The Passing of Clayton Herrin, 1953-2021

 by Glenn N. Holliman

He was born Elliott Clayton Herrin III, the eldest child of E.C. and Mary Daly Herrin of Irondale, Alabama, February 1953.  After several years of declining health, Clayton passed away the morning of August 27, 2021, age 68.  These are a few pictures in my family album of Clayton and others through the years.

Five Generations in 1953

When he was three months old, he had his picture taken at his great grandmother's home in Irondale.  Pearl Caine Holliman, 1887-1955, is on the far left.  In the dark dress is Clayton's grandmother, Vena Holliman Daly, 1909-1990, standing next to her daughter, Mary Daly Herrin, b. 1931.  Holding the new generation is the great, great grandmother, Lula Hocutt Caine, 1861-1957.

Later that year the Herrin/Daly family came to visit our family in Johnson City, Tennessee.  I was 7 years old and remember Clayton as a baby, nestled by Mary.  Unfortunately no  photographs were taken.

A baby sister, Linda, came along in 1956.  This Christmas picture is probably from 1962,

Clayton graduated from Shades Valley High School in 1971.  Below reflecting the hair styles of the era, he sits with his mother, Mary, at Becky Holliman's wedding December 31, 1971.  Becky is the daughter of Bishop Holliman, Mary's uncle.

Also attending that party a half century ago were siblings, Suzanne

 and David Herrin. 

And then there was Clayton's 21st birthday in 1974,

 wearing a snazzy bow tie!

In 1989 another birthday party for his Grandmother Vena surrounded by Daly cousins and his siblings.

Though the decades Clayton matriculated at Montevalo and Samford Universities and was a banker before health issues slowed him up.  He married Phylis Thoni of Birmingham in 1975.  Tragically, they lost an infant child.  Elliott Clayton Herrin IV survives, an expert in the mechanics of the entertainment industry. 

Clayton was affable, kind, interested in trains and family history and a great help to his parents as they aged.  After my retirement, I was able to get back to Birmingham more often to enjoy visits with all my cousins.  Clayton once showed my father, Bishop, and me around Irondale to see how it had changed or in some cases had not changed.  

  

With his mother, Mary, Clayton waves goodbye after a visit of my father and me.

I shall miss Clayton, and I am sure I am not the only one to feel that way.

From My Grandmother's Album

 by Glenn N. Holliman

 'Almost No One Looked at the Camera'!

The above is not from my sister's Becky Holliman Payne's attic but evidently one passed along to me from my great grandmother, 'Lulu' Hocutt Caine, center with the black collar, and then to my grandmother, Pearl Caine Holliman (1888-1955) who is in the upper right corner.  The year is possibly 1905 ca and taken evidently on the front porch of the William Lee Roy Caine family of Caine's Ridge south of Fayette, Alabama.  William  Caine (1862-1938) is sporting a mustache and looking in the opposite direction of his wife, who I have always known as 'Grandma Caine.'  Her full name is Ruth Lougena "Lula' Hocutt Caine (1861-1957).

The toothless lady in polka dots on the far left is evidently Lula's mother in law, Melissa Chandler Anthony Caine (1829-1913), my generation's great, great grandmother.  If she appears a bit worn, she did give birth to eight children.  Melissa was born in Jackson County, Georgia.  This is the only known photograph I know of her.  

Front row, between her grandmother and mother, is Vista Caine Gumpp (1898-1986), who according to my  father Bishop Holliman (1919-2018) had a lively social life, much to the chagrin of her oldest sister Pearl.  Pearl remembered a childhood Christmas morning with no presents as her father had 'drunk up' whatever financial surplus the struggling farm family had accumulated.  My grandmother became a (1893-1955) harsh opponent of alcohol consumption, supported Prohibition and embraced a fundamentalist Christian faith that condemned whisky, beer, dancing and card playing. Smoking and chewing tobacco, however, were accepted.  Several of my cousins remember Granda Ma Caine's empty coffee can that served as a make-do spittoon.

The young girl in the upper left is Maude Caine Cook (1893-1941).  Maude's family moved to Irondale, Alabama in the 1910s as did the Caine and Ulyss Holliman families seeking economic opportunities in Birmingham, the Magic City, that exploded in growth in the late 19th Century due to the development of the steel industry.  Maude, stricken with polio as a child, was wheel chair bound and died early on the family farm in Leeds, Alabama.

Pictured in the second row, center, is my Great Uncle Floyd Caine (1883-1966).  He became a druggist and employed his nephew Melton Holliman (1908-1958) as an assistant.  Melton would become a successful pharmaceutical salesman before his succumbing to an early heart attack. My belief is his premature death was due to his World War II service in France during the cold, rainy autumn of 1944 when attached as a medic in General George Patton's 3rd Army. He was invalided back to first England, then Long Island, New York before finishing his service in a Jackson, Mississippi military hospital in the spring of 1945.

Part of the Movement from Farm to City  

The Caines, Cooks and Hollimans were part of the great migration of Americans from farms to cities as part of the late 19th and early 20th century industrial and technological revolution in the United States and Europe. The USA census of 1920 for the first time revealed more persons living in urban areas rather than the rural farms or small villages. This move to cities opened up educational opportunities and lucrative careers for the descendants of Lula, Pearl, Maude and Vista undreamed by the immediate post Civil War generation in the Deep South. My parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, siblings and I are beneficiaries of this legacy. - GNH

 

The Passing of a Generation, Part 2

Further Reflections on the Passing of My Father, 
H. Bishop Holliman, 1919-2018
by Glenn N. Holliman

In 1919, when my father first saw daylight, the victorious allies of World War I forced a revengeful Treaty of Versailles on a defeated Germany.  That same year an angry and disgruntled 28 year-old German army veteran of that War to End All Wars joined the fledgling National Socialist party in Munich.  Adolph Hitler’s acquisition of power in 1933 would eventually turn my Father’s life upside down, as it did hundreds of millions of others around the world. 

The 1920 Federal Census reported that for the first time a majority of Americans no longer lived on a farm but made their lives and daily bread in a town or city.  As with millions of others, the trajectory of the Holliman family in the early 1900s was in the direction of urban life. 

Part of farm life continued into Alabama urban areas.  Here ca 1921, Bishop plays in the family chicken yard.  He is still in ‘baby clothes’.  The family raised chickens for decades and for a time in the late 1930s had a milk cow. 

As normal for many Americans of the time, Bishop’s parents, Ulyss and Pearl Caine Holliman, had only sixth and eighth grade educations from a rural county school.  However, thanks to the move to Irondale, Alabama during World War I, the educations attained by their children would make an incredible difference in their lives and those of the grandchildren, i.e. yours truly.

May 1921 Ulyss Holliman contracted for $2,000 a six room, 28ft by 42ft unpainted house to be constructed at 2300 3^rd Avenue North on a large hill lot in the E.N. Montgomery sub-division.  The plot overlooked the busy railroad yard and tracks that dominated the central corridor of Irondale. 

Above, left to right, six of the seven children of Ulyss and Pearl Caine Holliman - Vena, Euhal, Loudelle, Melton holding Virginia and Bishop in front, ca 1923 before Ralph was born in 1925.  Both Melton and Euhal in knickers and caps.  Vena in her Sunday best. My father is wearing a hat held down by Euhal, and carries a stick and wears white short pants.

It was the existence of the railroad that had led the Hollimans to Irondale.  Pearl’s father, William Lee Caine, from Fayette County took a job as a watchman for the railroad and moved his wife Lula Hocutt Caine and daughter Vista to this new community, only a few decades old.  A short time later, perhaps 1917, Pearl’s family followed as did her other sister, Maude Caine Cook and her family.

The all-wooden house was wired for that new marvel of that generation – electricity – but alas not running water or an indoor bathroom.  Such would be added in 1936.  Until then the family heated water in a huge cast iron pot every Saturday night and took a bath as my father said  ‘whether we needed it or not’.  As Irondale had suffered a devastating tornado in the early 1900s, my grandfather built a simple earth shelter into the side of the hill.  Fortunately, it was never needed, and it eventually collapsed.

Below the house at 2300 3rd Avenue North, Irondale, Alabama in 2013.

My grandfather caught the bus, later the street car, for the short ride to Birmingham to work six days a week, from the family home in Irondale, Alabama.  Later thanks to the Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, Ulyss’s work week was reduced to forty hours.  My branch of the Holliman families were Republicans, unusual for the times in the Deep South.  

Ironically, although opposed to most of the domestic programs of the 1930s Democratic administration, few persons benefited more from Federal programs than did my grandfather and father – for example, Social Security, labor unions, paid vacations, public works and college work programs.

As the fifth child of seven, my father grew up surrounded by siblings in a religious home.  His parents raised the children in a conservative Methodist tradition, prohibited dancing, card playing, alcoholic beverages and insisted on weekly attendance at church, often twice on Sunday. 

Below the family ca 1924 in a highly productive garden.  Cousin James Cook has joined the photograph, probably taken by Ulyss Holliman.  

The family did purchase a radio in 1929.  Bishop remembered his Mother allowed him to stay home from school to listen to the inaugural speech of President Herbert Hoover that year.  

The Hoover years were cursed with the Great Depression, the central reality of my father’s adolescence in the 1930s.  In 1933 Hitler became chancellor of Germany and by 1941, Dad was in the U.S. Navy and once again the United States was in a World War.

For several years I have been writing the history of this Alabama family before and during World War II.  The stories of Bishop, his parents, siblings, in-laws and the children to come are articulated at this blog site.  If I live long enough and my mind stays clear, I hope to carry on these stories into the post war years. The formal obituary of my father is contained in the next article on the Passing of this Generation. - GNH

Birthday # 96!!

by Glenn N. Holliman

Homer Bishop Holliman has another birthday!

Below age 96, he takes his daily walk and enjoys a cup of cappuccino ever afternoon.
  He has lived as long as his maternal grandmother, Lula Hocutt Caine (1861-1957), a native of Fayette County, Alabama who moved to Irondale, Alabama during World War I.  Her three daughters and their families followed, finding employment in the Magic City of Birmingham, a steel and coal metropolis, which sprang out of a cotton field in the early 1870s.

Bishop, my father, was born December 17, 1919, the year of the over-reaching Versailles Treaty was signed and an angry young German veteran, Adolph Hitler, joined the Nazi Party.  At age 22, Bishop was in the U.S. Navy preparing to brave the U-Boat submarines of a revived Germany under the leadership a tyrannical dictator.  Two of his brothers, Melton and Ralph, followed him into that conflict.

The Irondale of the 1920s and 30s, a working class suburb, a long street car ride from the center of Birmingham, was Bishop's childhood.  At age 9, his mother, Pearl Caine Holliman (1888-1955) let him stay home to hear Herbert Hoover take the oath of office, broadcast through the family's brand new radio.  A brother-in-law, Robert W. Daly, Sr., eventually a prominent banker, gave Bishop's siblings and the boy rides in his open top roadster.  The roads in the late 1920s and early 30s were still red clay or sand around Irondale.  The family had a chicken house, electricity, a cow and eventually in 1936, indoor plumbing.

Below 1932 in Robert's roadster - Ralph, Virginia and Bishop

The house at 2300 3rd Avenue North looked over the switching yards of numerous rail lines.  The romance of the railroad infected Bishop, who for the rest of his life rode the train whenever possible.

After almost four years in World War II, he returned to Alabama with a bride from Philadelphia.  The couple had three children.  

The G.I. Bill allowed Bishop to finish college at Birmingham-Southern, a prelude to five years of teaching.  In 1952, he returned again to earn his living from Uncle Sam, this time an employee of the Social Security Administration, the old age retirement and disability program that his Republican father, Ulyss Holliman (1884-1965), had railed against as an infamous part of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal. Bishop would retire as manager of the office in Cookeville, Tennessee.

Right, Bishop and Geraldine Stansbery, 1945 at Bishop's home in Irondale, Alabama.



Bishop thrived in Cookeville, becoming a prominent member of the community.  Over the years he was president of the Rotary, United Way, the library board, the Red Cross and the local railroad depot museum and always active in the local United Methodist Church.  The three children all attended Tennessee Tech, the local university and all met spouses there.  Today there are eight grandchildren and sixteen great grandchildren!

Below right, the family in 1966 in Tennessee - Becky, Glenn, Gerry, Alice and Bishop.            



Bishop has outlived his first two wives, good persons both, Geraldine Stansbery and Anne McLaughlin.  In 2000 he married Ellen Cox, a church friend from Gadsden, Alabama.  They make their home in Avilla, Indiana, a friendly community surrounded by Ellen's nieces and nephews.  Dad says it reminds him of Irondale, the home of his youth. 

 Above October 2015, the daily walk with Ellen and the ever faithful Bee Bee.

We can't pick our parents; Mother Nature does that for us.  My two sisters and I won life's lottery being the off spring of Geraldine Stansbery and Bishop Holliman.  Happy Birthday once again to one of the finest men in the world. - GNH

How a World War Changed an Alabama Family, Part 25

by Glenn N. Holliman


More Letters and News of the Home Front....


World War II finally ended the Great Depression of the 1930s.  Unemployment fell to record levels ending a decade of public assistance and public work programs.  By the fall of 1942, only 1.5 million out of a labor force of 54 million were unemployed, and many of these moving to other jobs or waiting to enter the armed services.  

The letters written by the Hollimans, an Irondale, Alabama family reflect the growing stresses and changes brought on by war time demands and the emerging role of women.  Men were being drafted, and more and more women took jobs men had held or went to work in war plants.  Older values and customs came under stress and anxieties and issues were often discussed in the home front letters. 

Stores remained opened later to deal with women shoppers, now workers, who could not visit stores during day time hours.  Pearl Caine Holliman (1887-1955), left, wrote to her son in the Navy, Bishop Holliman, that "The Dalys (her daughter, Vena, granddaughter Mary Daly Herrin  and son-in-law, Robert Daly, Sr.) and Ralph (Holliman, her youngest son) have gone shopping tonight.  You know the stores stay open till 9 o'clock (in Birmingham)."

Husband Ulyss S. Holliman (1884-1965), above, "has to work 6 days a week now and 9 hours per day.  He says they have more wrecked street cars than they have had since he has been with the B'ham  Electric Company."

One of the millions of women who went to work was Virginia Holliman Cornelius (1922-2011), Pearl's youngest daughter, a brilliant graduate of Shades-Cahaba High School, president of her 1940 class and yearbook editor.  She married Walter Cornelius (1922-2007) in late January 1942, and soon took a job in her brother-in-law's (Robert W. Daly, Sr.) Woodlawn, Alabama bank, taking the place of a drafted man. 

Robert Daly, Sr. at his death in 1959 was branch manager and assistant vice president of the First National Bank of Birmingham, later AmSouth.  Many years later, Robert's grandson, E. Clayton Herrin, would serve also as an assistant vice president and branch manager of the same bank and occupied the same office as that of his grandfather.

Below the new 1951 bank office of Robert's, which would in later decades be Clayton's!

Reflecting the scarcity of workers and ease of finding new employment, was a letter Pearl wrote in the fall of 1942. 

"Virginia has been offered a new job at the airport, more money.  She may take it.  Guess she will have to.  She won't be able to keep every thing going with what she makes at the bank."

Below an amazing picture from the 1940 Shades Cahaba yearbook.  Virginia sits in the center as yearbook editor and business manager, Walter Cornelius is on the left of her, a bit scrunched in this posed picture.  This photograph is almost a metaphor of their 30 years marriage, both career professionals. Virginia, the banker, was always a bit further ahead professionally than Walter, a lawyer.  She supported the family during his college and law school days, which perturbed more traditional members of the Holliman family.

 

Virginia wrote Bishop the following that same autumn.  "I had an offer to work at Eastern Air Lines for $100 a month.  But there would be some night work.  They gave me a $10 raise to stay at the bank with more the first of the year.  So I will stay here as transportation to and from the airport at night (would cost money so ) probably would make out as well."   

Virginia would stay in banking and after traveling with her husband to his training bases in 1944, returned to Irondale, re-entered banking and stayed with it until retirement in 1990.  She broke some glass ceilings along the way becoming the first woman senior vice president of AmSouth.

The oldest child, Melton Pearson Holliman (1908-1958), a pharmacy supply salesman, was anxious to get into the war, even though he was 34 years old and married.  Below are exerts from his fall 1942 letters reflecting his conflicting thoughts on the draft and entering the service.  (He would enter the U.S. Army, age 35, in August 1943.)

"I received a letter from my draft board yesterday wanting to know if my dependents or job had changed.  Guess I'll be in before long.  I'll be glad of it."

"I wrote my boss today that unless something happened I intended to enlist in the Navy November 15th.  I'll be glad when it is done as this uncertainty is bad on one's nerves."

"I suppose you have heard they are taking 18 and 19 year old boys now.  Say they don't want old men.  So...I suppose that means I won't get in until spring 1943.  I hope they don't consider me old."

As with his mother, Pearl, Melton was not pleased that his new brother-in-law stayed out of the Army and went to college while his wife, Virgina, worked.  One can detect differing attitudes of the role of wives and their husbands in Melton's scathing letter in October 1942. 

"I suppose you have heard about Virginia's husband going back to college and she is continuing work to pay his way through.  I have only utter contempt for anyone who would do this.  And the least I can say will be for the best."

The draft hung over all, especially for young 18 year old Ralph, who continued working in the fall of 1942, and calling on his girl friend, Motie Chism.   Another brother-in-law of Ralph's, The Rev. Charles Ferrell, pastor of the Jacksonville, Alabama Methodist Church penned these words to Bishop that stressful fall of 1942.

"Ralph spent the day with his girl friend.  From all accounts he has it pretty bad.  He doesn't believe it would do any good to go to school.  Of course, you can't tell him anything."  

Ralph's mother, Pearl, observed:  "Well, I guess Dad and I will soon be in this big old house by our selves.  It want be long before Ralph will be gone, and if he had started to school last fall it would not have helped him any for every one that was in his class that was in school, left last Saturday (for the service).  I know the Lord is able to take care of him just as He is taking care of you."

Below a 1984 picture of Motie, Ralph, Mary Daly Herrin and Bishop Holliman.

"Ralph goes to see his girl 3 or 4 times a week.  Ralph had Motie over here, first time I had seen her."  As noted in this space before, however young Ralph and Motie might have been, their 1943 marriage lasted sixty years until her death in 2003. 

Below, Charles and Loudelle Ferrell
 

Charles Ferrell's wife, Loudelle Holliman (1914-1998), by then the mother of three children, and a pastor's wife, did her bit to increase home food production.  She wrote: "We are getting eggs enough for our family now.  Day before yesterday we got 7; yesterday 5.  It surely is sweet music to hear those hens cackling.  I never would have thought I would ever enjoy such as that so much.  We also have 21 little ones that we are 'rearing' to eat." 

Housing was a premium during the War.  Widows such as Lula Hocutt Caine of Irondale, Pearl's mother (1861-1957) took in boarders and the behaviors of some renters left a lot to be desired.  Pearl reported in several letters: 

"Grandma is doing fine, except the renters have been on a spree.  Had a fight last nite, and broke out some of the windows."

"Mother is having a time with her roomers.  In fact they liked to killed each other this a.m., about 3 a.m. and called me.  Had to bring mother up here about 4:30 am.  They had him arrested last wed. nit, but he was out on bond.  They will have to go to court next week. Think we will get him out this time if he don't tear the house down.  I think the very devil has turned loose in him so that place will be to clean up and get new rents.  Mother said she wished Bishop was home to stay with her."

"I don't know what we will do with them.  Let them stay I guess.  Some of these times, they will kill one or both."   

Below Lula Hocutt Caine, born Fayette County, Alabama and whose father died in January 1863 as a result of the Battle of Stones River, Murfreesboro, Tennessee.  In this 1950 picture, she was 89 years old. 

Grandma Caine, as she was known to the family, needed the renter income.  William Lee Caine, born in 1862 died in 1938, worked as a guard for the railroad and evidently left no pension, and that in an era before Social Security.  The 1940 Census reported she earned no income although her son, Floyd Caine, age 54 in 1942 lived with her, at least for a while. Often relatives had to help financially. 

Pearl Caine Holliman usually closed her letters to her sons with a benediction.  Below are her words of faith, with a closing on movie and radio star of the time - Bob Hope! 

"May the Lord bless and keep you.  Write as often as you can.  Good nite and God bless you.  love Mother H.  PS Bob Hope is own (on)."

  Next, the first year of the war ends with a surprise visit home....