Ulyss and Pearl Caine Holliman and their Descendants

Ulyss S. Holliman

1884 - 1965

by Glenn N. Holliman

In February 2010, with the help of my daughter, Grace Holliman, I began publishing articles on the Holliman family. An abundance of material made available by cousins Rhodes Holliman, Ron Holliman and others, plus my own research, has led me further back into our family past than I had originally planned or thought possible. I intend to continue to write and publish such information at http://hollimanfamilyhistory.blogspot.com/.

However, thanks to my father, sisters and cousins, I have accumulated a tremendous number of photographs and letters. Of the seven children of Ulyss and Pearl Caine Holliman, four have left us. Memories of a time and place in Southern and American history are slipping away. My cousins and I are not getting younger. Thanks to the internet, it is possible to collect information easily and share it with family. With this new blog, I hope to focus exclusively on my father's parents, their families and descendants.

The young man above is my grandfather. Rhodes Holliman made this photograph available to me. This picture resembles my own father, Bishop Holliman (b 1919) as a young man in the 1930s. There is also a strong resemblance to my Uncle Ralph Holliman, whom his daughters, Pam and Kathy may notice. Probably this picture was made in Fayette, Alabama in the late 1890s, perhaps in the year 1900.

Ulyss was the last born of six brothers to a Civil War veteran, John Thomas Holliman, and his second wife, Martha Jane Walker Holliman. John seems to have been a simple farmer who worked hard to bring in a crop each year and cloth and feed his many boys. He died in 1930 and Martha Jane, shortly after. They died poor leaving little in worldly goods. However, they gave their sons a sense of morality and purpose. Their sons, whatever their career paths and financial success or lack of it, seemed to have all been of high moral character.

Ulyss was gifted with his hands, and spent his adult life working first in the wood mill in Fayette, and then in 1918 as a carpenter with the Birmingham Electric Company, repairing the wooden street cars. He retired in 1949 at the age of 65.

This grandfather of mine was taciturn, a person of few words and he had difficulty showing emotion (other than annoyance perhaps). This was balanced by his strong work ethic, rising early and stoking a coal fire in the winter, commuting a long distance from the home in Irondale, Alabama to the street car yard, and then back again late in the evening. Until Roosevelt's New Deal, he worked six days a week, had no sick days and no vacation time.

In 1906 he married one of the Caine sister's in Fayette, one Pearl Caine. Together this couple would have seven children. In future articles, I will be writing of Grand Mother Holliman and the seven children.

Opinions expressed are mine alone. I welcome comments, critique and especially additional memories and photos. Please let me know if one wishes a photo removed or commentary edited. No photos of current under age descendants are published. My email address is Glennhistory@gmail.com. My thanks to the family for the use of materials.