How a World War Changed an Alabama Family, Part 15

by Glenn N. Holliman

From Subchaser to Flight School...and the Home Front....


In the spring of 1942, the wave of Japanese conquest in the Pacific rolled on.  General Douglas MacArthur was ordered out of the Philippines, but he vowed to return.  The embattled American army and Filipino troops were pushed from Bataan to Corregidor for a last stand. Australia, deeply worried about the Nipponese juggernaut bearing down on the nation, welcomed the arrival of 30,000 U.S. troops in March of that year.  The Japanese navy even penetrated the Indian Ocean to Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and sank the British carrier Hermes.  

In those dark days, the United States rushed to build weapons and train young men for war on many fronts.  One of the millions mobilized was my father, H. Bishop Holliman, of Irondale, Alabama, a suburb of the steel city of Birmingham.


After his  first leave ended, he reported back 5 April 1942 to his duty station in Algiers, Louisiana, home of a U.S. Navy training base.  Bishop took a physical and joined as a trainee in the Navy Air Corps. 


Letters from home remained important to the boys in the service.  Bishop's Mother, Pearl Caine Holliman wrote often and filled her letters with news of relatives and friends in the close-knit community of Irondale.  What follows are exerts from letters written in March and April of 1942.  These comments about persons at home are undoubtedly typical of millions of other epistles in that era.  She writes of other young men whose lives were disrupted by the war.

"Mother is better for the last few days and she may make it after all.  Dr. Odom thinks she will get better when the weather gets warm."  Mother was Lula Hocutt Caine, 1861-1957, Grandma Caine to the generations that remember her.  Her father, Manassas Hocutt, died at the Battle of Stones River in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, January 1863. Lula married William Lee Caine of Fayette County, Alabama and had four children to grow to maturity - Floyd, Pearl, Maude  and Vista. 



Below, this photograph is from the early 1920s, probably taken in Irondale.  The writing of the identifications of Vista, Maude and Pearl is that of H. Bishop Holliman.

 

Below, an earlier photograph, perhaps 1904 and taken in Fayette County, Alabama - back row, left to right are Maude (1893-1940), Floyd (1883-1966) and Pearl (1887-1955).  Front row, Lula's mother-in-law, Melissa C. Anthony Caine, 1829-1913.  Vista (1898-1986), Lula and William Lee Caine (1862-1938).  In the 1910s, William took a job as a railroad guard in Irondale.  His children, two of them married, soon followed with their families.  With this move, the Caines and Hollimans left their farms and took jobs in transportation.   This may be the only known photograph of my great, great grandmother, Melissa Anthony Caine.

  

"Vista is worse; I don't know what Ralph will do with her."  Her younger sister, Vista Caine Humber, lived in Irondale and may have been having marital issues with her first husband, Ralph.  Cousin E.C. Herrin believes the never-seen character, Vista, in the movie Fried Green Tomatoes may have been inspired by the real Aunt Vista.  The book, "Fried Green Tomatoes" by Alabamian Fannie Flagg, was based on the life and work of Flagg's great aunt, Bess Fortenberry who owned the hot dog stand, later Irondale Cafe of the 1930s. Bess's brother, Ed Fortenberry, owned a local grocery store. Below Vista, her daughter Dorthy and her niece, Vena Holliman Daly, in the early 1930s at Lookout Mountain, Chattanooga, Tennessee.  Note they are touring wearing formal clothes and heels!

"Your Uncle Lee Cooke has not married yet."  Lee Cooke was the husband of Pearl's sister, Maude Caine.  Maude had the misfortune to contract polio as a child.  Her family moved to Irondale from Fayette, Alabama and lived in the house on the hill just above the Ulyss and Peal Hollimans.  In the 1930s, Lee and Maude moved to St. Claire County, Alabama.  After Maude's death in 1940, Lee remarried. 

"Charles Ferrell has a call to Fairfax, $200 a year more and a larger church."  A Methodist minister with a Yale Divinity degree, Charles was an up and comer in the North Alabama Conference.  His wife, Loudelle, was Pearl's second daughter.  Below, Charles Halford, Charles T. Ferrell, Carolyn Ferrell Tatum, John Melton and Loudelle in 1942.  Actually in 1942, Charles was assigned to Huntsville, Alabama. 

"The Jones have moved into the house with Runyans while the parsonage is built."  The Rev. L.L.  Jones was the Irondale Methodist minister, age 52.  The Runyans were members of his congregation.  Renfro Runyan, age 53, ran the local water plant.

"The Hamiltons went to see Drayton, who is assigned to a subchaser."  John W. Hamilton of Irondale was a county tax collector, an elected position and one that paid a salary of $5,000 a year, a princely sum in 1942.  Their son Drayton (1916-1990) became an attorney in Montgomery, Alabama after serving in the Navy from 1940 to 1948.  His wife was Hilda Sims (1914-2001).  Drayton's sister, Mary Virginia Hamilton, was a good friend of Virginia Holliman Cornelius (1922-2011).

"Ralph Byram left Sunday for Atlanta." Ralph, headed to Ft. McPherson for Army induction, was the son of Joseph and Lena Byram who lived at 2223 3rd Avenue North in Irondale. Joe in 1940 worked for the Works Progress Administration (W.P.A.), a New Deal agency created to provide employment and public works.

"Ralph has a new suit; trying to get him ready for his speeches."  Ralph Holliman, b. 1924, was the last of seven children of Pearl and Ulyss Holliman's children to leave home.  After graduation from Shades Cahaba in May of 1942, he would be drafted into the U.S. Army in 1943 and serve in England and France.

Ralph, b 1924, visiting his brother, H. Bishop Holliman, b 1919, in Key West, Florida, February 1942.

Next the Philippines Fall and a Sailor begins flight training....


 Have questions about Holliman family history? You are invited to join the Hollyman Email List at Hollyman-Subscribe@yahoogroups.com and the Hollyman Family Facebook Page located on Facebook at "Hollyman Family". Post your questions and perhaps one of the dozens Holyman cousins on the list will have an answer. For more information contact Tina Peddie at desabla1@yahoo.com, the list and Facebook manager for Hollyman (and all our various spellings!).

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