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. 

The Loss of a Vietnam Veteran

by Glenn N. Holliman

The Loss of a Veteran....

As many of you know, I have been writing in the space about my return to Vietnam, that war of my youth.  There were millions of us, mostly young men in the 1960s, who were in an out of that conflict over a multi-year period.  One of those U.S. Army Vietnam veterans, a career soldier, was Joel W. Phillips, married to my first cousin, Anne Holliman Phillips.  Anne is the first born daughter of my late uncle and aunt, Euhal and Edna Westbrook Holliman.

Joel (pictured left), born 1942, died this past Saturday, April 23, 2016 after a long illness.  As his wife Anne says, he is no longer suffering.  At this writing Anne is in their Dothan, Alabama home, surrounded by her three children and numerous grandchildren.  The military honor service will be held Tuesday, April 26 in Houston County, Alabama, Joel's childhood and adult home.

Anne remembers that Joel at a Mobile, Alabama Mardi Gras one year told her he had rather be in a bunker in Vietnam than at the festival!  I suspect there are many career soldiers like Joel, a 22 year plus veteran, who found much purpose in military service.  (Right, Joel's mother, Bertha Lee Sanders Phillips)

I got to know Joel better at the last reunion in Orange Beach, Alabama at Al and Linda Herrin Bradley's home (which they kindly opened to dozens of Hollimans for a weekend).  

Joel shared pictures of his children and grandchildren which I scanned into my computer, and filed in my Euhal and Edna Holliman, Irondale, Alabama folder.  He was exceedingly proud of his family, and took great pride in their success and well being.  (Joel and Anne in 2007)

We lost Joel's  father-in-law and mother-in-law in 1989 and 1992, but I know Euhal and Edna would have been proud also of these descendants, just as they were very proud of the lives of their own six children - Terry, Jerry, Anne, Jean, Tommie and Bill.

So as Joel goes to his next roll-call, this Vietnam veteran, who served all of two years, 1/10th of Joel's time, delivers him a well-earned salute and thanks him for his service to his country and family.  

Survivors include Ann Phillips; sons, Michael (Jenifer) Phillips and Jeffrey (Karri) Phillips; daughter, Nancy (Bobby) Justice; grandchildren, Serra Justice, John Justice, Alex Phillips, Lexie Phillips, and Hannah Phillips; great-grandson, Rylan Brennecke.  Anne kindly gave me permission to write this article.

How a World War Changed an Alabama Family, Part 23

by Glenn N. Holliman

 The Allies Respond....

 Between May and September 1942, 14 German U-Boats prowled Gulf of Mexico waters sinking 58 ships of over 300,000 tons. - Alabama, The History of a Deep South State, University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa, 2004.  In the South Pacific the battles of the Solomon Islands continued with a fearful toil of the U.S. Navy.

Below, the USS Enterprise, the last U.S. carrier afloat in the eastern Solomons, takes punishment, but does not sink in the fall of 1942.
 
But the tide of war was changing....

"Between the 4th and 22nd November, 1942, the face of the war changed its entire expression.  On the 4th, (General Bernard) Montgomery won the battle of El Alamein.  On the 8th, American and British forces landed in French North Africa.  On the 22nd, the Russians closed the pincers behind the German 6th Army in Stalingrad." - Volume II of the Dairies & Letters of Harold Nicolson, Atheum, New York, 1967.

For Bishop Holliman, radio seaman from Irondale, Alabama, the war was heating up.  After 40 mm machine gun practice in Rhode Island, his destroyer, the USS Butler, began sea trials, sailing out of Philadelphia and into the North Atlantic of the New England coast.  It was October and November, and the sea was rough.  And so was the shakedown cruise.  

Below, the Butler, all of 1,000 tons in size, sailing from her commissioning port of Philadelphia in 1942.

Below, a letter to Bishop's sister, Loudelle Holliman Ferrell, and his brother-in-law, Charles.  Recently, the Rev. Charles Ferrell had taken an appointment at the United Methodist Church in Jacksonville, Alabama as the senior pastor.   Bishop describes the fatigue and intensive training necessary to prepare the crew and ship for war duty, but does not forget niece and nephews.  

Notice his reference to the second front, the Allied invasion under the command of General Dwight D. Eisenhower of North Africa. Also, the sinking of a U-boat by another destroyer on post with the Butler.

"If you see a sub, don't report it.  Maybe it will sink us."

Below, the Charles Ferrell's and 'a new nephew', John Melton Ferrell, named after his uncle, Melton Pearson Ferrell (1908-1958).  Left to right, Charles Halford, Charles, Carolyn, John and Loudelle.  Loudelle and Charles wrote often to her brothers, Bishop, Ralph and Melton Holliman, during the war.

 Next post, more stories and photographs of an Alabama family at war....

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 desabla1@yahoo.com, the list and Facebook manager for Hollyman (and all our various spellings!).
For additional information on Hollimans, check out http://hollimanfamilyhistory.blogspot.com/ . 

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....

 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 desabla1@yahoo.com, the list and Facebook manager for Hollyman (and all our various spellings!).

How a World War changed an Alabama Family, Part 5

by Glenn N. Holliman

Summer 1941

22 June 1941, full of hubris and more than mildly insane, Adolph Hitler launched his war machine east against the Soviet Union.  Earlier that spring, his Wehrmacht had swallowed the Balkans, Greece and Crete and joined the Italians in North Africa.  German foreign minister Von Ribbentrop wrapped Nazi arms around Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania and Finland.  Britain, supported by her dominions Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, stood on the continental fringes of Europe facing foes Italy and Germany. 

German Panzer IIIs invaded Russian in what most of the world thought would be an easy conquest.  It was not to be.
n Panzer III tanks close to a border battle near Brest-Litovsk on June 22

Mad with ambition, a loathing of communism, racial and religious hatred and swollen with excessive confidence in his armies, Hitler hurled over 3 million men against another sadist dictator, Joseph Stalin, the communist autocrat of the largest geographical nation on the planet.  The battle of two titans commenced, and the world held its breath.

In the United States the World War would soon reach out and engulf an Alabama family....
 
The year before, 1940, Walter Cornelius, second row, far left in coat and tie, graduated from Shades Cahaba High School in Homewood, Alabama.  His future brother-in-law, Ralph Holliman, Class of 1942, sat near him in the middle of this group picture in the white and black shirt with the collar.  In early February 1942, Walter married Virginia Holliman, also Class of 1940.  Both Walter and Ralph would serve in the U.S. Army during the war - Walter in Saipan and Ralph in France.

From the memoirs of Bishop Holliman of Irondale, Alabama - "In the summer of 1941, I went back to Lake Junaluska, attended the Methodist Youth Conference at Montevallo College (and was elected president and interesting to note, my opponent was Howell Heflin, later U.S. Senator from Alabama) and worked intermittently at Hill's Grocery in Irondale, Alabama.  I am afraid I did not dwell a great deal on the prospects of the U. S. entering the war even that terrible summer in Europe."

Below Bishop Holliman 'concentrating' on his religious duties at  the Methodist Conference Center of Lake Junaluska, North Carolina in 1941.

In August 1941, a letter from his draft board sent Bishop scurrying back from a vacation in Florida with the Daly and Ferrell families. Checking in, Bishop was told he would be called in the fall.  Not anxious to join the U.S. Army, Bishop enlisted in the U.S. Navy, ready to go at a later date.

In the meantime, a girl friend, Gloria Zackey, who was a secretary  for Sloss-Sheffield Steel and Iron Company on 1st Avenue in Birmingham, recommended him for a temporary job, filing in chronological order cancelled checks.  "I was paid 75 cents an hour and thought a $26 a week pay check was pretty good."

Above, ten year old Mary Daly (Herrin) in a bathing cap suits typical of the period holds hands at Daytona Beach, Florida, August 1941 with her cousins Carolyn (Tatum) and Charles Halford Ferrell. The war would soon bring such vacations to a screening halt for most Americans.  Vena Holliman Daly and Loudelle Holliman Ferrell were Bishop, Virginia, Euhal and Ralph Holliman's sisters.

That same August, President Franklin D. Roosevelt rendezvoused in Newfoundland by ship with Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill of the United Kingdom.  Their military leaders met, and from the meetings at sea, was issued the Atlantic Charter, a just vision of a post-war world, declared boldly before the U.S. was formally in the war. Below, Roosevelt, Churchill and their staffs on the deck of the HMS Prince of Wales.

And again that summer of 1941, generally not noticed by many Americans, the State Department, utterly disgusted with Japan's continued war and invasion of China, initiated an embargo of the selling of U. S. petroleum to Japan.  For the militaristic government of Japan without oil, the clock began to tick rapidly toward a decision either to seize supplies in the Dutch East Indies or acquiesce to U.S. demands to cease their four year invasion of China. 

The government of new Prime Minister Hideki Tojo, a Japanese army general, refused to consider a withdrawal from China, and began plans to confront the U.S. militarily. Japan would decide to secure by violence the resources needed to maintain their military and civilian economy.  Time was running out in the Pacific, while most U.S. eyes were focused on the North Atlantic and Europe.  Below the Prime Minister of Japan who authorized the attack on Pearl Harbor.

"For ten years, Japan had been front page news, but I was not cognizant of how big a threat she was and I know that in the summer of 1941, I did not view that country as an enemy we would soon fight.  I guess all our attention was on Europe and I simply did not foresee future conflict with the 'Rising Sun'.  In later years I wondered how I could have been so uninformed - or ignorant - about what was happening in the Pacific." - Bishop Holliman

Next Posting, a Holliman joins the Navy....

Have questions about Holliman family history and associated families? 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 desabla1@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/ .

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. Thanks to the Internet, we are able to scan, upload to the web (with your permission) and return the materials to you.

Announcing also a "Seminar and Site" gathering October 18 and 19, 2013 in Fayette, Alabama for Hollimans and associated families whose ancestors are from that area. Space at the Rose House Inn is limited for the occasion due to a football weekend. For information, contact me at glennhistory@gmail.com. GNH















 

                                                                  

 

How a World War changed an Alabama Family, Part 4

by Glenn N. Holliman

 1940...the Storm Grows....

At this time in his life two decades after the Great War, Bishop Holliman was, as were millions of other Americans, an isolationist, one who wanted no involvement in European conflicts.  This opinion was shared by many during the late 1930s and early 1940s. 

However, by summer 1940 Czechoslovakia, Poland, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway and Denmark had fallen before the Nazi war machine.  These frightening events  moved more and more Americans to support rearmament and aid to England.  Great Britain stood alone against increasing fears of a world dominated by an aggressive government of Germany, a militant Japan and a Mediterranean bully, Benito Mussolini's Italy. Collectively, these were the Axis powers of World War II.  Below the two dictators who lost their lives in 1945 in the conflagration they initiated.

 

Ulyss and Pearl Holliman  of Irondale, Alabama were devout Christians, and had raised their family as Methodists.  Their second daughter, Loudelle, married a Methodist minister in 1935, Charles T. Ferrell, born in Mississippi, and educated at Birmingham-Southern College and Yale Divinity School.  Loudelle and Charles helped Bishop obtain a part time job as youth director with the North Alabama Methodist Conference in the late 1930s.  This work - several summer youth conferences and his own deep commitment to the Christian faith - are evident in Bishop's pacifistic and humane opinions captured in memoirs written in 1991:

"And so it was as the clouds of war loomed ever more ominous on the horizon that I was a student at Birmingham-Southern College, having entered in 1937.  During those years I was very active in youth activities in the Methodist Church, and a principle focus in those times was 'world peace'.  At all of our youth conferences, programs, and camps, ironically one of the courses would be labeled, with some variations, 'World Peace."- H. Bishop Holliman, 1991
  

 

 Above, Christmas 1940, young Charles Halford Ferrell tries out his new Greyhound wagon for his parents, The Rev. Charles and Loudelle Holliman Ferrell.  Loudelle and Charles would write faithfully to her siblings, while Charles pastored Methodist Churches in North Alabama during the war.

 

Bishop along with two brothers, Melton and Ralph and a brother-in-law, Walter Cornelius, were soon to be swept into the growing maelstrom.  War would come to this Alabama family.  Melton (1908-1958) is pictured below with his mother, Pearl Caine Holliman (1887-1955) in the late 1930s in front of the Robert and Vena Daly, Sr. home in the 2300 3rd Avenue North of Irondale, Alabama.  Not a young man, Melton served in the U.S. Army in England, France and Mississippi during 1944 and 1945.  While overseas, his health broke. He died of a heart attack 13 years after the war at the age of only 49.

With the fall of World War I ally France in June 1940, the U.S. Congress passed a conscription act to begin the building of an American army which at that time was one of the smallest in the world.  Later that year, President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked Congress to pass the Lend-Lease bill that gave assistance to Great Britain, aid short of war. 

At the same time, relations between Japan and the U.S. continued to deteriorate.  Japan pursued its war in China, and cast covetous eyes on the Dutch, British and French colonies in southeast Asia.

No matter how isolated the U.S. was in the Western Hemisphere, the world had become a dangerous place.  Led by FDR, Congress began to appropriate massive funds for naval, air and army armament.  However, 'isolationism', remained strong - many Americans did not wish to see the United States once again involved in a European war.

"Remember, we were still living in the shadows of the First World War, and the death and destruction wrought by that conflict were being brought out into the open, and we were able to look back and view the catastrophic horror.  Also, we were learning how the profit motive entered into whether we should go to war, and we were taught that greedy munitions manufacturers profited from the deaths of countless millions.

In the late 1930s and early 40s, I struggled to stay in college and worked part time at the Methodist Youth headquarters at 516 N. 22nd Street in Birmingham.  I was making maybe 25 or 30 cents and hour to fold letters, run the mimeograph machine and do other such menial chores  The job had been designed to aid a ministerial student.  I had been given the job my second year in college by Charles Ferrell, my brother-in-law.

He was Conference Youth Director, so through his beneficence I was able to make a little spending money and stay in school.  My association with the ministers in and out of the office and my participation in conference youth programs strengthened my faith in the 'rightness' of peace and the evils of militarism and war." - H. Bishop Holliman, 1991.

Bishop Holliman, left, sometimes had his mind on items other than religion while attending Methodist youth conferences in Alabama and North Carolina in the early 1940s.  Note the cute blond on the far left.  Dad is in a coat and tie, and oh, those white shoes and pants.

 

Next the War moves closer to this Alabama family....

Have questions about Holliman family history and associated families? 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 desabla1@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. Thanks to the Internet, we are able to scan, upload to the web (with your permission) and return the materials to you.

Announcing also a "Seminar and Site" gathering October 18 and 19, 2013 in Fayette, Alabama for Hollimans and associated families whose ancestors are from that area. Space at the Rose House Inn is limited for the occasion due to a football weekend. For information, contact me at glennhistory@gmail.com. GNH