Ulyss and Pearl Caine Holliman and their Descendants

The Golden Summers of the 1930s, Part XIV
by H. Bishop Holliman 2011

In late 1936, the 16 year old Bishop Holliman wrote a 'book' on the great hurricane of 1936 that his family had experienced in the pan handle of Florida.  In 2011, 91 years old, he wrote the story from memory as I now have pocession of the 75 page tome.  In comparing my Father's memories to what he wrote three - quarters of a century earlier, he has remembered well and factually in his senior years. Naturally the 1936 work is much more detailed and includes some danger not included in his 2011 memoirs.  Still a fascinating look at an America three-quarters a century ago. - GNH 


In November 2010, below my Father, back to camera, visited his boyhood home,  Irondale, Alabama again.  This photo shows him conversing with the unidentified person who now lives in the house (behind her) on 2^nd Avenue where his brother, Melton and his wife, Ida Hughes Holliman, lived in the late 1930s. His 2011 narrative continues....

"Melton and Ida were living in the house across from Grandma Lula Caine (in Irondale, Alabama), just down the hill from us.  Ida had an old Underwood typewriter that she let us peck on from time to time.  So several days after we returned home I got the bright idea of writing up a history of our experience in Florida and of the storm, typing it all out of her type writer.   Truly a hunt and peck system.  I have forgotten how long it took me to get the job done. 

The title was 'The Storm Warnings Were Posted', and I don’t know how I came up with such a threatening name for my story.  Daddy was so impressed with my work he showed it to a Birmingham News reporter, thinking he could make something of my work.  But alas, nothing ever came of it and the reporter returned it after a few weeks.  Today, this great literary production is in possession of my son, Glenn Holliman."

               

Right, Melton Holliman ca 1938 in a photo perhaps taken on the steps of the house on 2nd Avenue, Irondale, Alabama shown above.  By this time in his life, Melton had begun what would be a successful career selling pharmacological medicines.

Next the Golden Summers give way to World War II....