My Grandmother's Wall Photographs, Part 8

by Glenn N. Holliman

We continue our tour of Pearl Caine Holliman's photographic collage which now hangs on the kitchen wall of Mary and E.C. Herrin in Irondale, Alabama.  E.C.'s parents, Elliot Clayton Sr. and Pyretta Walker Herrin are bottom left and his aunt and uncle, Ludi and George Herrin bottom right under the collage.  In the center are portraits of Mary's parents, Robert and Vena Holliman Daly.

Below, the next section of the collage.

30. Euhal and the family dog, Sport.       

31. Ralph, meticulous as always, combs his hair for the photographer.       

32. A studious looking Euhal presents a handsome portrait in this picture.       

33. Melton was nicknamed ‘Rosie’ by his classmates while in high school. He graduated in 1927, and went to work in his Uncle Floyd Caine’s drug store. There he mastered the      pharmaceutical trade and stayed in it all his life. Floyd (1883 – 1966) as Lula Hocutt Caine’s son.       

34.Melton Holliman in sporty dress in the 1920s.       

35. Vena Holliman Daly and her daughter, Mary Daly Herrin, on the Daly-Holliman lawn.       
36. Ulyss and Pearl Caine Holliman on the lawn with grandson Glenn N. Holliman, Bishop’s Son.       

37. Far right stands Pearl Caine Holliman who in the 1940s entertained in Irondale her Sunday School class for which she was a teacher. Ulyss and Pearl were very active in the Gospel Tabernacle Church of The Rev. Glenn Tingly of Birmingham. Tingly was controversial, and the first radio preacher in the city from the early 1930s. 

While he preached against vice and immorality, Tingly's emotional, end of time theology was not shared by the entire family. The Ferrells in particular, moderate Methodists, were in disagreement with Loudelle’s parents and their financial support of the Tabernacle. Robert Daly, Sr. wrote scathingly during World War II how this ministry was taking resources from Ulyss and Pearl that could have been better used supporting Lula Caine, Pearl’s mother, who lived on a small rail road widow’s pension and who took in boarders to make end's meet.

38. Andrew ‘Eck’ Holliman was one of the six brothers of John Thomas Holliman, and the first to die (1882-1926). Interesting he is the only brother of Ulyss on the picture board. He succumbed to a heart attack and is buried in Anniston, Alabama where he worked for the railroad.

39. Jerry and Terry Holliman.

40. Melton and Ida Hughes Holliman (1905-1995). 

More next posting....

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 desablai@yahoo.com, the list and Facebook manager for Hollyman (and all our various spellings!).

Since early 2010, I have been publishing research and stories on the broad spectrum of Holliman (Holyman) family history at http://hollimanfamilyhistory.blogspot.com/ . For stories on my more immediate family since the early 20th Century, I have been posting articles since early 2011 at http://ulyssholliman.blogspot.com/ .

Let's save the past for the future! If you have photographs, letters, memorabilia or research you wish to share, please contact me directly at glennhistory@gmail.com. Several of us have an on-going program of scanning and preserving Holyman and related family records. Don't just let your aunt or uncle's genealogical work languish unread and deteriorating in an attic.Write us please and tell us of your items.Thanks to the Internet, we are able to scan, upload to the web (with your permission) and return the materials to you. - GNH

Ulyss and Pearl Caine Holliman and their Descendants

The Golden Summers of the 1930s, Part IX
by H. Bishop Holliman 2011

The Hurricane Approaches...

"Our place at Panama City was on the same street, a few cabins up from where all the others were staying.  The highway ran between our place and the beach, a very convenient location.  One day all of us were deep-sea fishing and some of us got sick.  I don't remember catching many fish, but what I do remember is the hurricane that came up a few days later.  It was a defining moment of our 1936 trip to Florida and an event we would remember and talk about the rest of our lives.

Young Bishop Holliman on vacation in Florida, wearing a white tie?

Before the hurricane came ashore, Bishop and other families members fished along the Panama City inlets.  

We read in the paper that a strong storm was approaching the Gulf Coast that summer of 1936, but we did not pay much attention to the warning.  Remember, we did not have ready access to a radio so the paper was all we had to rely on.  The morning of the storm dawned cloudy and very windy.  We were not able to stay on the beach due to the stinging sand of Panama City that was whipped up by the raging wind.  It went on like that all day, so we sat and waited for nightfall, hoping things would be better tomorrow.

The Holliman Clan and Company remained in their cabin a few doors closer to the beach and across the street from us  About 8 o'clock that night we thought we felt the house shake, so Robert Daly, Sr. herded us out to this car, and we sat, thinking the wind would let up soon.  I don't know why we felt the car would be a safer place than the house.  But about 9 o'clock we noticed a big stir in the house down the street and we wondered what was going on.  We soon found out."


Next the escape from the beach!

Ulyss and Pearl Caine Holliman and their Descendants

by Glenn N. Holliman


Vena Vivian Hollman Daly Buckheit (1909 - 1990),
the Second Child of Ulyss and Pearl Caine Holliman

Above left to right are Vena, Loudelle, Euhal, Bishop and Melton Holliman in 1920.  The pony may have belonged to Mrs. T.C. Burgess who lived at the bottom of the hill below the Irondale, Alabama house.  She had two children, John Hugh and Sadie Mae.  Mr. Burgess owned the hardware store that Robert and George Daly purchased in 1944.

Vena was 8 in 1917, when Ulyss and Pearl Holliman moved their four children and themselves to the growing suburb of Irondale, Alabama.  The population of Birmingham and its environs were exploding.  Founded in the 1870s, Birmingham grew in forty years from 3,086 to 178,816!  Jobs were plentiful as the infrastructure of the steel industry and the city grew.  Ulyss Holliman, now age 32, with many mouths to feed, left Fayette County and work in the lumber yard, to become a carpenter with the Birmingham Electric Company.

As Birmingham grew horizontally, street car lines pushed to all corners and into the suburbs.  Ulyss helped keep the wooden carriages and benches in good repair.  Ironically, when Ulyss was born there were no street cars in Birmingham, and when he died in 1965, there were not street cars in Birmingham.

Vena, the oldest daughter helped her mother, Pearl, care for the growing brood, which expanded by three more children after Ulyss found secure employment, and the family settled into new housing in Irondale.

In December 1924, twenty-one year old Robert Daly, grandson of an Irish immigrant who came to Alabama to build railroads, watched Vena in a Christmas pageant in the Irondale Methodist Church.  Robert, smitten over the cute 15 year old, sent her the above note and by her 19th birthday in 1928, she became his bride!  Below is the newspaper clipping of the happy occasion.  Click on the pictures to make them larger.



More soon on the Daly family and how they impacted on the life of the three youngest children....


Note: The information and opinions expressed in these family biographies are those of the writer alone. Comments, corrections and additions are most welcome. The purpose of these articles is to capture a period and family in American history and to pass this legacy along to future generations who share the common bond of family.  My thanks to Mary Daly Herrin for making these materials available..