This is a living history interview with Jackson R. Holliday, class of 1949, conducted by Marilyn Summers on February the 26th of the year 2002. We are at his home in Macon, Georgia. The subject of the interview today is his life in general, his experiences at Georgia Tech. Mr. Holliday, thank you for letting us come up and visit with you today. My pleasure. It's a beautiful day in Macon, despite the fact that they say we have a big cold front coming in. 

It seems nice and cozy right here and the sun is shining and we're ready to hear your story and we're sitting here in your living room surrounded by antiques and family photos and whatnot so tell me where you fit into all this when did you begin well i began uh december the 4th 1922 here in macon georgia Contrary to what happens today, I was born at home. I don't know why my mother chose to be born on High Street in Macon, a real historic district. At two years of age, I moved home out in Vineville, a subdivision out from Macon. And I lived there until I married. The whole life was right here in Macon. 

Did you have brothers and sisters? 

I had one brother, Pete Holliday, who is a dentist here in Macon. He's got four children. I have two. Tell me about your dad. 

Well, my father, the Holliday has moved from Virginia to North Georgia and Washington, Georgia back in the 1850s, I believe. and they got a land grant, and they built a big home 10 miles out in the country. He was born and raised there with seven brothers and sisters. When he became of college age, he took an inheritance of 20 acres. 

It was part of his inheritance and sold it, and with that money, came to Mercy University, where he went through four years of mercy, became a lawyer, and he joined the Phi Theta fraternity, went into the Army, and at the same time he was met my mother who was from Perry, Georgia, who was at Wesleyan College, and they courted and married after he returned from what service he had. And eventually, when he settled here and you were a small child, he became a judge, you told me. Right. A juvenile? 

A juvenile court judge. 

Right at the peak of the Depression, all the lawyers were, he had an office in the Georgia Casualty Building at that time on the 11th floor, and we'd go down to visit him, but But people did without lawyers when the times were tough. 

And so we formerly had two cars, and we got down to one, and we were living in a rented house on Heinz Terrace, and he was appointed to be judge of the juvenile court. And I think he got $275 a month, which was big money. big money boy that was a big burden on you to have your father be a juvenile judge when you were a juvenile i bet you and your brother were really good kids weren't you we were made to be as a matter of fact that i've experienced the fact now i still own the house that we were living in on heinz terrace and and i it has a steep driveway very narrow drive and back in those days they had garage at the head of the driveway and since it was ******* for a child less than 16 years of age to drive on the city streets if we wanted to do all the drive we could I when came time for my father to go to work I'd run up I'd say daddy can I back the car out for you yeah and I learned how to drive backing You backed up before you ever went forward. That was my claim to fame. Backing down this steep driveway. And I do it now frequently going over to check on an addition I'm making on the house. 

So it's bringing back old memories. Driving down that driveway. Did you have a happy childhood? 

Absolutely. As a matter of fact, my entire life has been the most blessed of anything in the world. You think of yourself as Lucky Jack. I really am. 

There's no question about it that anybody could ever have had this error-free, I mean it's not error-free, but I mean it's happy and - But you're pretty happy with all your decisions and what you did, yeah. Were you a good student? 

I did. Better than average, I would say, and- So you liked going to school? 

Right. 

Never flunked the course, and I went to Tech for nine years, and I always- and come back with it and I never thought it was just your story and you're sticking to it now let's talk about where you went to elementary school Joseph Clisby school which they are now creating it as a historic school restoring it then its original exterior Paris it was about about six or eight blocks away from my home. Oh, that's wonderful. 

So you walked to school? 

Well, it so happened that my father could, we went at the same time he went to work, so he dropped us off on the way to school, but we did walk home. 

And the same way at high school, which was about that much further away, but we still walked home from school. 

Were you involved in any sports activities when you were in high school? 

Well, I played tennis and we played locally on our street. We played baseball in the backyards of empty houses that were vacant on the street. We played football and that sort. I was small and in high school I went out for the football team. when I was a sophomore I believe and I wanted to weigh 125 pounds and wasn't very tall either and after in the early preparation early of the season in practice I was hit real hard at a tackle and I didn't remember anything for I I went back into the shower, and my friends told me that I asked where my bicycle was, and they showed it to me, and it was only when I was riding back on the bicycle at home that I became conscious again. 

So you were in shock. I remember, so I quit. Yeah. You figured anything that would take away your mind, you best not do. Right. You weren't suited for football. Right. And I wasn't big enough. 

But your high school days were happy days. MS. Were you getting a good, solid education? 

MR. Right. The schools we had then were good. Even though they were segregated, we had good teachers. 

Lanier High School, every way I went when I went to Tech, you tell them you were from Lanier High School, the teachers automatically would respect you and ask you to handle things that they wouldn't ask others to do. They knew you had that background. Right. 

Do you feel like you always knew you were going to go to college? 

Oh, there's no question that I was going to go to college. Your parents pretty much let you know that from day one. Right. They were both college graduates themselves. Right. My mother went to Wesley and my father went to Marissa. 

How did you pick out towards attack? 

Well, I really did not think too much about my career until late in high school. As a matter of fact, far too late. result in my senior year after having. 

And my mother was very pointedly, took both my brother and I into consideration that she directed us where she thought, I mean, we didn't have any idea what we wanted to do, and so she kind of looked at us and decided our assets and our capabilities and our likes and so forth. 

And she directed him toward dentistry and me toward architecture i had shown an inclination to like plans and was able to draw and and like that aspect she was most anxious for both ourselves to be their own bosses and not be employed by somebody else so she had a good plan right now how did tech get into the picture well Well, then if being an architect, Tech was the obvious choice. It was a lot because it was close enough. And they offered the co-op plan, which back then in Depression was quite a factor. 

But it was only after I had decided to go to Tech and applied, set off and got the book that told the requirements to enter, and found in the architecture program, they did not offer the... I wanted to go co-op. I found out that they didn't offer architecture under the co-op plan. 

So, but anyway, I needed to go co-op for the financial reasons of being able to pay... Of course. 

So what year was that, that you graduated from high school? 

That was in 1940, I graduated. Okay. And you went right into college then? 

Yeah. 

Well, I found out in the spring that I had not, I did not look in advance about taking my courses. I had not taken any physics course. 

So to enter tech I had to have a course in physics. 

So I enrolled in summer school at Mercer in sophomore physics. 

And I got that behind me and I got into tech and and it then it was not being able to go co-op on the architectural program I just arbitrarily picked mechanical engineering and doesn't matter those first couple years you just don't go to school anyway had you been to the campus prior to that had you ever been up for football we took no I don't recall attending a football game but we did drive up to Atlanta and go around the campus and as a family yeah it's all the old set up and and I saw the co-op dormitory the Cloudman dormitory where I would be residing if I but you have any early impressions that you remember of what what you were getting into now we there were a number of Maconites friends of mine from high school that were entering Tech under the co-op plan. And I roomed with Billy Burns, my high school classmate. Oh, well that made it kind of fun then, didn't it? 

Right. 

And then in the room next door to us, we were on the third floor of Cloudman dormitory, and the room next to us was George Head and Jop Hogan who were from Macon. And Jop Hogan later became a... he lasted one quarter at Tech decided that wasn't for him. He became a doctor later. 

But it was still comfortable and familiar right off the bat because you had film your faces with you. 

What did you think about that school once you had the first few classes underway? 

Were you ready for that? 

Well, it was very obvious that you were going to have to study and there wasn't anything else to do but study. And we would occasionally come to Lincoln. 

Back in those days this was very common for college students to catch rides and we would if I wanted to come home for the weekend I'd we'd get back a little bag ride the trolley out it to the end of the line near the prison on the south side of Atlanta and stand out and hitch a ride and somebody would stop for you. Yeah, people would pick you up if you had a tech sweater on or something like that. It was just automatic. 

So you showed your colors so that you could get the ride. 

In the same way going back, but of course a lot of times on Sunday when you're going back there might be a tech person going back that had a car. 

So it wasn't a real big problem for you? did you ever take the train not between here and you didn't have to take the train then you could always get your ride it was I think after that that they started having the Nancy Hanks which was a passenger train that was very well liked and used by 1940 in the fall of 40 when you were starting school people were already starting to talk about the war that there was a risk you know the rest of the world was at war we weren't in it yet it was a whole year before we were going to get in it but there was a lot of talk do you remember having any misgivings or being concerned about that or did you were you pretty pretty free no I wanted to do what everybody else was going to do and we we were in I was in the ROTC program at Tech everybody had to join that when they got there right I'm not sure whether that was a requirement it was a requirement but yeah but and because of the fact that I had picked arbitrarily mechanical engineering they put me in the ordinance and so when I later ended up joining the Reserves. 

Once Pearl Harbor came along, all of us immediately wanted to join the Reserves and we thought they were going to let us stay for a while and then take us in, which they did. 

They called the Reserves in in 1943 and I was sent to to have any improving ground for my basic training. 

But then they found out I'd had three years of electrical engineering. 

I had changed my freshman year, not thinking that I'd rather be an electrical engineer than a mechanical engineer, so I changed to electrical engineering, and I had finished three years. 

So here I was in the ordnance, an electrical engineer. 

Well, the Army decided with my electrical engineering background, they sent me the ASDP program up at the University of Maine for nine months, taking it past electrical engineering. 

So I ended up being in the Signal Corps. 

So you actually got three years of electrical engineering in. Right, before the war. Tell me if you can remember any professors. Does anyone come back to you? 

I'm real bad about names. I can remember faces. It's quite strange to say it. I had an English professor that was very impressive to me. Was his name Glenn Rainey? 

He was the English professor at Tech at that time. Could be. Yeah, Glenn Rainey. Yeah, okay. He was very popular, very well-liked by the students. Right. Yeah. And we had a real strict drafting of mechanical drawing professors. Mechanical drawing drew a lot of people down. Yeah, a lot of people went down to the red pencils. How did you do with mechanical drawing? 

I did. I got through. I don't forget the grades, but I don't remember any real problems. What was your life like that pre-war Georgia Tech time? 

Did you have fun? 

Oh, yeah. You were pretty involved. You got into all kinds of things. Right. 

Well, on the co-op plan, when I got there, my father had been a final theater at Mercer, and the final theaters had already been courting me before I went up there. 

So, when I first moved into the dormitory, the first person in was to fight out from LaGrange, who later became my roommate when I joined fight out later, Dunston-Dunaway. And he wooed me into the fraternity. 

But we would go, we held off from fraternities for about six months, and we'd get a lot of free meals that way. Because they kept courting you for a while. And they said, yeah, come on over for supper. Right. Have lunch. Yes. 

But the fraternity at the time was located on North Avenue. I don't know. You've probably never even seen or heard of it. There were houses between the vast end and the stadium. Okay. All that. All that was private residences made into fraternity houses. 

And the five ounce at that time had bought a lot on Fowler Street, right over behind the ceramics building. And they were in the process of building. 

So they had a jewel that showed all that prospect, look, we've got a house going on. And that lured you a little bit more, huh? 

And I did join the following year. 

Now, as a co-op, you were there sometimes and sometimes you were off on work assignments. 

What kind of work assignments did you get? 

They got me a job with the Georgia Power Company here in Macon, so I'd come home and stay. 

I was first, I say I built Plant Arkwright, which is they were under construction at the time and I joined the engineers out there and we did the join the civil engineers and laying out the buildings and did all of the civil engineering work out there so it was a good experience it was very good and also I was on the substation maintenance crew on the George power company When the plant arc right was completed, I went to the substation maintenance and worked for Mr. 

Jackson and we would go around throughout the district that Macon had, painting the substation doors and windows and all the other kinds of things. Doing whatever needed doing. Whatever needed doing. 

Did you find that that was a good system, going to school some of the time and working some of the time? 

Very good, very good. Kept you out of debt? 

Right. 

As a matter of fact, the first quarter, my parents, of course, paid all my expenses the first quarter. 

But from that point on, I paid everything. Isn't that remarkable? 

That was a good system. It still is a good system. It is. And the experience you get is real good. 

And you learn what to expect on a job and how to relate to bosses and co -workers life experience now that first segment from 40 to 43 those first three years you were attack did you get involved in swimming at that time and in or was it in your later stint it was later after I came back from the army so the first three years were mostly working and fraternity life, football games when you were around? 

Oh, yeah. Right. We would go to all football games. Of course, Cloud Madone, the first year was right across in front of it. And yeah, we attended all the functions that take in. 

Do you remember ever taking part maybe in Rambling Wreck Parade? 

Well, joining Fraternity the next year, I participated a little. They'd all each build a wreck that was in the parade. And we'd assemble an old car in the backyard behind Fraternity House weeks in advance of the parade. And the parade would come around in front of our fraternity house. We used to sit out on the lawn and watch. We enjoyed it. It was a fun tradition even in 1940 and 41 and 42. 

What other memories do you have of Georgia Tech's traditions at those times? 

What was important to you? 

Well, when I came back from the service, it was a different experience. Oh yeah, that's completely different. 

But let's talk about your before the service. you're still a kid yeah right and I I really don't I mean it was strictly school and so there wasn't a whole lot of life before well I lived in the fraternity house from the end of the first year I moved into the fraternity house and room with Dunson Dunaway then and we had we had not too much social life? 

Yeah, we had parties and we had a lot of fun. 

I mean, at that time I did not drink, I had not had a drink, and I was 21 before I had my first drink. See, you were such a good boy. 

It was the influence of your father, the judge, right? 

He'd have killed you if you embarrassed him any time for sure. Absolutely and I wouldn't have. You would never have done that. 

But then the inevitable happened. 

You joined the reserves and they called the reserves up and that after three years of school you one more year to go they put the halt on you and off you went to war. Right. 

Do you remember where you were when Pearl Harbor occurred? 

I was in the fraternity house Sunday afternoon studying and we had a radio on and we heard what was going on and the fraternity did have a television set and oh you had a television set I'm are you sure no I probably didn't no you didn't not 1941 you didn't have one yet because it was a few years later it may have been a radio It was a radio, yeah. 

Well, we all went downstairs in the living room and listened. Yeah, and everyone knew it was going to change their life. Oh, yeah, and we, that night, sat out on the porch. They had rock and jazz. We'd discuss what was going on and what we were going to do. It must have been pretty scary for young men to know they were going to be called on. Yeah, not knowing what the height was going to affect you, really. 

But there were a lot of people that were wanting to go. It was really a couple of years before you got called up. 

We joined the reserves shortly after that and then let them decide what they wanted to do with us and they did call us up in 1943. And off you went to Maine after your boot camp was very good. 

What did the ASTP, is that what you said? 

The government really was into the education program of trying to train engineers. I mean, and I took advanced electrical engineering, having had three years prior to that at Tech. And when I graduated there, they put me in the signal corps. 

And well, they sent me back to Fort Monmouth, and there I went to OCS to become an officer, and I became a second lieutenant. and they attached me to a signal -based maintenance company, which was being formed at Fort Monmouth. We got on a, well, we spent six weeks. We were going to be shipped overseas, but they were waiting on an appropriate time. I don't know what it was, and I ended up looking back on it. We were anxious to go, but at the time, it's good that I didn't... Patton had already... I mean, they had the invasion, and a lot of my friends were killed. 

So you missed Normandy, in other words. Yeah, right. 

But we came in after that. 

But we went across the ocean in a convoy, and it had real rough weather going on, and it was quite an experience in a convoy. One of the ships was lost from the storm. I mean, two ships ran into each other. One of the ships went down. 

The only scary thing, once we got to the British Canal between France and Britain, we were coming in, we landed at Le Havre. 

And the night before, all the people on the ship said that the last time they came and made that trip that they lost a ship or two coming in. And you could hear it. 

They went in real slowly at night and you hear all this ******* and you didn't know there was going to be a bomb or whatever. 

But anyway, we landed there. And so you were in the European theater. Right. We joined. 

Once we landed, they attached us to Patton's 3rd Army, and he was going wildfire into Germany, and we followed along behind. 

And by being a fifth -echelon maintenance, we were supposed to find a factor somewhere and establish a maintenance to maintain the single core equipment. We had skilled workers, I mean, I don't know how many it must have been. They were all highly trained employees, I mean, enlisted people. 

Anyway, they would attach them to different organizations, and as an officer, a young officer in the thing, I was supposed to go and dispatch the mail to them, so I had a jeep and a driver, and we would pick up the mail and try to get it to different units, different places. one time we got ahead of where the army had gone. 

We went and checked on Spock and we got to a post and they said, well, where'd you come from? 

We told them and they said, well, we haven't taken that yet. 

But we were going fast. We went so fast thinking they shot at us anyway. Eager Beavers. 

So how long did you spend in that? 

Well, I stayed there, and then the war ended there, and we got a depot maintenance facility established there in Thienville, France, before the war finished, and we were actually repairing secret core equipment. 

But when the war ended, since we had so recently gotten there, rather than sending us home like they did most of them, they sent us to Marseille, France, in southern France. 

And we thought we were going to be able to go through the Suez Canal and make a complete trip around the world. We were going to Japan. 

But instead, we were the first ship that they diverted and sent through Gibraltar, across the Atlantic, through Panama Canal, and across the Pacific. Wow, that was still quite a trip. Right. 

Yeah, some of the men who had brothers in the Navy said that we spent more time on ship than the brothers. I was thinking that you probably did. You had as much time in it as most of the Navy guys did. We were in the middle of the Pacific when they told us, I mean, when they dropped the atomic bomb. You were out there in the middle of nowhere. Yeah, and they announced it. And we had been scheduled to be in the... Be going to Japan. Going to Japan. 

Well, we landed in Manila and stayed there and stayed there for a month or two. And then we were one of the first ships on up to Japan and we landed to Yokohama. 

So you did go on to Japan. We went on and we stayed in Japan nine months in the occupation. After the occupation troop after the bomb was dropped. Right. Enjoyed my trip there, too. 

So you were coming right after most of the heat of the battle was over. Your timing was impeccable, wasn't it? 

It really was. That's why I say I've led a charmed life. 

So you finally had enough points after nine months that they sent you back home. Right. 

At the time, they were trying to recruit, and they offered me the attractive enticement to stay on in the occupation rather than having to send somebody else over. 

But while I was in Germany, my father had had a heart attack, and there was a question they were thinking in terms of getting the Red Cross to send me home, But he recovered, I mean, and the word was mother didn't request that I come, and it wasn't really necessary. 

He was still living, and back at that time he was doing well, and just wouldn't let him do anything, and he lived on until 1951. 

So you didn't succumb to the offer to stay in occupation? 

I came on home. 

Meanwhile, now that I was on my way back to Tech to finish my career, and under the GI Bill, the government was going to pay, so I had no problem. 

So I entered architecture, a five-year course. Which is what you wanted to do in the first place. To begin with, right. 

So what you were doing was starting all over again. 

That was a pretty courageous thing to do well they they broke some ground that they told me later they wouldn't allow anybody else to do yet how they allowed me to take at the same time courses that was supposed to be sequential they were one was supposed to follow another which would have delayed me a five-year architecture course so they let me take them double up and take them so I was taking a the preliminary course and the more advanced course at the same time, and they didn't like the outcome, but anyway, they let me do it. 

But you were, this was 1946 when you came back, so you were going to do a five -year program in three years. Which I did, yeah. 

Yeah, which means some doubling up, but you already were a seasoned student after having gone through three years of electrical engineering, plus all your military training. 

So it was quite a change. 

Jack was a different boy when he came back, wasn't he? 

So coming back to Georgia Tech in 1946 was a good bit different than coming in 1940, wasn't it? 

Right. We were a lot more serious then. About school and about life in general? 

About life in general, yeah. And there were a lot of you. It was very crowded when you came back. Right. I lived in the fraternity house. 

Well, when I first came back, there was no space in the fraternity house. And I lived in an apartment with a friend of mine at the time of the Weincroft fire. Oh, the fire? 

Oh, you were living in the apartment then? 

Yeah, but only for a month or two. And then a vacancy occurred in the house, and I moved in again with Dunson-Nunaway. Did you really pick back up again? 

Wow, that's interesting. He made it back from the war safe and sound, too. 

While I was in Yokohama, I got a call on the telephone, and he said, Jack Holliday, this is Dunson -Nunaway. AND HE CAME UP AND JOINED ME ON REST AND RECUPERATION AT YOKOHAMA. IT'S THE STAFF FUN, SO YOU GUYS DID SEE EACH OTHER DURING THE WAR THEN. 

BUT YOU CAME BACK, AS YOU SAID, MORE SERIOUS, MORE CROWDED CAMPUS, BUT YOU STILL FOUND TIME TO DO A LOT OF STUDENT ACTIVITIES. YOU GOT PRETTY INVOLVED. I HAD NO OTHER COMMITMENTS AND DIDN'T HAVE TO GO TO CO-OP JOBS, AND WE STAYED continuous. I mean, went on through the three solid years. 

But essentially what you were doing was starting all over again. Even though you were a senior, you were still starting all over again in the architecture program. How long did it take you to figure out you were in the right place? 

Well, I enjoyed it. 

I mean, I knew that it had been what I wanted to do, and while I I was there, I had a job with an architect out in Decatur that I would go two or three afternoons a week. I'd catch the bus and go out to Decatur and work in his office. And it was back in the days before air conditioning. He was on a second -story or two-story building on the town square in Tequila, Mr. Peabody. Was it hot? 

It was hot. The windows were open, the fans were going, and you'd wear a sweatband around your head. Keep from messing up the drawing. Did he pay you to work? 

Were you an apprentice? 

Oh, yeah. No, this was a job. It was a job. Right. 

And I'd ride the bus back and forth, living at the third house, Now, tuition was being paid for by the GI Bill, but that was to give you spending money and income. Right. And you took to the architecture classes. Do you remember any of the teachers that were there at that time? 

Yes. 

And I'm bad on names, but Bush Brown was the head of the department, and then Hefner was the design instructor. Paul Hefman. Paul Hefman. Was Doc Gailey still around then? 

He was there. He was. Right, uh-huh. And we, the classes were held. They didn't have an architectural building at the time. We were on the top floor of the physics building up on the corner. pretty small classes there weren't a whole lot of you guys no and the light they cared about the lights would be on up there all night I mean architects were famous for they'd get a six weeks assignment of a project to design them or something and they'd sit around think about it for a long time and then do it And they'd go on charrette, as we called it, and they would stay up there. Do it at the last minute, huh? 

John Dennis said he didn't leave there for 72 hours one time. My word, how he must have smelled. That's all I can think. It was something else. 

But you had fun. You were enjoying it. Oh, yeah, right. 

Now, you did something that a lot of architects didn't do, and that's you took time to get involved in other campus things, including the swimming program. 

Well, we had several in the fraternity that were on the swimming team, and I was looking for some means to stay in shape and exercise, not going like they do these days, going to one of these health centers. 

So I decided to join the swimming team. I had been swimming all my life, been a major recreation that we did. We were members of a local lake, a private lake, and had always done swimming. 

So I joined the swimming team, and Leneau was the coach, and he was famous. Famous, famous Freddie Leneau. Right. And by that time, he was very famous because he had invented his process during the war. It was adopted, I think, by the Navy as a system of teaching. 

But I was not, I mean, I... You were not his star swimmer? 

No, I did it for physical exercise, but I swam pretty good. but I made only one trip that we went to the University of Georgia and I did win my match. You did? 

So you were on Freddie's good side then. 

What did you think of him? 

What kind of a guy was he? 

He was a real down to earth person and real well liked by the team members. 

So you all got along fine with him. And he wasn't well liked by everybody. Some guys were scared to death of him. they must have been the ones that weren't good in the water right maybe because you were good in the water now you you took a leadership role with the fraternity and became a head of the IFC is that correct I was president of fraternity in 48 I believe and then was on the Interfraternity Council for two years that was the last year I was president of it and my wife likes the fact that the big dances we would have that she would be the lead female. She liked that lead out dance. 

Now let's talk about your wife. Where did you meet Cordelia? 

Well our Our families knew each other in Macon. Her father had a real estate company in town, a very prominent family, and she had two sisters. And they would come to my house. My mother sewed costumes, and they would play in Macon, and they would come fit for costumes. so I met met her early on thought she was real cute and then really had no further contact with her until when I came back from the service the I had dated her sister I when I was president of the high school fraternity I had to go meet her mother and and get her mother to give permission for her sister George Ann, the middle sister, to become a sponsor of our fraternity. And so, while I was overseas, I wrote, corresponded with George Ann, among one or two other girls. 

And so when I came back, my former roommate, Billy Burns, had an old Jeep that he had bought at one of these auctions for a few hundred dollars and said, let's go to the beach. it was in August, and see what's going on down there. 

So we went to St. Siemens and we got there and found out a lot of the girls were down there on their vacation. 

There was a boarding house down there where Georgianne and Corky were renting rooms along with other girlfriends so I called out to get a date with her sister and she wasn't there but Calky answered the phone and she said we're gonna be out on the beach we'll see out on the beach so when I met Georgia Calky after she had grown up so you're seeing her and I didn't see George Ann again so that's when you started dating her right after the war so then did she come visit you at Tech sometimes yeah we had fraternity house parties and she came up and so y'all started going steady we started going steady we were dated for well almost three years before we married in 49 now what what big dances happened while you were there. Tell me about those. 

Well, the Interfraternity Council would sponsor, and I've really forgotten how many, it was several dances during the course of a year, and they would have big bands, Tommy Dorsey and... Actually really famous people. Famous, yeah, right. And they would be really big deals then. Right. 

Now, how did she get, how did you and she get the privilege because you were president you got the one the one year that I was president and that meant that you were the first ones out of the dance floor is that yeah lead out and the president tell me what that means the lead out well and at some point of an intermission they would announce the the inter-praternity officers and their dates and the members of the inter-praternity council and they would line up and come out of a dormitory in the whatever dance hall they were in and would go out and they would dance and no one else was on the floor I think so so with some attention yeah you were in the spotlight then and she would love that wouldn't she yeah you had a good time what What other things do you remember? 

You were involved in ANAC for the last couple of years. 

Well, actually in my senior year they select, you know, four or five people each year to be in ANAC, which was supposedly one of the highest on there. 

And it was an accumulation of what, I guess, the fact that I had been president of the architectural society club that was there, president of my fraternity and president of the fraternity council. You were mad about campus. 

Well, I was, at that time, of course, was older than the young guys. Yeah, but there were a lot of older guys there. 

Oh, yeah, well, it was, and we had a lot of, the school then, of course, where now it's how many, it's 20,000? 

No, we stay at under 15. Under 15. It was around 3 or 4,000 then. 

So you're trying to tell me it was easy to be a big man on the campus. I don't think so. I think it took a lot of your energy and time. You had to do a lot of things. And you were on the Honor Society. 

So school was coming well for you. You were doing well in school. I spent my time studying. You did. Even though you were in the fraternity and everything else, you still studied. And you really did enjoy being an architect. You liked your projects. Right. 

Well, when I left, I mean, after I graduated. And you graduated in the summer of 49, in June? 

Right, in June of 49. And then when did you get married? 

We got married in November. 

So it was, we had already announced I think in about June, I'm not sure, my brother and his wife announced the same Sunday in the paper they had a picture of Coggy and Mary up side by side. 

So your mom and dad got it over with all at one time. It was a hectic year for mother. Yeah, it was. 

So you got married then, that fall. 

When you graduated from school, you came back to Macon then to take up your time with a company and you went to work for... 

I went to work for Dennis & Dennis Architects, who was a second generation at that time, the third generation actually and they were well established for him and done what they did that they considered the auditorium and done a lot of work so you were going to get some real practical experience from them and I worked for them for three and a half almost four years before and then you needed to have three years of experience with a registered architect before you could apply for them. 

So your father had an opportunity to see you be a practicing architect then? 

Right. He lived to 51 and he saw us married. Yeah, very much so I think. And your mom, she called the shots. Yeah. She was right about that, huh? 

She lived on until she was 89 and she died in 72 I believe. 

So she had plenty of time to see you be successful. right she lived in the same house that you were born in that we were born in right that i still own and that i'm adding on to now for my daughter that's really nice well tell me about your career as an architect what gave you the greatest satisfaction in that career well we at the end the four years, I decided that I needed to get out on my own. I worked four years for Denison -Denison. I knew I was not incumbent. I had no children at the time. And I decided I needed to go on and make the breakings. 

And I had a contractor friend who had given I was designing his house at home on my own and he wanted me to do an office building for him and that sort of thing so I went on and made the break and practiced for three months at home in the apartment where we were living and then opened my own office downtown town in the building that I designed for this contractor. 

They were struggling along for ten years and there were three other Georgia Tech architectural, not all of them graduated One of them went to Harvard for a year or two, but all three were Georgia Tech men, and in practice, one by himself, like I, and the other two together, and we decided, let's get together and merge, which we did in 1964. And we established a firm called Matthews, Holliday, Couch, and Hollis. And this was the best thing that happened to my architectural career, really. 

We were able to have one office and one secretary and consolidate everything, and we, from that time until how many, 25 more years, we never without work, we did more than our share of architectural work in Macon and we had a delightful career so it was a good move very good and over that period of time you came to be specialists and medical facilities you meant we right we eventually ended up that of course we did everything in Macon you do small work and big work and whatever comes your way whatever comes your way and the people that wanted to do houses might be the head of a corporation that's going to build a big building and we did all types of work we did one of the major office buildings here in town the liberty federal building we did the st paul apartments building we did macon junior college when it came to establish here we did to our initial campus. 

We did most of the medical school, and we did a lot of the buildings that the medical center built, and we did a lot of work initially for Charter Medical, which was a new firm that came to make it. We did Northside Hospital, and we came more and more into the medical phase of it. 

Jordan Jones joined the firm, and he more or less specialized in medical buildings and it's been very successful you can look you can drive around Macon and see your proof of your pudding as they say huh that's pretty neat thing about being an architect right you can well we did fire stations we did schools we must have done I'm gonna guess five or six schools and and we did most of the fire station they had a city and the county joined together and and do their fire department jointly and we did all the new stations back when they were really expanding and that must be fun to design a fire station they don't have poles that you slide down anymore. They don't have those anymore. Oh darn, that sounds good. Mr. Holliday, tell me about your family, your children. 

We had no children for seven years and we decided to adopt children and we did and we were most successful. Your good luck with folding. Tell me about them. Got a delightful daughter and a great son. And your daughter's name is? 

Fran. 

She is married to ***** Sanford, and he has two children of his own, so they don't have his children of theirs. 

But the daughter and son of ***** are right now 16 and 18. 

So two teenagers. 

Right, and ***** and Fran are in the antique business and finished the refinishing business and busy as bees. 

And then Riley, and now that's your son Riley and he has been in computers and he has worked for three companies, one of which went bankrupt. The company went bankrupt and let 6,000 people go on one weekend. 

And he joined Bella South and they downsized and he's now with the Department of Transportation in Atlanta. 

And they moved from Smyrna in northwest Atlanta to Hampton, Georgia, which is southeast Atlanta, a lot more convenient than making, 50 minutes away. yeah that's good he's got a delightful daughter Rebecca that's four and a son that under my wife's suggestion they've named Jackson Riley holiday the second how about that a little namesake for you and you're bringing those you're influencing those children properly so they should be yellow jackets when they We don't see enough of them. 

We saw a darling picture of them in their little honeybee outfits looking all the world like yellow jackets for Halloween. That's a precious picture. 

We are proud of being a Georgia Tech graduate and the kids decided to buy those Georgia Tech costumes and put on them. That's a lot of fun. now we need to cultivate the children so that they come to Georgia Tech right be more rambling wrecks right when you look back on your career which isn't ended yet because you said you are working on this house they belong to your mom again if your mom was a wise woman she gave you the right directions didn't Right. She was really a wheeler and dealer. She knew you were going to be a good architect. She lived by herself until she died, fell and broke her hip and had complications. 

But in this house, which is still in the family. And it gives you great pleasure to have it. You've restored it, renovated it? 

Well, no, we're adding a room on the back of the terrace. Make it more livable. Right. 

And when my father died, we built a house in the backyard that was prior to planting and zoning restrictions, And we built a wall around on the property line so that it takes full advantage of all the property. 

And it's a wall enclosed, a little patio, and a little fish pond, and a contemporary house that's been rented since the day we did that. 

So that was a good move, too. 

Now Corky would be very upset with you, and Corky is Mrs. 

Holliday, if you didn't tell the story of your early motor home she loved that you got there it was a real part of our life because in 1973 Jim General Motors made a motor home called a GMC motor home it was revolutionary was front wheel drive it was very slow very low sort of gravity and then just one step into the motor home and it was I think one of the best design and it's still a classic and the people are restoring them and they're becoming antiques yeah and we kept it for 25 years I believe wow that long yeah and we would go to all the tech football well Well, we've had Tech football season tickets for all these many years, and we started out with four, and now we're down to two. 

But while we had the motorhome, at a home game, we would call and get six couples to join us. And we would drive up to Atlanta and park. We parked in various locations, but we ended up at the Price Gilbert Library. We found a light pole out there that had a convenience outlet in it. 

So you could plug in, huh? 

We'd plug in. We could have air conditioning if it was hot. 

So you tailgated in comfort, is that it? until they decided that the park in that exclusive parking lot required a thousand dollar a year contribution they went you were in the high-rent district but you remember many a happy trip to Atlanta going to the to the ball games we still get friends who've gone with us that tell us how much they enjoyed it and we went to a lot of Georgia games too. 

Isn't it interesting something that happened so long ago you've been out of school now more than 50 years but the friendships you made then are still solid the relationship with the school it's still an important part of your life. 

When we go through college we don't realize how important that's going to be. 

And when I see people that I've had friends that well I've got a real good friend John Comer who went to Harvard and it's a great school and it's a prestigious name and that sort of thing but I've got some he doesn't have I although he came back to University of Georgia and made a lot of Georgia friends but my career at Tech There's very few towns in the state of Georgia that I don't know somebody who went to Tech through association with it. And in most cases, they are prominent people in that town. And really, I mean, you could almost go anywhere and know somebody. Tech people are cream. They rise to the top, right? 

All you got to do is come into any community and look around. You're going to find your Tech boys. there yeah and now it's going to be tech girls too the same way with women as they come through so well you told me when we started this that you were lucky and i'm inclined to agree with you after hearing your life you have had a very nice charm charming life and uh you're very fortunate very blessed and georgia tech was blessed to have you too we're delighted that we can call you a Rambling Wreck, and we thank you so much for giving us your time this afternoon to hear your story. 

Well, I appreciate y'all coming and bearing with me. It's been a pleasure, sir. Thank you.