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

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

"The Blizzard of 1940…It was January or thereabouts that snow began to fall, and before it had ended, 14 inches lay on the ground, a very rare occurrence for our part of the South.  It began about midnight and at daylight the radio had already come on with the news that schools would not open, nor would the colleges nor would hardly anything else. 

 

I don’t remember what Daddy (Ulyss S. Holliman, 1884 - 1965) did about going to work.  Street cars on some lines had run all night to keep tracks clear. I can’t remember the day of the week it was that all this happened.  The hill (the north side of Irondale) was frozen over and I guess nearly impossible for cars to get up it.  For two weeks the temperature hardly got above freezing, and it dropped to 10 degrees below on the second day."

Not the snow of 1940, but above the snow of 1936 on 3^rd Avenue, Irondale.  Top left to right are The Rev. Stewart Butten, James Pugh, Bishop Holliman.  Front row are Bobby Coker, Harold Pugh and Billy Bunt.

"I have forgotten how long it stayed at that mark.  Remember, at this time we had no central heat, drinking, cooking, bathing and flushing.  Even if they became unthawed, they would refreeze the next night.  Each night young folks would gather at the top of the hill above our house, build a fire out of limbs, old tires, etc. and we built sleds out of scrap lumber that somebody furnished and we slide the two blocks downhill.  That went on several nights. 

 

It was probably the last night of this merriment that the accident happened.  A car parked at the bottom of the hill had not pulled all the way into its driveway, leaving part of it in the road, and a sure target for an unguided sled."

Ralph Holliman (b 1924), right, as a Shade Cahaba High School student ca 1941.  Ralph had a highly successful career as a corporate executive in Chicago before retiring back to Alabama.

"My brother Ralph was at the front of the sled, followed by Margaret Overton, Jo Helen Leath and myself. You could not steer the sled. It went wherever the ice allowed it to go, and it went right into the back of the parked car! Ralph, who was at the front bore the brunt of the collision, bringing a gash to his head.

Robert Daly, Sr. was on the scene, having been there just to observe the goings on, rushed Ralph to Dr. Odum’s house on the other side of the town. The doctor patched him and sent him on his way. Probably did not charge more than $2 and did not say come back tomorrow. That experience put an end to our sledding." 

 

Note Ralph Holliman believes the accident was in the great snow of 1936, not 1940. The two brothers have different memories of the date!

"The snow and ice eventually melted, but the blizzard of 1940 stayed with us a long time. That winter as so bad Life magazine ran a cover page in February of the Southern passenger train, The Tennessean, pulling into Washington, D.C., covered with snow and ice, also carrying a story about the frigid winter down south.”

 Bishop Holliman, 90, returned to Irondale in November 2010 with his 64 year old son, Glenn N. Holliman, to tour the home of his childhood. Bishop named his only son after the Irondale educator, Glenn Barrow, who died during World War II.

Next Post, the Grand Photographic Collage of Grand Mother Holliman (Pearl Caine Holliman)....

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

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

Churches…There were three churches in Irondale as far back as I could remember: the Methodist, Baptist and Presbyterian.  At Christmas each one staged a Christmas pageant the Sunday night before Christmas.  Every summer the Baptist and Methodist Churches held a revival, and that meant for two weeks we had somewhere to go on the warm summer evenings before there were radios, television and air conditioning. 

 The revival that stands out in my mind was the one in 1936 at the Methodist Church (then located at 2009 South 2nd Avenue) conducted by Fred Brown from Bob Jones College.  For two weeks the church was filled each night to hear the Word preached by this dynamic preacher.  Even folks from the other two churches came to hear him.  At the end of the revival put on a watermelon-picnic feast down at the artesian wells where East Side Mall as later built.  I have many good memories of church activity up to the time I left in 1941.

 Below an outing in Irondale in the late 1930s.  Either church or Shades Cahaba friends (probably both). Virginia Holliman Cornelius is 3^rd from left and Bishop Holliman on far right.

 

We young people were led by such folks as the Hamiltons, Sherets, Overtons, Grissoms, Glenn Barrow and many others.  Most of our social life originated in the church – at Christmas, Halloween, summer outings at Grant’s Mill, where you could go swimming for 20 cents, and cook-outs in the fall at the beacon light on Gate City Mountain. 

We also participated in putting on plays at the school, sponsored by the church in support of some project.  One time we bought a pulpit bible with money we raised.  Some participants I remember now were: Clementine Sherbet, Mary Virginia Hamilton, Frances McNutt, Jo Helen Leath, Charles Pugh and Louis Overton.

Above Bishop Holliman poses with his sister Virginia Holliman Cornelius (1922 – 2011) at a Birmingham, Alabama reunion in 1985 almost 50 years after the photo by the automobile.

 Next Post, more memories and more people of Irondale, Alabama....