Homer Bishop Holliman, 1919
the Fifth Child of Ulyss and Pearl Caine Holliman
Two years after Ulyss Holliman moved his family from Fayette, Alabama to a suburb of the economically prosperous city of Birmingham, a fifth child was born. His name was Homer Bishop Holliman. Why the Homer? We don't know what Ulyss and Pearl were thinking, except it was not unusual in the family to have Latin and Biblical names - Uriah, Cornelius, Elijah, Ezekiel and Ulysses had mixed with John, James, Thomas, William and Christopher for generations.
Bishop was the last name of a good friend of Ulyss, G.D. Bishop who in 1921 would sell Ulyss a lot on 3rd Avenue, Irondale where the family would build a six room house (minus a bathroom) in 1922. In that house first Ulyss and Pearl would raise their family from the 1920s to Pearl's death in 1955, and then later Euhal and Edna Holliman from 1956 until the early 1990s.
Below, Bishop in the family chicken yard, holding a hen in Irondale.
In the new subdivision of Irondale, Bishop would grow, attend school, play a lot of sand lot baseball, and even clay court tennis on the hill behind the house. His Mother's sister, Aunt Maude lived behind them, and the children would play with the Cook children, their first cousins.
Bishop graduated from high school in 1937, and with help and encouragement from two dynamic brother-in-laws, Robert Daly and Charles Ferrell, he enrolled in Birmingham-Southern College. With the encouragement of Charles and Loudelle Holliman Ferrell, Bishop was active in state and regional Methodist youth activities, even being elected president of the North Alabama Youth Conference. In 1937 he won a Young Republican's speaking contest in Memphis, railing against government intrusion on the private sector of the economy.
Ironically, Bishop would spend his career as an administrator and manager of the Social Security Administration, a federal program created during Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal. The agency provides old age pensions and disability payments for the American people.
In November 1941, he joined the U.S. Navy. Pearl Harbor day found him at the barracks in Norfolk, Virginia. His parents, the Ferrells and his tall younger brother Ralph, drove all the way from Irondale to Key West, Florida in February 1942 to see him. Singapore fell that month, and shortly there after the Japanese took Bataan and Corregidor. German U-Boats sank dozens of freighters and tankers off the East Coast of the United States. It was a scary and unnerving time. A year later in 1943, two of his brothers, Ralph and Melton, joined him on active military service.
Back home in Irondale in the Robert Daly, Sr. home, that February 1942, Walter Cornelius married Virginia Holliman, Bishop's younger sister. By 1943, brother-in-law Walter would be in the Army Air Corp. The Holliman family was at war.
Note: The information and opinions expressed in these family biographies are those of the writer alone. Comments, corrections and additions are most welcome. The purpose of these articles is to capture a period and family in American history and to pass this legacy along to future generations who share the common bond of family.
Plan now to attend the Holliman and Associated Families Genealogical Round Table at the Fayette County, Alabama Civic Center, 10 am to 3 pm, Saturday, October 15, 2011. For information and reservations for lunch, contact Glenda Norris at gnorris@bcbsal.org or Glenn Holliman at Glennhistory@gmail.com. Sessions to include Tracing the Holymans from England to Alabama, Holliman Farm Sites in Fayette County and sharing of information on Associated Families. All invited
