From my Sister's Attic, Part 1

by Glenn N. Holliman

The First of a Number of Photographs from an Attic - 

Three Generations in 1952

First row, left to right, Glenn, Pam and Becky Holliman.  Second row, Motie, Ulyss, Pearl and Gerry Holliman.  Back row, Ralph holding Kathy.

Recently my two sisters, Rebecca L. Holliman Payne and Alice Holliman Murphy found the above photograph in one of my late father's scrapbooks.  Bishop and Ralph, two sons,  of Ulyss and Pearl Caine Holliman posed with their parents, wives and children at Bishop and Gerry Stansbery Holliman's house in Trussville, Alabama. The time may have been early spring on a Sunday afternoon judging by the formality of the clothing.

Both Ralph and Bishop, my father, World War II veterans, took advantage of the G.I. Bill for college education and by 1952 were launched on careers in business and government.  Both would do well, and unlike so many in the 21st Century stayed with one company (Ralph - American Bakeries and Bishop - the Social Security Administration) their entire working careers. Both men moved their families many times as promotions and more responsibilities came.  

The families enjoyed the incredible economic post-war boom that pushed the American standard of living to record heights.

The four children pictured above all attended college and graduate school in the 1960s and 70s and developed careers in education, social services, publications and church.  The girls, unlike their mothers and their grandmother, worked outside of the home as did the majority of women in the latter part of the 20th Century.

Presaging his son's experiences, Ulyss moved his family for economic reasons during World War I from Fayette, Alabama to Birmingham.  Raised on a farm, Ulyss married Pearl in 1906, farmed and later worked in a lumber yard.  By 1914 with four children to feed (Melton, Vena, Euhal and Loudelle), Ulyss move his family to Irondale and found employment with the Birmingham Electric Company repairing street cars.  Three more children were born: Bishop 1919, Virignia 1922 and Ralph 1924.  Ulyss retired in 1949 and died in 1965. 

When Ulyss was born in 1884, there were no automobiles, telephones, electricity, radio, television or airplanes.  When he passed away men circled the earth in spacecraft and computers were crunching numbers.  Never in human history had there been so much technological change as during the life time of my grandfather.

More on Trussville, a suburb of Birmingham

The Bishop and Gerry Holliman house in Trussville, Alabama, built 1937, purchased by in 1950 was sold in 1952 when my father's new employment in the Social Security system resulted in a transfer to Johnson City, Tennessee.  The address is 207 Oak Street and the neighborhood is today a National Historical District. The house sold in 1952 for $8,000.

The City of Trussville web site records that 287 residential units were built between 1936 and 1938 as part of the New Deal federal programs to provide housing, employment and stimulate the economy still suffering from the Great Depression.  The 615 acre suburban development was constructed on land unsuitable for farming, the former 'Slag Heap Village' taking its unpleasant name from the metal waste from a former iron furnace.  

"The homes were sturdily built with indoor plumbing, running water, electricity and amenities rare at the time in much of Alabama" records the city web site.  Parks, paved streets and sidewalks were the norm.  "Trussville children in the 50s enjoyed an uncomplicated, small-town life. Children entertained themselves by walking up and down the street playing on the Mall, and swimming in the Cahaba.  Most of families has only one car or no vehicle, but a bus went daily into Birmingham in the morning and came back that afternoon."

Trussville incorporated in 1947, absorbing both the Cahaba Village (the development) and 'Old Trussville.  The next year, the government deeded all park property to the town.