When my Grandfather was Young, Part 3

 by Glenn N. Holliman

My Grandfather made a Decision to Relocate.  The Decision reverberates to this Day.

He closed his barber shop when he married and started farming again, the worn out soil of Fayette County, Alabama.  He had married Pearl Caine Holliman in November1907.  He began engaging in civic affairs being listed as an election officer in 1910.  This interest in politics which he shared with several of his brothers would result in him running for the state legislature in the 1930s and 1940s as a Republican.  

Children came rapidly for the young couple - Melton 1909, Vena 1910, Euhal 1912 and Loudelle 1914. The clippings that follow are from the Fayette, Alabama newspaper.

1910

So in 1912, Ulyss, his wife, Pearl and his first three children moved to town, Fayette, Alabama.  My late father believed Ulyss worked in the lumber yard. 

1912

1913

The far left child is Vena Holliman Daly and Melton P. Holliman on the far right.  The remaining children may be cousins, perhaps the Lee Cook family.

 1915

Vena Holliman Daly and Loudelle Holliman Ferrell taken in Fayette, Alabama, 

1916

Occasionally, Ulyss had some fun such as this steam boat ride he took with two of his brothers in 1916.  Can you see him in the far left, 2nd row with the hat pushed back on his head?  This photograph was saved by Cecil  Rhodes Holliman (1901-1986), son of James Monroe Holliman (1876-1940), father of Cecil and grandfather of Rhodes B. Holliman (1928-2014).  Rhodes' son, Dr. Jim Holliman, resides in Hershey, Pennsylvania.  His second cousin, once removed (this writer) and wife Barbara, often visit Jim and his wife, Karen, who live an hour away from our home in Newport, Pennsylvania.  The copy in the second picture is from Cecil, a first cousin to my father, Bishop Holliman (1919-2018).

The Fateful Dinner of September 1915

Floyd Caine, the only brother of my grandmother, Pearl Caine Holliman, had moved to Irondale, Alabama, a suburb of Birmingham, the "Magic City" which experienced explosive growth for its first 50 years.  Floyd was labeled a doctor in this article.  That is exaggeration as he was a pharmacist who had left the farm life in Fayette County and acquired rudimentary skills of pills and tonics.  All four families recorded in the second paragraph would follow Floyd by late 1917 to reside in Irondale.  They were his parents and three sisters.  Ulyss was not in attendance; he must have been with the children.

What did they discuss that visit?  Impressed they must have been by Floyd's economic success.  Economic opportunities were limited in Fayette and the the Cooks and Hollimans had large families to feed.  By 1917 the decision was made leave Fayette, the home of the Hollimans since 1836.  Life would change forever for their children and opened up vistas for the grandchildren that would follow.

 

1918

This newspaper clipping in early 1918 confirms Ulyss had taken his family to Birmingham.

By 1918 the Hollimans and Caines made Irondale their homes.  The Cooks would follow.  Ulyss acquired a carpenter's job with the Birmingham Electric Company which owned the streetcar line.  He would work for them until retirement in 1949. Occasionally Ulyss experienced mishaps in the big city. 

 1920

From the Birmingham News

We don't know if Ulyss ever recovered this money, probably equivalent of a week's pay.  We know in 1940 his annual salary was $1,600.  Did he lose his wallet on the street car to a light fingered thief?  Perhaps.  My father remembered an occasion when his father, very ticklish, was a window seat passenger on the street car coming home holding a package of meat for the family.  A 'friend' tickled him, playfully, and Ulyss, surprised, threw up his arms and the package went sailing out an open window.  No hamburger that night in Irondale.

1960 

The Singer Barber Sings Again!

Cousin Pam Holliman, my Uncle Ralph Holliman's daughter, found this clipping from the Birmingham News.  Uylss, age 76, could still belt out a song as pictured above!  I never saw him sing; in fact I never saw him smile.  His grandchildren missed a lot.  He passed away in 1965, age 81.  Oh, I wish I could have heard him sing. - GNH

1960 

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