1940...the Storm Grows....
At
this time in his life two decades after the Great War, Bishop Holliman was, as
were millions of other Americans, an isolationist, one who wanted no
involvement in European conflicts. This
opinion was shared by many during the late 1930s and early 1940s.
However, by summer 1940 Czechoslovakia, Poland, France, Belgium, the
Netherlands, Norway and Denmark had fallen before the Nazi war
machine. These frightening events moved more and more Americans to support
rearmament and aid to England. Great
Britain stood alone against increasing fears of a world dominated by an
aggressive government of Germany, a militant Japan and a Mediterranean bully, Benito
Mussolini's Italy. Collectively, these were the Axis powers of World War II. Below the two dictators who lost their lives in 1945 in the conflagration they initiated.
Ulyss
and Pearl Holliman of Irondale, Alabama were devout Christians, and had raised their family as
Methodists. Their second daughter,
Loudelle, married a Methodist minister in 1935, Charles T. Ferrell, born
in Mississippi, and educated at Birmingham-Southern College and Yale Divinity
School. Loudelle and Charles helped
Bishop obtain a part time job as youth director with the North Alabama
Methodist Conference in the late 1930s. This work - several
summer youth conferences and his own deep commitment to the Christian faith - are
evident in Bishop's pacifistic and
humane opinions captured in memoirs written in 1991:
"And so it was as the clouds of war loomed ever more ominous on the horizon that I was a student at Birmingham-Southern College, having entered in 1937. During those years I was very active in youth activities in the Methodist Church, and a principle focus in those times was 'world peace'. At all of our youth conferences, programs, and camps, ironically one of the courses would be labeled, with some variations, 'World Peace."- H. Bishop Holliman, 1991
Above, Christmas 1940, young Charles Halford Ferrell tries out his new Greyhound wagon for his parents, The Rev. Charles and Loudelle Holliman Ferrell. Loudelle and Charles would write faithfully to her siblings, while Charles pastored Methodist Churches in North Alabama during the war.
Bishop along with two brothers, Melton and Ralph and a brother-in-law, Walter
Cornelius, were soon to be swept into the growing maelstrom. War would come to this Alabama family. Melton (1908-1958) is pictured below with his mother, Pearl Caine Holliman (1887-1955) in the late 1930s in front of the Robert and Vena Daly, Sr. home in the 2300 3rd Avenue North of Irondale, Alabama. Not a young man, Melton served in the U.S. Army in England, France and Mississippi during 1944 and 1945. While overseas, his health broke. He died of a heart attack 13 years after the war at the age of only 49.
With
the fall of World War I ally France in June 1940, the U.S. Congress passed a conscription
act to begin the building of an American army which at that time was one of the smallest in the world. Later that year, President Franklin D.
Roosevelt asked Congress to pass the Lend-Lease bill that gave assistance to
Great Britain, aid short of war.
At
the same time, relations between Japan and the U.S. continued to deteriorate. Japan pursued its war in China, and cast
covetous eyes on the Dutch, British and French colonies in southeast Asia.
No
matter how isolated the U.S. was in the Western Hemisphere, the world had
become a dangerous place. Led by FDR,
Congress began to appropriate massive funds for naval, air and army
armament. However, 'isolationism', remained strong - many Americans did not wish to see the United States once again involved in a European war.
"Remember, we were still living in the shadows of the First World War, and the death and destruction wrought by that conflict were being brought out into the open, and we were able to look back and view the catastrophic horror. Also, we were learning how the profit motive entered into whether we should go to war, and we were taught that greedy munitions manufacturers profited from the deaths of countless millions.
In the late 1930s and early 40s, I struggled to stay in college and worked part time at the Methodist Youth headquarters at 516 N. 22nd Street in Birmingham. I was making maybe 25 or 30 cents and hour to fold letters, run the mimeograph machine and do other such menial chores The job had been designed to aid a ministerial student. I had been given the job my second year in college by Charles Ferrell, my brother-in-law.
He was Conference Youth Director, so through his beneficence I was able to make a little spending money and stay in school. My association with the ministers in and out of the office and my participation in conference youth programs strengthened my faith in the 'rightness' of peace and the evils of militarism and war." - H. Bishop Holliman, 1991.
Bishop Holliman, left, sometimes had his mind on items other than religion while attending Methodist youth conferences in Alabama and North Carolina in the early 1940s. Note the cute blond on the far left. Dad is in a coat and tie, and oh, those white shoes and pants.
"Remember, we were still living in the shadows of the First World War, and the death and destruction wrought by that conflict were being brought out into the open, and we were able to look back and view the catastrophic horror. Also, we were learning how the profit motive entered into whether we should go to war, and we were taught that greedy munitions manufacturers profited from the deaths of countless millions.
In the late 1930s and early 40s, I struggled to stay in college and worked part time at the Methodist Youth headquarters at 516 N. 22nd Street in Birmingham. I was making maybe 25 or 30 cents and hour to fold letters, run the mimeograph machine and do other such menial chores The job had been designed to aid a ministerial student. I had been given the job my second year in college by Charles Ferrell, my brother-in-law.
He was Conference Youth Director, so through his beneficence I was able to make a little spending money and stay in school. My association with the ministers in and out of the office and my participation in conference youth programs strengthened my faith in the 'rightness' of peace and the evils of militarism and war." - H. Bishop Holliman, 1991.
Since early 2010, I have been publishing research and stories on the broad spectrum of Holliman (Holyman) family history at http://hollimanfamilyhistory.blogspot.com/ . For stories on my more immediate family since the early 20th Century, I have been posting articles since early 2011 at http://ulyssholliman.blogspot.com/ .
Let's save the past for the future! If you have photographs, letters, memorabilia or research you wish to share, please contact me directly at glennhistory@gmail.com. Several of us have an on-going program of scanning and preserving Holyman and related family records. Thanks to the Internet, we are able to scan, upload to the web (with your permission) and return the materials to you.
