Memories
of Irondale, 1925 to 1942, Part I
by H. Bishop
Holliman
In November 2010, also
91 years of age, H. Bishop Holliman (pictured below in the red sweater) who
lived his childhood and youth at 2300 3rd Avenue North, Irondale,
Alabama, returned to look once more at his home town where he grew up in the 1920s
and 1930s. These are his memories and
photographs. - Glenn N. Holliman, his son
"Trains, trains, trains…Among my earliest
memories of Irondale are the trains that went through the center of town. Four main lines that used five tracks – two
for the Alabama Great Southern that ran from Birmingham to Chattanooga on to
Washington, DC. One for the Southern
that ran from Washington, D.C. to New Orleans and one for the Central of
Georgia that connected with the other line that ran from Chicago to Miami. Finally, one for the Seaboard that came from
Washington, D.C, through to Birmingham."
Above the Norfolk Southern freight pulls
through Irondale with Bishop Holliman walking beside it in 2010.
"Long
before ‘rock and roll’, music came on the scene, Irondale already knew how to shake. It seems that a train was barreling through
every few minutes – sometimes four at a time.
On summer evenings we would try to sit on the front porch to listen on
the radio to Major Bowes or Bob Hope. But
about 8 o’clock, the Pelican on its way to New Orleans or the Robert E. Lee
from Washington and Atlanta, plus a couple of freights, would create so much
noise, we had to go inside.
Each
day to and from school, to church on Sunday, to the post office and to the
baseball diamond, we had to cross those tracks.
There were no warning lights and no guard rails to stop us – we crossed
the tracks at our peril. You can imagine
the anxiety our parents felt every day that we went to school or to other
placers, hoping and praying we would get there and back safety.
Some did not make it. I remember three deaths that occurred. Usually an older student would lead first
graders from school across the tracks in the afternoon. About two thirty each afternoon we would hear
the toot of the Seaboard train on its way to Atlanta and we would know then
school would soon let out."
More in the next post on Irondale, Alabama from 1920s to 1940s.....
No comments:
Post a Comment