Family
From the beginning of his career, both literary and medical, Holmes’ personal life also engaged him, with his marriage to Amelia Lee Jackson, the niece of James Jackson, in 1840, and the births of the three children, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841-1935), Amelia (1843-1889), and Edward (1846-1884).
Amelia Holmes died in 1888, after many years of illness, and Holmes’ widowed daughter, Amelia Sargent, then came to live with him. Following her death in April, 1889, Wendell Holmes, Jr., and his wife, Fanny, began to care for Holmes in his final years as both his sight and hearing began to fail. Oliver Wendell Holmes died on October 7, 1894.