Kansas; and Otero

and Las Vegas, New Mexico, among others.

8. "A maid ... taught

him to play cards ..." This is purely anecdotal, a story coming from

the former maid herself long after Holliday became famous. She could have

been making it up, to add to her own status. We'll never know.

9. "While he was a deputy,

he killed two men." Holliday was never a deputy, though he assisted

the law at times. And if she's referring to the killings at the OK Corral,

the jury is still out on who shot whom Western historians would love to

hear that Carolyn Cary has solved this enduring mystery.

10. "Visitors have been

shown an upstairs bedroom and told John Henry and his cousin, Melanie,

played there and were sweet on each other." This implies a story

coming from the guides at the Holliday House. Sorry, but we never told

this story. We have no idea where or when John Henry played in the house,

though he undoubtedly did. The story that he and his cousin were "sweet

on each other" comes from Holliday and McKey family stories, and

we were always careful to put it that way.

11. Ms. Cary makes a rather

ugly accusation regarding the "Doc Holliday Dental Kit" which

was displayed at the house, suggesting that it was a phony shown by a

charlatan. While there is no paper trail proving the ownership of the

kit (and we never claimed as much), examination by the renowned National

Museum of Dentistry in Baltimore substantiates the authenticity of the

kit as to date and manufacture. Holliday's own signature, carved into

the tiny brass plate on the top of the kit, was the basis of its authentication

as part of his own tools. The tool kit has been accepted by recognized

Western historians as an important part of American history, along with

many other Holliday artifacts. Fayetteville was very lucky to have it

for a short period of time.

12. Ms. Cary is correct, however,

in stating that Margaret Mitchell never stayed overnight at the Holliday

House though she implies that we said otherwise. We did not, nor did we

think that to be the case. The stories of Margaret Mitchell's visits there

come from the Fife family, who claimed only that the famous author stopped

Hollidays) had lived there and that the house looked much more like her

imagined Tara than did the house used in the movie based on her book.

The movie "Tara" was actually the David O. Selznick office building

on the studio lot in Hollywood, augmented by scenes shot with set pieces.

But stories do grow in the telling, though we never told it the way Ms.

Cary claims.

Finally, Ms. Cary's reliance

on the work of "collateral descendent" Karen Tanner as her source

for most of this misinformation shows her own lack of knowledge about

the Holliday family. Mrs. Tanner's book, while good reading, is based

mostly on the "reminiscences" of a great-grandmother who never

even knew Doc Holliday. Her stories are as unsubstantiated as the ones

Ms. Cary accuses us of telling. Yet Ms. Cary preaches those stories as

if they are historical gospel. They aren't.

Before penning another catalog

of historical "facts" about Doc Holliday and his family, Ms.

Cary needs to check her sources. It would be a shame if hundreds of Fayette

County schoolchildren, as well as thousands of their newspaper-reading

parents, believed her stories at face value. Most of them are wrong.

Victoria Wilcox

Founding Director

Holliday House Association

Holliday House Association

Board of Directors

Karlan Coleman

Michele Cox

Eleanor Ebbert

Vel Dean Fincher

Linda Hurley

Elizabeth Dorsey Kissel

LaVanda Shellnut

Jeanne Brewer