How a World War Changed an Alabama Family, Part 18

by Glenn N. Holliman

Letters from Home....the Summer of 1942

By June 1942, the German army had resumed its invasion of the Soviet Union, driving deep into the Caucasus and advancing on Stalingrad.  In the Pacific, the American Navy inflicted a decisive and war turning defeat on the Japanese Navy at Midway.  Four Japanese carriers were sunk to the loss of the USS Yorktown.  There would be no more Japanese advances, and gradually as resources permitted, the United States began to counter attack.  Below the Yorktown carrier after taking a dive bombing attack, June 5, 1942.

Below, a sample from the letters my father H. Bishop Holliman received from family in Alabama while based in New Orleans in the U.S. Navy.  In late June 1942, ear trouble forced him out of the Navy Air Corps.  He hoped to stay in New Orleans on shore duty, but Uncle Sam soon had other ideas.

"Bishop, still hope you will be able to stay in the Air Corp.  Is your ear any better?  I hope you will be able to do what you want to do.  I'd think twice about the Merchant Marine...if I were on the ocean, I'd rather be on a battleship." -  Melton Holliman, June 21, 1942

  Below, Melton and Ida Hughes Holliman, parents of Pattie Holliman Hairston.

 Melton wrote his younger brother again: "Sorry you couldn't stay in the Air Corp, but I don't want you up there where you have trouble hearing...stay where you are in base as long as you can.  The subs are sinking too many our ships."- June 28, 1942

Bishop's sister, Loudelle Holliman Ferrell wrote:  

"We just received a card from Mama telling us the good news that you will be in New Orleans for the duration and will not be flying.  It certainly was good news.  I feel like God has answered our prayers.  Charles said that you were too fine a boy for anything bad to happen to you. We don't know what you will be doing but it is a happy thought you will no longer be in danger." - June 28, 1942.   Mama was Pearl Caine Holliman (1888-1955), my grandmother.

Below, The Rev. Charles T. Ferrell, Loudelle Holliman Ferrell and their two children, Charles Halford and Carolyn Ferrell Tatum at their Jacksonville, Alabama parsonage during part of World War II.  Charles T. Ferrell, a Methodist minister, had degrees from Birmingham-Southern College and Yale Divinity School.  The moderate Methodism, most of the Holliman family embraced in the 1930s and 40s, occasionally created some tension with their religiously fundamentalist parents, Pearl and Ulyss Holliman.

Remarkably Loudell wrote in 1942 what I was able to confirm seventy years later in my family research. 

 "I read where Ezekiel Holliman baptized Roger Williams in Rhode Island in 1639.  William in turn baptized Holliman and 11 others.  This the establishment of the Baptist Church in America.  Of course we will have to claim Ezekiel as one of our ancestors!" 

Ezekiel and our branch of the family share a distant great grandfather from Cuddington, Buckinghamshire, England, probably from the early 1500s.

Bishop's Aunt Vista Caine Humber Robbins Gumpp (1898-1986) of Irondale wrote a revealing letter also that summer.  "How are doing in the air corps?  I bet every minute is interesting.  I've always wanted to fly. O' to be a man now.  Women never get a break.  I'd much rather be in the thick of it than sitting home worrying, honest!  Mother is well, bless her heart.  She will soon be 81.  I hope the good Lord spares her many more years.  No one will ever know how much I would miss those phone calls from her.  I saw my grand daughter and believe me that is the best looking kid I ever laid my eyes on.  Shut yo, mouth Grandma!" - June 21, 1942  Mother was Lula Hocutt Caine, b. 1891, this writer's great grandmother.

 The grand daughter referred to in Vista's letter is Pattie, the girl on the left in the photograph below.  Dorothy Humber Prince, Vista's daughter, in the center, holds her new child, David, on her lap and Bobby Prince on the left in this post World War II Christmas card.
 

A decade younger than her sister, Pearl, Vista's approach to life was more of the 1920s.  Bishop remembers her as a 'flapper', one who drank, smoked, enjoyed the company of young men and not a church goer.  The paragraph from the above letter captures a bit of her effervescent, dynamic approach to life.   

Mary Daly Herrin has spoken of an estrangement between the two sisters, one that required Mary, at the request of her grandmother, Pearl, to write to Vista on at least one occasion when Vista and her third husband, Fred Grumpp, lived in Indianapolis, Indiana.  Mary's husband, E.C. Herrin, believes elements of Vista's personality were captured in several of the characters Fanny Flagg created in the book, Fried Green Tomatoes, based on a the Fortenbery's 1930s Irondale cafe.


Whatever the differences between the sisters, the surviving siblings of Lula Hocutt Caine (1861-1957, Grandma Caine to her many great grandchildren), gathered for a photograph in the early 1950s.  Front row is Floyd Caine (1883-1966) and his mother, Lula.  Back row staring grimly are Pearl and Vista.  There was only a decade's difference between Pearl and Vista, but the younger sister on the right could have passed for her daughter.

The letters from home almost always contained news of Irondale neighbors.  The renters of the house next door to the Robert W. Dalys (owned by the Dalys) were Isaac and Emma Mae Partain Deason.  Below in her own handwriting, Pearl, wrote of the Deasons gaining a new addition to their family.  'Ike' ran an Irondale automobile service station at the time.  The person Corbin may have been a son of Minnie Mae Partain, who also lived at 2006 3rd Avenue North in Irondale.  Later that autumn, the family moved out of their Daly rental, evidently with hard feelings on both sides.

Next More Letters, War News and Bishop transfers to a Destroyer....

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!).

Or join your many cousins at MyFamily.com and view an expanded Holliman family tree and many files on the history of the family. Just write to glennhistory@gmail.com for an invitation.

How a World War Changed an Alabama Family, Part 17

by Glenn N. Holliman

Battles in the Pacific and an Irondale Blackout....

During the first months of 1942, Japanese military advanced virtually unhampered through Southeast Asia.  With much of the American fleet resting on the sea floor of Hawaii, the Japanese Navy dominated the South Pacific.  That began to change in May 1942 with the Battle of the Coral Sea off the coast of Australia.

In May 1942 the Japanese Navy was advancing on Port Moseby, the front door to Australia.  The U.S. Aircraft carriers, Yorktown and Lexington, engaged in the first ever exclusive air dual between opposing ships. Both nations lost a carrier, but the advance of Nipponese fleet was effectively thwarted and Australia was safe from invasion. Below the crew of the valiant Lexington abandon ship.

Nerves on the home front were jittery.  May 20, 1942, Irondale, Alabama experienced a practice blackout.  In a letter to my father, H. Bishop Holliman, my grandmother, Pearl Caine Holliman (1887-1955), expressed her excited feelings to her only son then in the service during World War II.   At this time, Bishop was training to be a pilot in the U.S. Navy Air Corps.  His family at home was worried.

 "Dear Bishop - 10 o'clock we have just had a blackout.  We did not know we were going to have it, so we did not where the bombs were coming or not til after it.  Was all over and then they said it was a trial blackout.  One or two in Irondale did not turn all lights out til the last minute.  All these air raid wardens had a time.  I don't what we would have done if the planes had begun to fly over."

 Right, Robert W. Daly, Sr. (1901-1959) in his air raid warden hat standing beside his father-in-law, Ulyss S. Holliman (1884-1965) at 2300 3rd Avenue North, Irondale, Alabama.


By the middle 1930s, Pearl and her husband, Ulyss, had left the Methodist Church in Irondale due to theological differences to attend worship services at the Tabernacle, an emotional, evangelical, Bible-based congregation in Birmingham.  The pastor was one Glenn Tingley, one of the first radio preachers in the South. 



My grandmother's letters often reflected her earnest religious feelings.  During the spring and summer of 1942, her son, Bishop, was stationed in a city not known for conventional Protestant values - New Orleans, Louisiana!  Pearl was not only worried about her son's physical safety; she was worried about the temptations of the French Quarter!

"I will always wonder what you did Saturday night and Sunday.  May you always remember you are a Christian and not go any place you would not take Christ with you.  Now that is all I have to say."

On one occasion that summer of 1942, Bishop was able to visit home on a quick leave and fly back to New Orleans from Birmingham.  Commercial flying was still in its infancy in 1942 and considered a dangerous adventure.  His Mother wrote him of her worries and faith.
 
"We were so anxious to hear how you enjoyed our ride (flight).  I do believe Dad got a bigger thrill than you did.  I tell you (he) was really going.  I do believe I would take a ride in one now if I had the price.  I was not worried about you at all...we went to the Tabernacle.  Dad went to the men's prayer meeting and I went in the women's so they all prayed for you, and I knew you would be okay.  We went to hear Dr. Ham, and I want to tell you. He says we have one thing to do and only one and 'that be ready to meet Jesus.'  Wish ever one of you children could have heard him.  I mean 'heard' him!"

Left, Bishop Holliman  with a sailor friend and several girls in New Orleans on a Sunday afternoon spring 1941.  My father, far right in the photograph, is in his spiffy uniform and looks straight into the camera.  The girl looks a bit coy and is holding hands with the other sailor.  

As with millions of others during the War, Bishop met persons of many different faiths or no faith traditions, some with high ethical values, others with few.  Higher education and travel were changing the views of an Alabama family.

 Right, his brother, Melton and sister-in-law Ida Holliman visited Bishop while he was stationed in New Orleans that spring and summer.  A pharmacutical salesman living in Mobile, Alabama, Melton would be drafted into the Army in August 1943 at the age of 35.

Another son of Pearl and Ulyss's, Ralph Holliman, would join the Army in March of 1943.  Pearl wrote of his last days of high school in a letter to Bishop, reflecting how proud she was of both sons.   "Ralph has been busy with his test paper.  He is to be toastmaster at the Irondale banquet, the same one you was last year."  

 
Above, Ralph's 1942 graduation announcement from Shades Cahaba High School in Homewood, Alabama.  He received the Spanish American Legion Award and the a Jerusalem pen for work done on the school newspaper. In a few months, he would see his name posted in the Irondale Selective Service office.

Next posting, more letters from home....

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!).

Or join your many cousins at MyFamily.com and view an expanded Holliman family tree and many files on the history of the family. Just write to glennhistory@gmail.com for an invitation.