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