Sunday, June 8, 2014

How a World War Changed an Alabama Family, Part 22

by Glenn N. Holliman

Letters from Home....

Of all the letters Bishop Holliman of Irondale, Alabama saved during World War II, there is only one written from his father, Ulyss S. Holliman (1884-1965) in the summer of 1942.  Ulyss was born in 1884 in Fayette County, Alabama, the last of six boys of John Thomas Holliman (1844-1930), a Confederate Civil War veteran who had excruciating war experiences.  (See earlier articles at http://hollimanfamilyhistory.blogspot.com/ .)

Below, Pearl Caine and Ulyss Holliman in 1949.  Pearl was 61 and Ulyss 65.

John Thomas and his second wife, Martha Jane Walker (mother of five of the six boys), worked a dirt-poor farm in the Hico community just south of Fayette, the county seat.  Ulyss must have toiled long and hard on the farm learning how to grow cotton, corn and vegetables.  In the 1910 census, Ulyss is recorded as a farmer.  By then he had married Pearl Caine (1888-1955) and they already had two children - Melton and Vena.  In 1912 and 1914, two more children came along - Euhal and Loudelle.

To support his growing family, Ulyss probably took a job with the local saw mill, as the family was then living in a small house, a few blocks south of the square in Fayette.  Sometime in the 1910s, John Thomas and Martha Jane ceased farming due to advancing age and moved to Fayette themselves.

Below, John Thomas and Martha Jane Walker Thomas in 1929, the year before John died. In the far right corner, back ground, dressed in his Sunday best, is Bishop Holliman.  This photograph was taken at the Holliman home in Fayette, Alabama.  John Thomas fought in seven Civil War battles, and Martha Jane's father, Samuel Walker, was at Gettysburg and surrendered with Lee's forces in Virginia during the last week of the war.

Wars change lives, and in or around 1917 in the economic expansion of World War I, Ulyss Holliman and his family joined his Caine family in-laws in moving to Irondale, Alabama, then a blue collar suburb of the rapidly growing city of Birmingham.  A skilled carpenter, Ulyss took a job with the Birmingham Electric Company repairing the mostly wooden street cars.  He held that employment until retirement in 1949.  Below, three trains cross at a busy intersection in downtown Birmingham ca 1940.


Below, Ulyss around 1924 in his plush Irondale garden at 2300 3rd Avenue North with his daughter, Virginia Holliman Cornelius (1922-2011).  One of Virginia's daughters, Susan Cornelius Williams, remembers her grandfather growing chrysanthemums and calling her 'Soosie'.


Ulyss needed the work, because the children kept coming - Bishop in 1919, Virginia in 1922 and Ralph in 1924.  Despite the long hours and no vacations until the middle 1930s, he managed a family garden and helped Pearl with the chickens.  We catch a glimpse of this life in his letter written the summer of 1942. Notice the names of several of his children are spelled incorrectly as his formal education ended in the 6th grade in a rural Alabama elementary school.




Oh me, what to make of a father who signs his letter to his son in the Navy with 'As Ever, U.S.Holliman'?  Ulysses Selman Holliman had a taciturn personality, perhaps copied from his father, who suffered evidently from post traumatic stress syndrome, a result of almost three years of  Civil War. Ulyss, tall and thin, did not smile much, could be contrary around grandchildren (I remember), was dependable, hard working and devoted to the Republican Party and the Tabernacle Church in Birmingham.  

Below from the Birmingham News in 1950, my grandfather, second from right, serves as elder of Bible Gospel Tabernacle.




I can still remember as a child gathering around his breakfast table in Irondale.  His blessings of the food were long, and in the background one sat through a sermon by Glenn Tingle, pioneer radio preacher, gasping for breath and fighting hell and and slinging damnation through the airwaves.  All the time Pearl (Grand Mama Holliman) calmly cooking, serving food and hugging her grandchildren.  

Below, Ulyss and Pearl in the autumn of 1942 in their yard in Irondale on 3rd Avenue, N.  Ulyss was 58 and Pearl 54 that year.

Ulyss also was ticklish!  He could not stand to be 'goosed'.  On one occasion riding home from work on a street car (as one can see in the street car picture above, they had large open air windows in pre-air conditioning days), an erstwhile friend (evidently brave, foolish or both) reached out and tickled Ulyss under his arms. 

Unfortunately, my grandfather was holding a package of grocery meat for the family. Surprised by the personal intrusion, Ulyss threw up his arms, and the beef went flying out the window, and was never recovered.  

My mother made the mistake of tickling him one time, and only one time, and he became furious! These tales were told many times through the decades over the family Thanksgiving table.

Next Training for War....



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