A native of Atlanta born on February 5, 1921, Mary Frances Broach was the younger daughter Dr. James Arthur Broach, DDS, and Henrietta Stanley Dull Broach of Atlanta and was the Grand-Daughter of Mrs. S.R. (Stanley Rice) Dull author of the well-known cookbook “Southern Cooking” which was first published in 1928; both parents, her Grand-Mother, and her older sister Dorothy McCall Thurston of Atlanta have predeceased her, and Mary Frances passed away on September 16 of this year.
Mary Frances attended and graduated from Washington Seminary High School in 1939. While there she was elected president of her PiPi sorority and of the Panhellenic Counsel, was a member of the May Court, the Roundtable Business Annual, was a high school cheerleader, and was awarded the schools highest honor, “Spirit of the Seminary”.
Her Mother, Daughter of Mrs. Dull, taught cooking lessons in Atlanta; with the income she purchased a cottage in St. Simons about a ½ mile East of the pier. She spent many, many happy days there and had many house parties hosted by her Mother. During WWII, she remembered soldiers with dogs patrolling along the beech searching for intruders.
She attended Shorter College where she was elected President of the Freshman Class and was named “Outstanding Freshman”.
During the war, Mary Frances served as a ‘Pink Lady’ at Emory University Hospital. She also served as President of the Rabun Gap Nacoochee Auxiliary for the Tallulah Falls School.
In December of 1942 Mary Frances married Edgar Cashion Holmes from Moultrie Georgia who was then in medical school at Emory. Upon his completion of medical school and residencies, they moved to Moultrie Georgia where he practiced medicine until his death in 1955. She and Edgar had identical twin boys – James Edgar and John Hunt– in March of 1945, and a daughter Florence Dull in October of 1949.
While living in Moultrie for 20 years, Mary Frances served as President of the Moultrie Service League. She was very proud that during her affiliation with the League a school for the deaf was sponsored and built patterned after the Junior League School in Atlanta.
Mary Frances was also a charter member of the Trinity Baptist Church in Moultrie where she taught Sunday School for many years, served as Superintendent of the Sunday School, and served as the Director of the Church’s Summer Vacation Bible School for 10 years.
In 1955, when Mary Frances was 34 and Edgar was 36, he died from a coronary, and she found herself a widow with three children under the age of 10. She immediately became a landlord of some rental property; through urban renewal she converted this property into a building that she leased out to Colonial Store, and also built a professional building for two dentists. Additionally, she returned to school and learned to be a bookkeeper.
Mary Frances Francis remarried in 1958 to Roy Elwood Parrish, Jr., and they continued to reside in Moultrie. Through that marriage she gained two wonderful Step-Children, Betsy Parrish Healy of Ooltewah, TN., and Buddy Parrish of Cumming, GA. She considered them to be as much a part of her family as she did her own children.
In 1967 after Florence, the youngest child, graduated from Moultrie High School, she returned to Atlanta. Her first job was Banquet Director at the old Parliament House Hotel which was managed by her sister, Dorothy Broach Thurston. She often told us this was the hardest job she ever had. However, her being familiar with hotel was fortuitous in that her sister was severely injured in an automobile wreck. Mary Frances then became acting manager as well as continuing to be the Banquet Director.
Mary Frances had known Harry Norman, the founder of Harry Norman Realty, in high school; he convinced her to enter real estate which she did in the early 1970s. She earned both her agents license and her broker license. From then until about 2005 she sold residential real estate for Harry Norman, being of a member of the Real Estate Million Dollar Round table multiple times.
In 1999 Mary Frances married John James (Jack) Woodside; during this marriage she and Jack were members of the University Yacht Club and spent many wonderful days on Lake Lanier at this Club. She also many happy hours playing bridge at the Club.
Mary Frances is a member of The National Society of The Colonial Dames of America in the State of Georgia and Member of the Atlanta Town Committee of Georgia of the National Society, the Atlanta History Center, a life member of the Friends of the Atlanta Library, a charter member of the High Museum of Art, a life member of the Shepherd Spinal Center Auxiliary, a member of the Peachtree Garden Club where she served as President, and a member of Trinity Presbyterian Church. In addition to her church membership, she served as a ‘Stephen Minister’ at Trinity for over 10 years.
She was also a charter member and a long serving member of a group called the ‘Moultrie Mafia’; this was a group of people of her generation that had grown-up in or had lived in Moultrie, Georgia. The group got together once a month, and it was a very special part of her active social engagements.
Mary Frances is survived by her son James Edgar Holmes and his wife Margaret of Atlanta, and by her daughter Florence Dull Holmes and her husband Jeff of Roswell. Other members of her family include Mrs. Renee Bartelmay Holmes of Jacksonville, FL., the widow of her deceased son John Hunt Holmes and John’s Step-Son Jason Bradley Burris, Grand-Daughters Sarah Elizabeth Stone Holmes of Evanston, Ill. and Amanda Groover Turner and her husband Christopher Scott Turner of Cumming, GA., Great Grand-Daughter Haley Rae Groover of Cumming, Step-Daughter Betsy Parrish Healy of Ooltewah, TN. and her husband Rob, Step-Son Roy (Buddy) E. Parrish III of Cumming, GA. and his wife Becky, nephew Curtis A. Thurston and his wife Debbie of Cumming, nieces Rhetta Thurston Morales of The Villages, Fl., Louise McCall (Deesi) Thurston Phillips of Atlanta, and Maribel Holmes Montgomery of Moultrie, GA. Others family members that have predeceased her are her sister Dorothy Broach Thurston of Atlanta and her nephew Jim Hunt Holmes of Columbia, TN.
Mary Frances lived by herself and on her own until age 95; she then had part-time care providers that gradually became full-time are in March of 2021. She could not possibly have had more caring and more dedicated ladies caring for her. They were (in alphabetical order): Valencia (Val) Almon, Hyacinth (Hy) Campbell, Anita Cody, Dedra Kimbro, and Sibi Lawson.
In lieu of flowers, Mary Frances requests that a Memorial Gift be made to any of the following: the Shepherd Spinal Center in Atlanta; Trinity Presbyterian Church in Atlanta; or, the Colquitt County Arts Center in Moultrie, Ga.
Service Arrangements:
The family has decided to have two interments, both on October 7th. One will be at Arlington Cemetery in Sandy Springs at 11:00am and will be for the family. The second will be for family and friends in the Memorial Garden at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Atlanta at 12:30pm. This will be followed by a reception at the Church. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that Memorial Gifts be sent to: Trinity Presbyterian Church in Atlanta, The Shepherd Spinal Center in Atlanta, or the Colquitt County Arts Center in Moultrie, GA.
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