How a World War Changed an Alabama Family, Part 13

by Glenn N. Holliman

A Marriage Launched, Two Brothers meet, Letters and a New Assignment....

Immediately after the wedding of Virginia Holliman and Walter Cornelius, January 30, 1942, Virginia went to work at the Woodlawn, Alabama National Bank, managed by her brother-in-law, Robert W. Daly, Sr.  No longer a student at the East Lake campus of Howard College, she was now a married business woman.  Starting as a teller, no one then could know she would climb the corporate ladder to become in the 1980s the first female vice president of the 1st Alabama National Bank!  Below, right, Virginia and Walter in late 1943 after he joined the Army.


During the winter of 1942, Walter worked as a civilian for the War Department in Childersburg, Alabama.  That required a long commute from their tiny apartment on N. 21st Street to the boom town where DuPont was building a chemical plant.  A hamlet of 500 in 1940, Childersburg swelled as 14,000 construction workers descended on the village and constructed the largest explosives plant in the South.  By the end of the war, 9,000 persons made the 'burg' their home.  During the early 1940s so many workers drove from Birmingham to Childersburg over a narrow, dirt road that a special commuter train had to be established. Forth to the Mighty Conflict, Alabama and World War II by Allen Cronenberg, University of Alabama Press, 1995 and a letter by Virginia Holliman Cornelius 1942.

In late 1943, Walter would be in the U.S. Army and eventually would serve in Saipan in 1945/46.  For several years Virginia would follow him to training bases in the U.S., gaining more career experience and, as with hundreds of thousands of other G.I. wives, acquired a broader perspective of the world.

By early March, 1942 Virginia's brother, Bishop Holliman, was on the move from his sonar training base in Key West, Florida to the Navy base in New Orleans.  He traveled by train from Miami to Jacksonville, changed to a Pullman and alighted at Pensacola, Florida the next morning for a quick visit with his brother, Melton, and sister-in-law, Ida Hughes Holliman who lived in Mobile, Alabama.  Ida is wearing his sailor cap. - Diary of Bishop Holliman 1942

Melton noted in a letter to Bishop that the government was now taking older men with dependents and "That means me and I am ready to go.  Guess that means the Army, and I will be a buck private." - Letter by Melton P. Holliman, 1942

Melton (1908-1958) would enter the U.S. Army a year later as a private and, due to frequent transfers and health problems, barely advanced in rank.  Melton was 35 years old when he was drafted, only a few months after adopting a long-sought child, Patti Holliman (Hairston), in the late spring of 1943.  Ida and Melton had married in 1932, and remained childless until Patti joyfully entered their lives and the lives of the larger Holliman family. 

It was wrenching sacrifice for Melton to leave his young 9 month old new baby behind to enter the Armed Forces.  Befitting his civilian profession as a pharmaceutical salesman, he served as a medic in England and France, arriving in France six weeks after D-Day.

Bishop wrote home to Irondale, Alabama that he had been assigned to a subchaser, the PC (later SC) 531, a vessel that would later see service in the Pacific.  Subchasers were built of wood fairly quickly in small boatyards on both coasts and the Great Lakes and Gulf regions. Many of the boatyards were small, family-owned businesses, only a few of which exist today. The navy wasted no time letting out contracts to fifty such boat yards. By the time the war ended 438 wooden  subchasers had been launched and commissioned, and the PC 531 was one of these fragile, underpowered ships.  A diagram of one is below is taken from the Internet as is the SC 531 history. Note the sonar cabin amidships.

He would never serve on the ship.  The patrol craft was not ready for sea, and Bishop had acquired the idea of joining the Navy Air Corps. After arriving in New Orleans, he proceeded to put in for a transfer to that elite body of fliers.  He was told to go home, get a birth certificate, some recommendations and report back.  He was on his way shortly for his first leave home, leaving a Navy career in submarine patrol craft behind him. 

Back in Irondale, Alabama, Bishop's mother, Pearl Caine Holliman (1887-1955), had written often with news about the weather, family, friends and always with advice and a 'benediction' as she was a saintly, terribly worried mother.

"I think you can almost hear the typewriter. Ralph (the youngest son, b. 1924, a champion debater at Shades Cahaba High School in Homewood) is typing the debate (on which) he sure is working hard day and nite.  I think they go to Tuscaloosa one week from tomorrow (a University of Alabama debate tournament).  Oh, yes the Dalys (Robert and Vena Holliman Daly who lived next door) got them selves a new stove today.  It sure is nice, cost about $160.00 - some stove! (There is a bit of envy here in Pearl's letter.  According to the 1940 Federal Census, her husband's (Ulyss Holliman) income as a mechanic for the Birmingham Electric Company was $1,600. Robert Daly made considerably more as a bank manager.)

I do hope you get transferred in some other work that you will be satisfied in, and I would keep trying, if I were you.  If you don't look out for yourself, no one will do it for you.  (Bishop took the advice, and applied for the Naval Air Corps.)

We are thanking (sic) of you and our prayers are for you.  Wherever you go the Lord goes with you, and will take care of you.  When our country gets back to God, we will win this war.  So do all you can for the Lord as that is all that counts.  With much love, and God bless and keep you.  Mother H."  Letter February 1942 by Pearl C. Holliman, Irondale, Alabama
 

Next posting, a first leave home to Irondale, Alabama to see family and friends....

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