Sunday, October 28, 2007

George Frederick Holliday 885-968

George had some difficulty to adapt himself to the climate in Brazil and for many years during the holidays (winter in Europe but hot summer in Brazil) he stayed alone in school in England . It seems that this happened very often.
We don't know exactly when did George decided to come back to Brazil. It seems that this only happened long after his college graduation, in the mid twenties.
George was a red hair, blue eyed and very tall man. He liked to play piano, and music seems to be one of his passions. There's an old Irish song, Mackushla, his daughter Thereza remembers he often used to listen in a record player.
He studied at Oxford University and graduated in Electrical Engineering by the City and Guilds of the London Institute, as shown in his college registers that still exist. There are reports about him working in the assembling of the Buenos Aires Telephone Company and even that, once, while in an expedition, he and friends got lost in the Andes, what shows his wish for adventure. In fact, hunting and fishing were indeed his hobbies.
In 1925 he married Esther Calmon , younger and last surviving daughter of Joao Philipe Calmon, a prosperous farmer from Espirito Santo and head of one of the most powerfil families of the region.
In 1926 George and Esther lost an unborn child, but in 1927 was born their first son Patrick, followed by Thereza Amelia in 1929. Thereza was to be named Elizabeth as her grandmother, but shortly after she was born, some kind of complication made her eyes to close. Her father made a promised to Sta. Terezinha , naming the little girl in her honor, after she got well.
George didn't get along very well with the Brazilian way of life . His strict education made him a severe person. He had only a few friends, during his life in Brazil and he kept no relations in England.
The family lived for many years in Botafogo at Rua Capistrano de Abreu, 42, and in 1948 they moved to Copacabana, at Rua Domingues Ferreira 188. George was diabetic and for a man his stature, aging became a very painful process. He was 6'3" 1/2 high (1,90m).
In 1957 he had a heart attack of minor consequences. In his late years, blindness caused by glaucoma as a consequence of diabetes increased his loneliness and soon, he also became deaf. George Frederick died in 1968, after a major stroke while sleeping. He was 83 years old . Esther Augusta
died in 1975, at 84, after a short illness.




George Frederick Holliday in School,17-British Census of 1901

Saturday, October 27, 2007

Elizabeth Daly Holliday 856-926

Elizabeth Daly,James' wife,
was born in 1856, England,
she was the daughter of
Daniel Daly and his wife,
Margaret Collins Daly.
Daniel was Irish and he and his brother Patrick, both married the Collins sisters Margaret and Mary. It seems that the two brothers worked or owned a Distillery in Ireland. Patrick moved together with Mary, to London were he intended to open a subsidiary of the Company.
Those marriages were never accepted by neither families, due probably to religious issues. When Patrick was living in England with Mary, he suddenly died. His death was shortly followed by Mary's who apparently couldn't stand living without her beloved husband.
Consequently their children, Mary Ann (later called Pauline), Jeremiah, and Patrick Jr., went back to Ireland to live with their cousins, and consequently, when Daniel decided to move to Brazil, they came along.
Daniel and Margaret had five children, Elizabeth was the second, preceded by Mary Ann in 1854, Daniel in 1855, and followed by Jeremiah in 1857(there's still a doubt about Jeremiah being a son or a nephew), and Margaret in 1873. Aunt Meg as she was later known, was the only one born in Brazil in 1873.
Elizabeth met her future- husband James Frederick Holliday in Rio de Janeiro. They were probably introduced to each other by friends of the British society of Rio, which is known as a very close one.
They lived in Brocoio Island, in the Guanabara Bay, in Rio de Janeiro, where the City Improvements Company provided them a house, and where they raised the 6 children they had. Is said that Elizabeth's cousin, Mary Ann, also known as Pauline, lived there in Brocoio Island too, later she would marry a certain Mr. Vedey, and got one son , named John. There's no record about Mary Ann's brother and sister.
This property would be later, in the 1920's purchased by the Guinle family, and transformed into a Normand style mansion. Now days it's a summer house for Rio de Janeiro's Governor.
Elizabeth died of heart complications in 1926,
She was 70 years old.

James Frederick Holliday 853-939

Son of George Holliday and Lydia Standbridge, he was born on June 21st of 1853,at Dyers Lane in Putney,Surrey,England and baptized in October 21st, of 1856in Farnham also in Surrey County.
He had four sisters and two brothers, George, born in 1849 and Henry, 1860. James first came to Brazil in 1880 as shown in his passport he left England after some sort of serious misunderstanding with his father, who wanted him to join the army, what was against James wishes, as well as his brother, George, four years older than him.
He preferred the Engineering career. In 1880 he took a trip to South America in order to visit his brother in Bolivia, who was working there, building bridges. He seems to have been a Civil Engineer. During this trip, the ship stopped in Santos , a port of Brazil , and James met a certain Mr. Scob, an English gentleman who worked there for the local Gas Company. This Mr. Scob was facing a very hard time due to his wife's illness, and had decided to go back to England, and so, offered James his position at the company.This information is somehow controversial, because only two years later, James already was in Rio de Janeiro, were he got married, what leads us to assume that the actual position was that of major executive of the Rio de Janeiro City Improvements Company, a British company, which controlled the water supply and waste water treatment in the city. This company was later purchased by the government and now is the Cedae.
As we know, James got married to Elizabeth Daly in December 26st, 1882 at the Mosteiro de San Bento, after had abjured the Protestant faith, on December 24. The original document is kept by Patrick Holliday.They had four sons and two daughters.
In 1929 James renewed his passport and took a trip to England again probably to see his daughter Erin and his relatives.In October, the 11Th of 1939, James died, at the Foreigners Hospital in Rio, Brazil.He was 85.


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JAMES HOLLIDAY Pedigree Male
------------------------------------------------------------------Event(s): Birth: Christening: 21 OCT 1856 Farnham, Surrey, England Death: Burial:
-----------------------------------------------------------------Parents: Father: GEORGE HOLLIDAY Family Mother: LYDIA
------------------------------------------------------------------------Messages: Extracted birth or christening record for the locality listed in the record. The source records are usually arranged chronologically by the birth or christening date.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------Source Information: Batch No.: Dates: Source Call No.: Type: Printout Call No.: Type: C069731 1813 - 1876 0800473 Film 6906188 Film Sheet: 00
TitleParish registers of Farnham, 1539-1895
AuthorsChurch of England.