Memories of Irondale, 1925 to 1942, Part VII by H. Bishop Holliman

This is the seventh in a series of reflections on an earlier Irondale, Alabama by my father, Bishop Holliman, born 1919. - Glenn N. Holliman

The Great Depression…"I was too young to remember the beginning of the Depression and the havoc it wrought to so many. In my young mind, times had always been hard and some people had always been without work. Daddy (Ulyss Holliman) was off from the job just six weeks in the summer of 1933. Many folks we knew were out of work.

It was not uncommon for men to come to the house asking for food and/or other forms of help. Some children went to school bare footed. Loudelle (Holliman Ferrell) and Euhal (Holliman) were still at home. Melton (Holliman) had married in 1932, but he had been living away from home before his marriage and had worked full time. Like us, many folks in Irondale kept chickens or a cow and put in big gardens and managed to get by."

Ulyss S. Holliman of 2300 3^rd Avenue, North in Irondale poses in the middle 1920s in his large garden. A native of Fayette, Alabama, Ulyss moved his growing family to this suburb of Birmingham during World War I to take advantage of employment opportunities. During the 1910s, the population of Irondale almost doubled as more and more lots were sold on the hill side overlooking the railroad yard.

During World War II, Pearl Caine Holliman wrote her son, Bishop Holliman, who was in the U.S. Navy, promising to save a Sunday chicken for the day he would return home from the war. As with gardens, many in Irondale raised their own chickens. For several years in the late 1930s, the Ulyss Hollimans even had a milk cow.

"The WPA (Works Progress Administration) and other New Deal projects soon provided menial jobs for the unemployed. In 1936 the sewer systems were installed, and we began to enjoy
indoor plumbing. An early New Deal project was the building of sidewalks through most of the town. Though not a New Deal project (as far as I know) the streets were paved during World War II, and I think Frank Williams was mayor at the time.



 

I have already alluded to the hobos who rode the freight trains during these years----In my mind, hobos had always ridden them. Central heating had not come into vogue so it was still my job each day to bring in coal and kindling for Daddy to start a fire each morning. We had a heater in the middle bed room and later, one in the living room. After the War, they managed to get central gas heat."
 

Population statistics reveal the calamity of the Depression. In 1920, by which time the Hollimans had moved to Irondale and were about to construct a home at 2300 N. 3rd Street, the population was 809. As the Montgomery subdivision kept growing, the number of people living in the town almost doubled in ten years to 1,517 in 1930. Irondale must have felt like a thriving and booming place in the "Roaring Twenties".

During the Depression, growth stopped and the population even dropped to 1,486 in 1940. By 1970, the population reached 3,166 but in the four decades since, the numbers living in Irondale have quadrupled to 12,349 in 2012. Source Historical Populations, Wikipedia, Irondale, Alabama

More of Memories of Irondale, Alabama in next post....