Martha Holoubek Fitzgerald's Blog, page 2

Dr. Alice and little Catherine

The final version of “Courtship” comprises excerpts from roughly 300 letters. “One of the greatest challenges was deciding which subplots and minor characters to leave on the cutting room floor,” writes author and editor Martha Fitzgerald. “But I made sure to keep some lovely little gems.

“Here’s one of my favorites. It’s about little Catherine, one of Mother’s pediatric patients at Charity Hospital in New Orleans.”

Today she climbed up on the desk where I was writing night orders and said, ‘Dr...

Book signing set at Barnes & Noble

Circle the date! Author Martha Fitzgerald’s first official book signing will be from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., Saturday, August 18, 2012, at her hometown Barnes & Noble, 6646 Youree Drive in Shreveport, Louisiana. “We plan to make this a ‘book fair,’ with a percentage of the sales set aside for LSU School of Medicine, Shreveport,” says Fitzgerald, formerly a columnist and associate editorial page editor of the Shreveport Times.

The Courtship of Two Doctors, a medical biography drawn from her parents...

Physicians will identify with story, says chancellor

“Through the remarkable letters from a courtship between two young physicians during their training,” says Dr. Robert A. Barish, “we are transported back to a time when doctors made house calls, bravely exposed themselves to infectious diseases, and wholly surrendered their personal lives for their calling.”

Barish is chancellor of LSU Health Shreveport, the cornerstone of northwest Louisiana’s health-care industry.

“Dr. Joe Holoubek was a skilled physician and a giant in the history of the LSU...

“Courtship” benefits medical school, marriage program

Martha Fitzgerald, author of The Courtship of Two Doctors, has pledged proceeds from sales to causes she shares with her late parents, Drs. Alice and Joe Holoubek: the LSU School of Medicine in Shreveport and the marriage ministry program of the Diocese of Shreveport.

Dr. Joe chaired the committee that founded the medical school in the 1960s. He served the school as associate clinical professor and clinical professor of medicine, later being named emeritus clinical professor of medicine.

Also i...

Book of letters to be released on 75th anniversary

Alice Baker and Joe Holoubek met in the summer of 1937 in Rochester, Minnesota, and began a two-year correspondence across 1,100 miles. Both were senior medical students, she in New Orleans and he in Omaha. Alice was the daughter of a former horse-and-buggy doctor. Joe was the grandson of Bohemian homesteaders, and English was his second language, learned when he started school.

Letters flew back and forth twice a week their last year in school and every day their internship year. They wrote about professors and fellow students in Louisiana, Nebraska, and Minnesota, about physicians and patients, illnesses and treatments, family and friends, football, songs, and movies. And their fancy turned to deep respect and abiding love.

From a private collection of their nearly 800 letters, daughter Martha Holoubek Fitzgerald has crafted a rare blend of compelling love story and enticing history. Look for "The Courtship of Two Doctors: A 1930s Love Story of Letters, Hope & Healing" in your favorite bookstore August 15---75 years after Dr. Joe and Dr. Alice met.

Class photo, 1937

Where Dr. Joe and Dr. Alice met, as members of the 1937 summer fellowship program in pathology at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Joe Holoubek is third from left, dressed in white, standing next to Alice Baker.

Dr. Joe and Dr. Alice on the healing profession

(Excerpts from The Courtship of Two Doctors)

"There is still much to be done in the field of medicine, and let us do our share—not for private and personal gain, but for the benefit of the profession and the multitude.”
Joe Holoubek to Alice Baker, November 12, 1937

"I hope I can someday be worthy of being called a ‘real doctor’ . . . which to me is the ultimate of human goodness, kindness, and helpfulness."
Alice to Joe, November 29, 1937

Father and daughter began "Courtship" together

Early in 2007, Martha Fitzgerald had her parents’ nearly 800 courtship letters transcribed, and she and her father, Dr. Joe Holoubek, began editing them together. They planned an abridged compilation of the collection, for the many readers of his 2004 award-winning novel Letters to Luke. Dr. Joe wrote the first draft of a prologue. Set in Rochester, Minnesota, in 1937, it recounted how he and his future wife, senior medical students from Omaha and New Orleans, met at Mayo Clinic.
For several m...