How a World War Changed an Alabama Family, Part 20

by Glenn N. Holliman

The Destroyer...the Weapon to Defeat the U-Boat and a Chance Meeting of a future Wife!

Until the spring of 1943, the German submarine was the greatest threat of Nazi tyranny to deny United States supplies and troops bound for African and European battlefields.  Hundreds of allied ships were torpedoed in the Atlantic.  Uncle Sam's chief weapon to defeat this undersea armada was the destroyer, a  speedy, heavily armed, pint-sized vessel especially built to escort convoys and drop depth charges on the enemy.

In August 1942, H. Bishop Holliman of Irondale, Alabama, was assigned to the USS Butler, 643, built and launched at the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Navy Yard.   This sleek, brand-new, state of the art ship was commissioned on 15 August 1942.  Radio seaman Holliman and 206 other sailors went aboard to make this ship their home and to prepare it for the North Atlantic.

Left, in February 1942, ship yard builders worked over time to construct the Butler.



 
Below, a painting of this Gleaves class ship, over 2,000 tons loaded.  She had four 5 inch guns, depth charges, machine guns and two torpedo tubes.  She was in the invasion of Sicily, numerous conveys and finally took battle wounds in the Pacific.  Ironically at age 3, in 1945, with the War won, she was stricken from the Navy inventory and in 1948 was broken up for scrap. 

It took several months to prepare the Butler for its first shakedown cruise. In the meantime, sailors had time for weekend passes. For a young man from Alabama, the northeast with its big cities of Philadelphia and New York were exciting and historic places to visit and enjoy. 

 In one weekend trip to Manhattan, Bishop took in a NBC radio show, the Army-Navy Hour at Rockefeller Center studios. He was selected from from the audience to participate in a singing performance and managed to warble a tune. For this he won a Ronson cigarette lighter. He mailed it to his brother, Melton Holliman, a smoker. 

Left, this 1942 photograph of two sailors jumping for joy on their skates at the ice rink at Rockefeller Center captured the mood of many service men who were able to experience the sights and sounds of New York City. Millions of young Americans were seeing parts of their country for the first time. 

This movement of people had vast consequences for many, including my father who decided one weekend, September 12th, to visit Irondale buddy, Charles Pugh, then a serviceman,  stationed at Atlantic City, New Jersey. 

Bishop Holliman never met up with Charles that weekend but he did chance to meet a 19 year old from Philadelphia, a girl recently relocated north with her family from Bristol, Tennessee.  That teenager's name was Geraldine Stansbery, a young lady who later became this writer's mother in 1946.  Ah, the fortunes of war!

Right, Gerry in 1942 at her Philadelphia home.  Born and raised in East Tennessee, when her brother-in-law Vance Sherwood, who was married to Louise Stansbery, took a transportation job in Pennsylvania, Gerry and her mother, Mayme Osborne Stansbery moved with them.  Mayme's marriage to Charles S. Stansbery had ended in 1933.

Bishop and Gerry's marriage took place June 26, 1945 in Philadelphia, a war time romance with lasting consequences, especially for this writer and my two sisters.


Next More Stories from an Alabama Family....

 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!).

Or join your many cousins at MyFamily.com and view an expanded Holliman family tree and many files on the history of the family. Just write to glennhistory@gmail.com for an invitation

How a World War Changed an Alabama Family, Part 14

by Glenn N. Holliman

Home on Leave, a Look at the Home Front....

Above, Birmingham, Alabama's L & N (Union Station) as it neared destruction in the late 1960s.  A generation after World War II this massive structure was torn down as passenger traffic declined from a high of 42 trains a day to a very few.  Below, Bishop and his father, Ulyss Holliman of Irondale, Alabama.

"Arrived at L & N station (Birmingham, Alabama) at 8:15 a.m., March 1, 1942.  Words will not describe my feelings." - Diary of Bishop Holliman 1942 writing of his first leave from the U.S. home to Irondale, Alabama from his duty station in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Waiting at home for the young sailor, the first of the family to serve in World War II were, among others, below Vena Holliman Daly, Ulyss and Pearl Holliman, his parents and the first grandchild in the family, Mary Daly (Herrin).

The experiences of millions of service men and women in World War II can be captured in my father's words below.  He had been gone for 3 1/2 months, and like all others in uniform in those dark days, faced an uncertain future.  I reproduce his words verbatim and the names of Irondale friends and families which add to our understanding of that community's history.

"Robert (Daly), Vena and Mary (Vena and Mary Daly pictured above with Ulyss and Pearl Holliman) met me at 1st and 20th (in Birmingham).  Boy, was I glad to see them.  Also called Paul Propst (a Methodist minister friend) while I was waiting on them.  Arrived at home - really a happy occasion to see Irondale, the folks again.  Grandma (Lula Hocutt Caine 1861-1957) was at the house.  At 11 a.m. went to church (the Irondale Methodist Church), a great occasion and surprise.  All of us had lunch at the house (the Holliman house at 2300 3rd Avenue N). 

Virginia and Walter (the newly wed sister and new brother-in-law, the Cornelius's) came out.  Mr, and Mrs. Runyan (Renfro Runyan ran the Irondale water department), Cecil Rhodes Holliman (a first cousin, Birmingham attorney and son of Jim Monroe Holliman, photograph below), Ralph (his younger brother, photograph below) and  Vista (his mother's younger sister - Vista Caine Robbins), Paul Propst, Charles and Mrs. Pugh (neighbors, Charles a good friend), Joe and Lena Daly Minyard (Lena was the sister of Robert W. Daly, Sr.; Joe worked at the Birmingham Electric Company) and Karl Daly (father of Robert W. Daly, Sr., a farmer and native of Ireland (1875-1950).  I went up to see Mr. and Mrs. Count (Irondale neighbors).  I ate supper with the L.L. Jones (the Methodist minister in Irondale) and Charles Pugh.  Saw Archie (the 22 year old son of the Jones).  Enjoyable occasion.  Went to Young People's meeting at church.  Made a few remarks.  Very, very nice to be back."

A few of the relatives seen on this first leave were left, Ralph Holliman, in a school photograph (b 1924) and the family of Cecil Rhodes Holliman (1902-1986), Cecil, his son Rhodes Burns Holliman (b 1927), his daughter Cecile (Youngblood) (1938 - 2012), and wife Ruby Burns Holliman (1903-1980).  Cecile Holliman Youngblood is the mother of Glenda Norris, an active Holliman and Blakeney family historian.

Other friends and relatives seen on this short leave home were his brother-in-law Charles Ferrell and friends Earl McBee and the lovely Marsh sisters (Lois especially) of Woodlawn, Alabama.

As with millions of GIs during World War II, the time away from the military passed all too quickly.  Within a week Bishop was back in the Navy at the New Orleans base, learning to be a Navy aviator.  Would this new training and duty work out for him?

In the Pacific the Japanese fleet still was running amuck, and Hitler prepared to launch a second spring offensive against the Russians.  Rommel still controlled central North Africa....the world was a dangerous place.

Next posting, a continued Look at Irondale, Alabama and military lives during the 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!).


Or join your many cousins at MyFamily.com and view an expanded Holliman family tree and many files on the history of the family. Just write to glennhistory@gmail.com for an invitation.

How a World War changed an Alabama Family, Part 3

by Glenn N. Holliman

A Humorous Letter that captures the Mood of a Divided America....

"I felt we would not enter World War II.  We had learned our lesson, I thought, from the last war.  Surely we would get burned again. So I went merrily on my way, doing my thing, and not worrying very much about the ultimate consequences of what was happening in Europe." - H. Bishop Holliman, 1991, a Navy veteran of World War II

Spurred on by lively conversations with brother-in-law Robert W. Daly, Homer Bishop Holliman, born the year of the infamous 1919 Versailles Treaty, a Birmingham-Southern College student, typed the following tongue-in-cheek letter to himself.  While meant to be humorous, nineteen year old Bishop, captured the ambiguous feelings of many Americans in the autumn of 1939 as Europe once again plunged itself into an abbess.

Notice in the letter, he refers to the divisive issues of the embargo and neutrality which divided the U.S. Congress.  Only with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor at the end of 1941 did American public opinion coalesce, and Congress overwhelmingly vote war. 

Above Bishop Holliman, right, with his Methodist pastor friend, The Rev. Paul Nelson Propst in 1940 at a Lake Junaluska, North Carolina religious retreat.   Note the formal wear. Bishop would give Paul's middle name to his son, Glenn Nelson Holliman, in 1946. 

Bishop had been raised in the Irondale, Alabama Methodist Church.  Thanks to his sister Loudelle's husband, The Rev. Charles Tigert Ferrell, he would work several years as youth  coordinator for the North Alabama Conference of the Methodist Church.  This position allowed him to help pay his tuition at Birmingham-Southern College, a Methodist school, from 1937 to 1941.

Below, Bishop's 1939 letter to himself captures his religious and isolationist beliefs as World War II began in Europe.  On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland and reluctantly France and Great Britain declared war on expansionist Germany.

In the late 1930s and early 1940s, thanks to the automobile and paved roads, Bishop and millions of Americans were able to travel and see the United States as previous generations had not been able to do.  Below, inn this 1939 photo Charles Pugh (far left) of Irondale and close friend of Bishop's stand with The Rev. Stewart Butten (far right), having just returned from a Methodist retreat in Knoxville, Tennessee.

 Notice the street at 2300 3rd Avenue, North, Irondale, Alabama is unpaved.  Third Avenue would be paved, ironically, during World War II.  The Ulyss Holliman home is in the background.  The automobile has a running board.  And what natty dressers just returning from a trip, still in white shirts, ties and oh, those white shoes!  A month or so later, Bishop would write the above letter to himself.

Next posting, the World War and the Changing Mood at Home....

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

Memories of Irondale, 1925 to 1942, Part X by H. Bishop Holliman

This is the tenth in a series of reflections on an earlier Irondale, Alabama by my father, Bishop Holliman, born 1919. - Glenn N. Holliman

Churches…There were three churches in Irondale as far back as I could remember: the Methodist, Baptist and Presbyterian.  At Christmas each one staged a Christmas pageant the Sunday night before Christmas.  Every summer the Baptist and Methodist Churches held a revival, and that meant for two weeks we had somewhere to go on the warm summer evenings before there were radios, television and air conditioning. 

 The revival that stands out in my mind was the one in 1936 at the Methodist Church (then located at 2009 South 2nd Avenue) conducted by Fred Brown from Bob Jones College.  For two weeks the church was filled each night to hear the Word preached by this dynamic preacher.  Even folks from the other two churches came to hear him.  At the end of the revival put on a watermelon-picnic feast down at the artesian wells where East Side Mall as later built.  I have many good memories of church activity up to the time I left in 1941.

 Below an outing in Irondale in the late 1930s.  Either church or Shades Cahaba friends (probably both). Virginia Holliman Cornelius is 3^rd from left and Bishop Holliman on far right.

 

We young people were led by such folks as the Hamiltons, Sherets, Overtons, Grissoms, Glenn Barrow and many others.  Most of our social life originated in the church – at Christmas, Halloween, summer outings at Grant’s Mill, where you could go swimming for 20 cents, and cook-outs in the fall at the beacon light on Gate City Mountain. 

We also participated in putting on plays at the school, sponsored by the church in support of some project.  One time we bought a pulpit bible with money we raised.  Some participants I remember now were: Clementine Sherbet, Mary Virginia Hamilton, Frances McNutt, Jo Helen Leath, Charles Pugh and Louis Overton.

Above Bishop Holliman poses with his sister Virginia Holliman Cornelius (1922 – 2011) at a Birmingham, Alabama reunion in 1985 almost 50 years after the photo by the automobile.

 Next Post, more memories and more people of Irondale, Alabama....

Ulyss and Pearl Caine Holliman and their Descendants

by Glenn N. Holliman

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

"In the summer of 1933 many of FDR's programs were being developed and there was lots of news about the new President and what was happening in Washington. That summer I spent reading the 8th grade history book because I had been double-promoted from the 7th grade to the 9th. Mr. Millsap, the principal, had told me to study that book over the summer, so I did. In September 1933, I entered the 9th grade.

Below in Irondale, Alabama in 1934 are left, Ida Hughes Holliman, wife of Melton, and Loudelle Holliman. In 1935, Loudelle would marry an up and coming young Methodist minister, Charles Ferrell.

Loudelle was working at F.W. Woolworth Ten Cent Store on 3rd Avenue and 19th Street in Birmingham. She worked six days a week and made, I think, seven dollars a week! Her car fare was 14 cents day. I don't know what she did for lunch. Euhal was working in Hill's grocery store in East Lake, but I do not know how much he was paid.

Right, a restored 1926 Packard with rumble seat the type in which Euhal Holliman enjoyed riding when Robert and Vena Holliman Daly took him for a long vacation ride!

By that summer, Robert Daly had sold his Packard Roadster and bought a Model A Ford from Cecil Bunt, who lived on the same street up on the hill. I never did know why he sold the Packard, or felt the need to move down to a lower level. That was not for me to know. The two-door Ford was probably a 1931 model.

 Also in 1933, there came into Robert and Vena's life, and also into our family's lives, The Rev. Stewart Button, the new Presbyterian preacher in Irondale, one who was to impact our lives for many years.

Below, Irondale neighbor, Charles Pugh, Bishop Holliman and Stewart Button in front of the Holliman home at 2300 3rd Avenue, ca 1939.

Mr. Button, or 'Button' as Robert Daly called him, was a native of Ireland and had come to the States in the late 1920s, attended Maryville College in Tennessee, a Presbyterian institute. A well educated man, he was about the same age as Robert but as yet unmarried. Robert and Vena took him under their wings, and from then on Mr. Button was like one of the family.

 He was in and out of their house constantly, socialized with them and shared many hours of pleasant conversations. Maybe it was the Irish connection that tied them together. Anyway, he became a big part of their lives as long as they lived. Also, he had a great influence on my life as well."

Next, a Return again to the 1930s....

Ulyss and Pearl Caine Holliman and their Descendants

by Glenn N. Holliman

Homer Bishop Holliman, 1919
the Fifth Child of Ulyss and Pearl Caine Holliman

With the marriage of The Rev. Charles Ferrell to Loudelle Holliman in 1935, Bishop gained another strong influence on his life.  Charles encouraged Bishop to enter Birmingham-Southern College after graduation from Shades-Cahaba High School in 1937.  With some assistance from Robert Daly and acquiring a youth position job with the North Alabama Methodist Conference (thanks to Charles and Loudelle), Bishop was able to attend this liberal arts school, and after the interruption of war, graduated in 1946 on the G.I. Bill.

During his service with the Conference, Bishop met many young Methodist pastors, one being Paul Nelson Propst (see above) and had the occasion to attend and help conduct youth meetings in Montevalla, Alabama and Lake Junaluska, North Carolina.  In North Carolina, Bishop met another Methodist, a young lady from Greenville, South Carolina, who would in 1990 become his second wife, Anne McLaughlin.

Above is a photo taken in front of the Holliman home in 1939 on 3rd Avenue in Irondale.  Bishop (center) had just returned from a trip to East Tennessee and Western North Carolina with his boyhood friend, Charles Pugh (left) also of Irondale. The man on the right is Stewart Button, a Presbyterian minister and a great friend of the Dalys.  Button, as he was known, could hold his own humor-wise with his fellow Orange Irishman, Robert Daly, Sr. Note the streets in Irondale were not paved until World War II.

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 .


Next, the War comes to the Family....