>I like this comment about Doc being alone, even in a
>crowd...I remember
thinking that he must have been a
>rather lonely man; such bravado and
cynicism often
>mask this type of pain and loneliness....as we see in his
>words after the comment "Hell, I got lots of friends,"
>and he says, "I
don't." Then also, in the death scene
>when he talks about his cousin whom
heloved and who
>entered the convent over the affair; he says, "She was
>the
only thing I ever wanted." I wonder if, after the
>pain of that loss, he
decided that loving and giving
>oneself to others was just too hard to try it
again, and it
>was easier to look at the world from a distance, rather
>than
to engage himself and risk being hurt again.
Sylvia Lynch's Aristocracy's Outlaw spends quite a bit of space exploring the relationship between Doc Holliday and his cousin Mattie. She calls their relationship: " a topic of a tremendous amount of speculation and innuendo, most of it unfounded and unsubstantiated", but she does relate some facts.
Martha (Mattie) Holliday was the daughter of Doc's father's brother Robert. Doc's father had moved his family away from Griffin Georgia during the Civil War to protect them when Sherman did his famous "Marching Through Georgia" and its occupation, relocating them to Valdosta, at the southern end of the state. Robert Holliday, Doc's uncle was in the War, and at just about the same time as Doc's father relocated to Valdosta, Mrs. Robert Holliday and her children fled their home before the battle of Jonesboro, returning home later to find the house dissassembled for its wood, which had been used as breastworks. She then loaded her family up and headed for Valdosta, and sought refuge with Doc's family.
Mattie was among the children she brought with her and they stayed under the same roof for approximately a year. Bob Boze Bell relates that "Mattie forms a close friendship with young John.
Significant is the fact that upon her death in 1939, Mattie, (Sister Melanie since 1883) had in her possession a photo of John, one of his graduation photos. Equally significant, in fact may be that Doc's Colorado obituary "reported that hehad only one correspondent among his relatives. That person was his beautiful first cousin, Mattie Holliday, who was apparently the only family member with whom John continually maintained contact after he left Georgia. Many researchers have theorized that the young cousins were romantically involved and would have married if John had not contracted consumption and been forced to leave home." Mattie did enter a convent, did not enter service as a nun until 1883 (she served the next fifty six years as Sister Mary Melanie), her reasons are not known, but she had received her education at St. Vincent's Academy, where she later returned as a Sister of Charity novitiate. What is known is that she preserved the letters she received from Doc, and had reported to relatives that "if the world could see the correspondence she had in her possession, they would most definitely see a different John Holliday." Some relatives report that before her death, Mattie destroyed some of these letters. Lynch says, "It is regrettable that morethan twenty years of John Holliday's life may have been chronicled in the letters he wrote to the one person in the world to whom he felt he could open his heart, and that information is now lost forever. When John and Mattie lived under the same roof during the final years of the War, John was thirteen and Mattie was about fifteen. It is very likely that the cousins were close and enjoyed a bond that lasted into their adult lives, as apparent from their continuing correspondence."
Those letters not destroyed by Mattie herself, were later burned by another family member who "burned them to end curious inquiries into the nature of their content." This burning has backfired on that intent, since the destruction served to increase speculation, not quelch it. Lynch puts forward the scenario of "a caring nun who had a special cousin who needed someone in whom he could confide the anger, the frustration, and the disappointment he felt life had dealt him. Sister Melanie was most likely John's only contact with home and the world he was forced to leave behind, and may have been the messenger who carried word of his death to his father."
So, the idea of a love affair will probably be forever speculated on, and with the evidence destroyed, there is no way to confirm or deny it. Those romantics among us would hope that John experienced love, however tragic--so your scenario, Linda, that he may have distanced himself from the world, rather than be hurt again, is just as valid as anything else.
Interesting facts that may, or may not have a bearing on Doc's loner inclinations, and the fear of being hurt:
Doc's mother, Alice died in 1866 of a lingering illness, that it is widely believed to have been tuberculosis--the disease was rampant in Georgia after the war, and Alice had been bed ridden and "greatly suffering" for some time. John was reportedly devastated by her death, but even worse, "perhaps the true tragedy lies in the fact that the mover who loved her son so much and wanted only the best she could possibly offer him may have unknowingly passed to him the horrid disease which would eventually claim his life as well." As Lynch writes: "Tuberculosis is....one of the oldest disease known to man and a leading cause of death until the 1940's"
Adding further psychic trauma to this tragedy was the fact that John's father, 47, "remarried only three short months after Alice's death......(a) twenty three year old neighbor, Rachel Martin" Bob Boze Bell, in The Illustrated Life and Times of Doc Holliday, writes: "This ready marriage sparks discord between Doc and his father. Betrayal is a sin John will forever despise."
Certainly enough fodder there, to make a loner of anyone, I dare say.
Hope this helps with your questions Linda!
Ever your huckleberry,
Lisa