A War Time Visit and a Wedding!
In the first winter of World War Two for the United States, the conflict went very badly for the U.S. and Allies. In January 1942, the Japanese Navy rampaged in Southeast Asia with European colonies, one after another, falling before the onslaught of ships and soldiers. The U.S. colony of the Philippines remained under siege, MacArthur and his troops being pushed into a corner of Bataan. The Germans remained deep in Soviet territory, and the Nazi general, Rommel, continued to occupy a huge portion of North Africa thereby threatening British forces in Egypt and the all important Suez Canal.
With German U-boats devastating the merchant tanker fleet off the U.S. East and Gulf coasts, it was critical for the U.S. Navy to build ships, man them and send them into battle against this menace. One of the hundreds of thousands of young Americans being trained that dreary winter was Bishop Holliman of Irondale, Alabama. By mid-January, he was learning the hows and wherefores of sonar operations, those sound waves emanating from surface ships that bounced off submarines and revealed their presence, allowing for the dropping of boat killing depth charges. His duty station was Key West, Florida.
In those anxious days, not knowing when they would see Bishop again, members of his family drove the hundreds of miles from Alabama to the tip of Florida to visit for a long weekend of January 30 - February 1, 1942.
Below, The Rev. Charles T. Ferrell, his mother-in-law Pearl Caine Holliman, Ralph Holliman, his sister Loudelle Holliman Ferrell, and Ulyss S. Holliman in an unusual pose. Bishop Holliman must have taken this photograph along a beach at Key West, on an unusual blustery, chilly day in the sub-tropics.
In order to visit Bishop, his mother, father, one sister, a brother-in-law and a brother, missed the wedding of another family member, Virginia Holliman who on Janaury 30, 1942 married her high school boy friend, Walter Cornelius of Birmingham, Alabama. The wedding took place in the Irondale home of her sister, Vena Holliman Daly and brother-in-law, Robert W. Daly, Sr.
The young couple below....Pearl Caine Holliman, Virginia's mother, had objections to the marriage, generally based on cultural differences between the two families. Pearl and Ulyss had become conservative evangelical Christians in the 1930s, leaving the Irondale Methodist Church, which they believed to be too liberal.
They joined the Gospel Tabernacle in Birmingham, a Christian and Missionary Alliance church pastored by a flamboyant radio evangelist, Glenn Tingley, who in 1934 pioneered in the deep South the proclamation of a fundamentalist gospel over the air waves. Biblical literalists, Pearl and Ulyss did not believe in intoxicating beverages, card playing, movies on Sunday or dancing. Walter's father ran a cross roads store in Shelby County, Alabama and his family was much more tolerant of such activities.
Born 1922 in Irondale, a working class suburb of Birmingham, Virginia had a successful high school experience at Shades Cahaba in Homewood, Alabama, probably one of the best secondary schools available in the state at the time. She excelled in scholarship, led the debate team, was president of several clubs and editor of the yearbook. After graduation in 1940, she started Howard College.
Virginia caught a gleam of what a woman could achieve in a new age, and Walter, ambitious himself, represented a route to a larger life.
Her parents had been born in the 1880s, and poorly educated in rural schools in Fayette County, Alabama. There was a generation and education gap between parents and child, and further gap growing between urban and rural cultures and religion. And there was a war on, and young people married quickly before the Armed Forces separated them.
Below, Pearl Caine and Ulyss Holliman with their son, Bishop Holliman, in his U.S. Navy uniform at Key West. Photographs indicate Pearl, b 1887, 55 years old when this picture was made, aged rapidly during the war. Three of their sons and Walter Cornelius would be posted overseas. Ulyss was 58 when this picture was taken. In addition to her handbag, Pearl is holding coconuts.
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From the 1942 Diary of Bishop Holliman, Sunday, February 1 - "Met the folks at 9 a.m. Went to church and ate dinner with the Reviers (a church family). Rode around in the afternoon. I drove for the first time since I left home. Made pictures (see below).Went to church that night. Charles preached good sermon. (Charles Ferrell, a Methodist minister, must have been invited into the pulpit that evening.) I left the folks about 11 p.m. Bid them good bye - sad parting."
Above, on the beach in their Sunday best, Ralph Holliman, b 1924, who was in his senior year of high school at Shades Cahaba. A year later his Army draft number would come up, and he would marry his high school sweet heart, the second member of the family, but not the last, to marry during the war. Left to right - Ralph, Charles Ferrell, Bishop Holliman and his father, Ulyss S. Holliman.
From the Diary of Bishop Holliman, 23 February, 1942 - "Received orders to leave - me to New Orleans. Assigned to P.C. (patrol craft) boats."
Next off to New Orleans and a change of plans....
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!).
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/ . GNH
