My Grandmother's Wall of Photographs, Part 1

by Glenn N. Holliman

Is there a grandchild among us who has not stood and stared at family pictures in a grandparent's home?  For a nine year old, the question must be always "Who are those old people?  Did my aunts and uncles really look like that when they were young?" 

Pearl Caine Holliman (1887-1955) had such a wall in her home at 2300 Third Avenue North in Irondale, Alabama.  As a youngster, I marveled at the pictures and wondered who were all those people, those relatives of mine?  Below are a few pictures and memories of my grandmother's wall of photographs.

 

Let me start with an indoor picture, rare for the time, taken of Grandmother Holliman's Christmas tree. It stood in a corner of the living room, a massive tree to my childish eyes. This picture was taken in 1945, the year before I was born but she seemed aways to have a tall tree with electric lights that 'bubbled'. Yes, it is blurry and not the sharpest picture, but let's study it closely.

On the far upper left corner, one sees a photograph of my Aunt Virginia Holliman Cornelius (1922-2011). This may have been her senior picture from Shades Cahaba High School. Today, one of her daughters, Susan Cornelius Wilson of Texas, has possession of it.  

Below, embedded in the lower left corner of Virginia's photograph, notice the World War II photograph of Virginia's husband, Walter Cornelius (1922-2006).  They married in February 1942, one of the three war time marriages in the Ulyss and Pearl Holliman family.  This copy of Virginia and Walter was taken in February 2012 in Trophy Club, Texas.

 

Below Susan Cornelius Williams, one of Walter and Virginia's two daughters, displays this picture seventy years after it first hung in her grandparent's home in Alabama.  These pictures were taken at Alice Holliman Murphy's home in Texas.  Alice is the daughter of Bishop Holliman (b 1919)  and Susan's first cousin.

Next posting, more pictures from Grandmother's wall....

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

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

"The Blizzard of 1940…It was January or thereabouts that snow began to fall, and before it had ended, 14 inches lay on the ground, a very rare occurrence for our part of the South.  It began about midnight and at daylight the radio had already come on with the news that schools would not open, nor would the colleges nor would hardly anything else. 

 

I don’t remember what Daddy (Ulyss S. Holliman, 1884 - 1965) did about going to work.  Street cars on some lines had run all night to keep tracks clear. I can’t remember the day of the week it was that all this happened.  The hill (the north side of Irondale) was frozen over and I guess nearly impossible for cars to get up it.  For two weeks the temperature hardly got above freezing, and it dropped to 10 degrees below on the second day."

Not the snow of 1940, but above the snow of 1936 on 3^rd Avenue, Irondale.  Top left to right are The Rev. Stewart Butten, James Pugh, Bishop Holliman.  Front row are Bobby Coker, Harold Pugh and Billy Bunt.

"I have forgotten how long it stayed at that mark.  Remember, at this time we had no central heat, drinking, cooking, bathing and flushing.  Even if they became unthawed, they would refreeze the next night.  Each night young folks would gather at the top of the hill above our house, build a fire out of limbs, old tires, etc. and we built sleds out of scrap lumber that somebody furnished and we slide the two blocks downhill.  That went on several nights. 

 

It was probably the last night of this merriment that the accident happened.  A car parked at the bottom of the hill had not pulled all the way into its driveway, leaving part of it in the road, and a sure target for an unguided sled."

Ralph Holliman (b 1924), right, as a Shade Cahaba High School student ca 1941.  Ralph had a highly successful career as a corporate executive in Chicago before retiring back to Alabama.

"My brother Ralph was at the front of the sled, followed by Margaret Overton, Jo Helen Leath and myself. You could not steer the sled. It went wherever the ice allowed it to go, and it went right into the back of the parked car! Ralph, who was at the front bore the brunt of the collision, bringing a gash to his head.

Robert Daly, Sr. was on the scene, having been there just to observe the goings on, rushed Ralph to Dr. Odum’s house on the other side of the town. The doctor patched him and sent him on his way. Probably did not charge more than $2 and did not say come back tomorrow. That experience put an end to our sledding." 

 

Note Ralph Holliman believes the accident was in the great snow of 1936, not 1940. The two brothers have different memories of the date!

"The snow and ice eventually melted, but the blizzard of 1940 stayed with us a long time. That winter as so bad Life magazine ran a cover page in February of the Southern passenger train, The Tennessean, pulling into Washington, D.C., covered with snow and ice, also carrying a story about the frigid winter down south.”

 Bishop Holliman, 90, returned to Irondale in November 2010 with his 64 year old son, Glenn N. Holliman, to tour the home of his childhood. Bishop named his only son after the Irondale educator, Glenn Barrow, who died during World War II.

Next Post, the Grand Photographic Collage of Grand Mother Holliman (Pearl Caine Holliman)....

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....

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

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

"Beginning in 1937, I was attending Birmingham Southern College, working in the library on a National Youth Administration job, another creation of the New Deal. However, we were still Republican! In 1938, the local GOP sponsored an oratorical contest for “Young Republicans”, and I represented Alabama in the finals in Knoxville, Tennessee and won second prize - $100 – a huge sum – enough to pay a semester at college.

 

 

Baseball…During the 1930s amateur baseball was very popular throughout Jefferson County and most of the small towns fielded a team.  The baseball diamond in Irondale lay between the Seaboard and Southern tracks, along First Avenue South.  It was a Saturday ritual to attend the games that Irondale  The whites shared the diamond with blacks.  The blacks seldom attended the white games but I often went to see the blacks play. 

Some of the players I remember were Hubert Kilgore, Jack Godwin, Jesse Smoke, the two Wilson boys, Alfred McNutt and Click McDanal. 

All of these fellows were the age of Loudelle Holliman Ferrell (a sister) and Euhal Holliman (a brother).   Baseball was a big part of our lives during the 1930s.  The Birmingham Baron games were broadcast over the radio by Bull Connor, and never missed a game if I could help it.  I still remember Melton Holliman (the oldest brother) taking me to my first game at Rickwood field July 5, 1931!" 

Baseball was not the only recreation for a large family.  In the middle 1920s before middle class vacations, a summer treat was to take the family to Grant’s Mill on the east side of Irondale.  Here Ulyss Holliman supervises his children in the water, Bishop Holliman front, Euhal Holliman, Loudelle Holliman Ferrell and Vena Holliman Daly, behind the boat.
 

 

Next Post, more Memories of Irondale, Alabama in the early 20th Century....

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

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


Right, in 1924, Pearl Caine Holliman, age 37, holds her 7th and last child, Ralph Holliman, in her arms at the foot of the tall front stairs of her new home she shared with her husband, Ulyss S. Holliman, and family at 2300 3^rd Avenue North. At the top of the stairs is her 6^thchild, Virginia Holliman Cornelius.









Below in 2010, Bishop Holliman viewed the steps, now all brick, leading to the front porch and his memories of his beloved ‘Mama’.  After his mother died in 1955, his father, Ulyss S. Holliman, sold the home to another son, Euhal Holliman.  After Euhal's wife, Edna, died in 1992, the house was sold out of the Holliman family.

"Each summer Mama would can fruits and vegetables, maybe over 100 jars, as did most housewives. I should note that my sister Vena had married in 1928 and was living next door in the brick house (visible as the white house on the extreme right in the above photo). 

Her husband, Robert Daly, was manager of the Woodlawn bank and had a good job throughout the Depression.  They were able to take vacations to the beach each summer, a treat denied to most folks in those years."

Below, Ulyss Holliman and his grand daughter, Mary Daly Herrin, who lived next door to her Holliman grandparents from 1932 until 1946.  Mary still lives in Irondale with her husband E.C. Herrin whom she married in 1951. Behind the two is the chicken house, typical in the 1940's in small southern towns of families only one generation removed from farming.

Ulyss is listed in the 1910 U.S. Census as a farmer in Fayette, Alabama.  After moving to Irondale in 1917, he is recorded in the 1920 Census as a carpenter (for the Birmingham, Alabama Electric Company working on street cars).

 Right, Euhal and Edna Holliman in 1944 hold their fourth child, Jean Holliman, standing in front of the Robert and Vena Holliman Daly house on 3rd Avenue in Irondale.

As noted, Euhal purchased the next door Ulyss Holliman house in 1956.  Jean would live with her parents in the Holliman house until her mother's death in 1992 when the house was sold.

Next post, more on living in Irondale, Alabama in the 1930s and 1940s....

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

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

The Great Depression…"I was too young to remember the beginning of the Depression and the havoc it wrought to so many. In my young mind, times had always been hard and some people had always been without work. Daddy (Ulyss Holliman) was off from the job just six weeks in the summer of 1933. Many folks we knew were out of work.

It was not uncommon for men to come to the house asking for food and/or other forms of help. Some children went to school bare footed. Loudelle (Holliman Ferrell) and Euhal (Holliman) were still at home. Melton (Holliman) had married in 1932, but he had been living away from home before his marriage and had worked full time. Like us, many folks in Irondale kept chickens or a cow and put in big gardens and managed to get by."

Ulyss S. Holliman of 2300 3^rd Avenue, North in Irondale poses in the middle 1920s in his large garden. A native of Fayette, Alabama, Ulyss moved his growing family to this suburb of Birmingham during World War I to take advantage of employment opportunities. During the 1910s, the population of Irondale almost doubled as more and more lots were sold on the hill side overlooking the railroad yard.

During World War II, Pearl Caine Holliman wrote her son, Bishop Holliman, who was in the U.S. Navy, promising to save a Sunday chicken for the day he would return home from the war. As with gardens, many in Irondale raised their own chickens. For several years in the late 1930s, the Ulyss Hollimans even had a milk cow.

"The WPA (Works Progress Administration) and other New Deal projects soon provided menial jobs for the unemployed. In 1936 the sewer systems were installed, and we began to enjoy
indoor plumbing. An early New Deal project was the building of sidewalks through most of the town. Though not a New Deal project (as far as I know) the streets were paved during World War II, and I think Frank Williams was mayor at the time.



 

I have already alluded to the hobos who rode the freight trains during these years----In my mind, hobos had always ridden them. Central heating had not come into vogue so it was still my job each day to bring in coal and kindling for Daddy to start a fire each morning. We had a heater in the middle bed room and later, one in the living room. After the War, they managed to get central gas heat."
 

Population statistics reveal the calamity of the Depression. In 1920, by which time the Hollimans had moved to Irondale and were about to construct a home at 2300 N. 3rd Street, the population was 809. As the Montgomery subdivision kept growing, the number of people living in the town almost doubled in ten years to 1,517 in 1930. Irondale must have felt like a thriving and booming place in the "Roaring Twenties".

During the Depression, growth stopped and the population even dropped to 1,486 in 1940. By 1970, the population reached 3,166 but in the four decades since, the numbers living in Irondale have quadrupled to 12,349 in 2012. Source Historical Populations, Wikipedia, Irondale, Alabama

More of Memories of Irondale, Alabama in next post....

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

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

Above, Bishop Holliman rode a bus similar to this one from Irondale to Shades Cahaba School in Homewood leaving at 7:30 am every school morning for a 30 minute, non-stop ride.  Photo from the Shades Valley Alumni web site.

"Schools…Irondale schools were among the best in Alabama.  I remember all my teachers and events that occurred in each grade.  Mr. Houk was principal when I entered in 1927.  Later, George S. Millsap was made principal.  He was a good teacher but very, very strict, as were all of the teachers.  Irondale students competed very well at Shades Cahaba with students from other schools and from families more prosperous than Irondale families. "

Below a page from the 1940 The Owl, the yearbook of Shades Cahaba High School.  Far left is Bishop Holliman's sister, Virginia.  On the back row, standing behind and right of the student typing, is Walter Cornelius (wearing the tie).  Virginia and Walter would marry in 1942.  Virginia's brother, Ralph Holliman, was on the staff also.  He may be in the photo back row, 2nd from right, next to Walter, his future brother-in-law.

"In 1937, the year of my graduation, I was editor-in-chief of the annual and my closest friend, Charles Pugh, who lived a few doors from us on the hill, was president of the senior class and valedictorian.  Some other names that come to mind after all these years are Cecil Giddens, Jean LaFurgy, the two Gaylor boys, the Hurtt girls, Sadie Mae Burgess and Corely Odum.

Irondale students were well-behaved at Shades Cahaba, not entirely due to family upbringing, but also to the strict teachers at Irondale.  At the end of the school year in 1933 I was double promoted to the 9th grade, which was the senior year of Junior High. 

There were five of us: Clementine Shurbert, George Sorrell, J.H. Ratliff, Oscar Lee Hurt and myself.  I am the only one of that circle still living.  Our teachers in junior high were Mr. Millsap who taught 9th grade algebra, Miss Margaret Hanes, math and science and Mrs. Joe McClendon English and civics. "

Built in 1920 and renewed several times, Shades Cahaba is now a Homewood, Alabama elementary school.  Note the concrete owl on top of the building.

"In retrospect, I think skipping the 8^th grade was one of the worst things that could have happened to me.  Why?  Well, it simply took a year out of my life and it put me in high school and college a year younger than my peers.  I don’t think I every caught up, as I always felt insecure when with classmates who were a year older.  And also I did not get a good foundation in math by being introduced to 9^th grade algebra minus 8^th grade math.

In 9^th grade civics each Friday we read and discussed the Weekly Reader, a compilation of current events.  On this particular Friday one student, Clyde Godwin, was reading from the paper an item about President Roosevelt’s visit somewhere.  He meant to read, “The President wore a flower in his button hole.”  Instead he read, “The President wore a flower in his bottom hole.”  Well, the class exploded! 

Even Mrs. Mac (as we were allowed to call her) lost her dignity and laughed along with us.  At that age, now soon becoming 15 I was very conscious of how my hair looked, and to make sure it was combed neatly I put a lot of hair oil on it every day.  At graduation in May each member of the class was given a gift of dubious value accompanied by some sort of explanation.  For me, the gift was a small can of pure lard with the accompanying verse: “To keep your hair down, we know it is hard, so we give to you this compound lard!”

A sad thing happened soon after school opened again in September, principal Mr. Millsap, who was only 31 years old, one morning before 8 o’clock wrapped a towel around his head, put a gun up to it and pulled the trigger.  His death was a big blow to all of us and was not easy for his current students and the most recent graduating class to get over.  

Glenn Barrow was made principal and remained in that position until death in the Army in 1943.  Photo below.

                                                                        

 Above, Glenn Barrow died in 1943, much too young.  He had a deep influence as a principal and teacher.  Bishop Holliman in 1946 would name his only son after him.

Next posting, more memories of pre-war Irondale, Alabama....