Christmas Past - The WWII Generation at Christmas

 by Glenn N. Holliman

Christmas 2020, a Reflection on 70 Years Past

I have posted the below photographs in previous years, but as this Christmas season is a very different one for many of us, I feel moved to share for the younger folks reading this what a Christmas past was like for my generation.  Extended families will be separated due to the Covid-19 virus, an unexpected and deadly visitor to the Year 2020. 

So as my late father often did, I step back in time and through old photographs rekindle  warm feelings when families could gather and celebrate the rituals that sustain us as human beings.

Below is one of the last pictures of the complete family of Ulyss and Pearl Caine Holliman of 2300 Avenue North in Irondale, Alabama in December 1950. To my knowledge, never again would so many relations gather for a photograph with the grandparents present.

World War II had been over for five years but that winter America was in a new conflict known as the Korean War. We were living under the shadow of the new atomic bomb and experiencing a Cold War with the Soviet Union, a former ally, now an adversary. Four the men in picture, Melton, Bishop, Ralph and Walter, were veterans of WWII.  Uncle Sam did not call any of them back to service in Korea.  However, one of those pictured below, moi, did do service in a later war in the late 1960s.  Jerry and Terry Holliman were in the U.S. Army prior to the Viet Nam War.

Back row left to right: Euhal and Edna Holliman, Vena Holliman Daly, Mary Daly Herrin, Robert Daly, Charles Ferrell, Loudelle Holliman Ferrell, Ralph and in front wife, Motie Holliman, Melton and Ida Holliman, Gerry and Bishop Holliman, and in between them Walter Cornelius.  Middle row: Charles H. Ferrell, Susan Cornelius Williams in her mother, Virginia Holliman Cornelius' lap, Ulyss and Pearl Holliman holding Becky Holliman Payne, Carolyn Ferrell holding Pam Holliman, Patti Holliman, and John Ferrell. Front row: Bob Daly, Jerry and Terry Holliman, Anne and Jean Holliman, Nancy Carol Cornelius Morton and Glenn N. Holliman.  Yet to be born were Kathy Holliman, Tommie Holliman Allen and Bill Holliman and Alice Holliman Murphy.

Gathered above are the seven children of Ulyss and Pearl all with their spouses and their own children.  In this picture, there are 15 first cousins, which by 1956 would grow to 19 cousins.  

Remarkably eighteen cousins are still living, but we sadly lost Jerry Holliman in 2003 to heart disease.  Jerry is kneeling on the floor next to his identical twin, Terry.  I could never tell them apart.  Now all of the cousins are age 64 and older, most of us in our 70s, and several in their 80s.  Three of us are dressed as cowboys, the fad of the day for youngsters, most of us trying to look like Hopalong Cassidy or Roy Rogers. Bob Daly on the front row, far right, seemed to have come armed with a toy rifle!  

With the passing of my father, H. Bishop Holliman in 2018, the seven siblings and their partners now are gone.  My grandparents, Pearl and Ulyss died in 1955 and 1965.

I believe the hand written identification of the seven children and grandparents is that of cousin Charles Ferrell. This generation dressed formally for important family gathers.  The men are in suits and ties and the ladies dressed elegantly .  Note the large Christmas tree on the left.  As a child I was amazed by the then very modern electric lights, some that bubbled some type of oil.  Electric Christmas tree lights only appeared in the 1910s.

These Christmas gatherings at the Holliman household, I remember as very festive occasions when we children would play together and feverishly open our presents.  There were so many that the packages under the tree spilled over into the living room.  

Three new generations have appeared since this family gathered in what had been the childhood home of the seven siblings.  Seventy years on, these aunts, uncles and cousins still live in my memories of yesteryear Christmas's.  I suspect I am not the only cousin who cherishes the time past. - GNH

PS - Cousin Dr. Bob Daly, who has been experiencing health problems, would enjoy hearing from his cousins.  He asked me to pass along his email address which is humbander1943@yahoo.com.  Bob is Alabama's premier biologist on the plant life and birds of the Southeast United States.  Each summer over 400 hummingbirds are attracted to his feeder!

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

 

From my Sister's Attic, Part 1

by Glenn N. Holliman

The First of a Number of Photographs from an Attic - 

Three Generations in 1952

First row, left to right, Glenn, Pam and Becky Holliman.  Second row, Motie, Ulyss, Pearl and Gerry Holliman.  Back row, Ralph holding Kathy.

Recently my two sisters, Rebecca L. Holliman Payne and Alice Holliman Murphy found the above photograph in one of my late father's scrapbooks.  Bishop and Ralph, two sons,  of Ulyss and Pearl Caine Holliman posed with their parents, wives and children at Bishop and Gerry Stansbery Holliman's house in Trussville, Alabama. The time may have been early spring on a Sunday afternoon judging by the formality of the clothing.

Both Ralph and Bishop, my father, World War II veterans, took advantage of the G.I. Bill for college education and by 1952 were launched on careers in business and government.  Both would do well, and unlike so many in the 21st Century stayed with one company (Ralph - American Bakeries and Bishop - the Social Security Administration) their entire working careers. Both men moved their families many times as promotions and more responsibilities came.  

The families enjoyed the incredible economic post-war boom that pushed the American standard of living to record heights.

The four children pictured above all attended college and graduate school in the 1960s and 70s and developed careers in education, social services, publications and church.  The girls, unlike their mothers and their grandmother, worked outside of the home as did the majority of women in the latter part of the 20th Century.

Presaging his son's experiences, Ulyss moved his family for economic reasons during World War I from Fayette, Alabama to Birmingham.  Raised on a farm, Ulyss married Pearl in 1906, farmed and later worked in a lumber yard.  By 1914 with four children to feed (Melton, Vena, Euhal and Loudelle), Ulyss move his family to Irondale and found employment with the Birmingham Electric Company repairing street cars.  Three more children were born: Bishop 1919, Virignia 1922 and Ralph 1924.  Ulyss retired in 1949 and died in 1965. 

When Ulyss was born in 1884, there were no automobiles, telephones, electricity, radio, television or airplanes.  When he passed away men circled the earth in spacecraft and computers were crunching numbers.  Never in human history had there been so much technological change as during the life time of my grandfather.

More on Trussville, a suburb of Birmingham

The Bishop and Gerry Holliman house in Trussville, Alabama, built 1937, purchased by in 1950 was sold in 1952 when my father's new employment in the Social Security system resulted in a transfer to Johnson City, Tennessee.  The address is 207 Oak Street and the neighborhood is today a National Historical District. The house sold in 1952 for $8,000.

The City of Trussville web site records that 287 residential units were built between 1936 and 1938 as part of the New Deal federal programs to provide housing, employment and stimulate the economy still suffering from the Great Depression.  The 615 acre suburban development was constructed on land unsuitable for farming, the former 'Slag Heap Village' taking its unpleasant name from the metal waste from a former iron furnace.  

"The homes were sturdily built with indoor plumbing, running water, electricity and amenities rare at the time in much of Alabama" records the city web site.  Parks, paved streets and sidewalks were the norm.  "Trussville children in the 50s enjoyed an uncomplicated, small-town life. Children entertained themselves by walking up and down the street playing on the Mall, and swimming in the Cahaba.  Most of families has only one car or no vehicle, but a bus went daily into Birmingham in the morning and came back that afternoon."

Trussville incorporated in 1947, absorbing both the Cahaba Village (the development) and 'Old Trussville.  The next year, the government deeded all park property to the town. 

A Visit Between Two Storms, Part 2

by Glenn N. Holliman

In this article, the story of the trip my two sisters, Becky and Alice, and I took to Alabama visiting cousins and old home places continues.  This excursion occurred the week before the explosion of the Covid 19 virus upon the American nation.  If we had waited another week, we would have had to cancel the visit.

On March 9, 2020 we rendezvoused with many cousins at the Whistle Stop Cafe in Irondale, the town where the seven children of Ulyss and Pearl Caine Holliman, came of age.  The seven children, now all passed away, are in order of birth Melton, Vena, Euhal, Loudell, Bishop, Virginia and Ralph.

While we cousins indulged in good southern comfort food and not yet knowing to practice social distancing, I snapped this picture of those who still live in the Birmingham area and who could make the lunch.

  Moving clockwise beginning from the left is Clayton Herrin, son of E.C. and Mary Daly Herrin, and grandson of Robert W. and Vena Holliman Daly.  Next is Alice Holliman Murphy, daughter of Bishop and Geraldine Stansbery Holliman.  Behind Alice are Charles and Nancy Ferrell.  Charles is the son of Charles and Loudelle Holliman Ferrell.  John Daly, son of Bob and Carol Daly and grandson of Robert W. and Vena Daly, peeks around Nancy, Charles' wife.  In the red jacket is David Herrin, Clayton's brother.

At the far end in black is my sister, Becky Holliman Payne and seated next to her is Mary Daly Herrin, mother of Clayton and David, and daughter of Robert W. and Vena Daly.  The gentleman is green is Wally Allen, husband of Tommie Holliman Allen.  The last two ladies are Jean Holliman and Tommie Holliman Allen, daughters of Euhal and Edna Holliman.

One of the pleasant ironies of this extended lunch was knowing we were sitting in the part of the restaurant that had been the hardware store owned by Robert W. and George Daly which operated from 1944 to 1960.

The Whistle Stop, formally the Irondale Cafe had been run in the 1930s by Bess Fortenberry.  The Holliman children were forbidden to eat there as the cafe sold beer!  It was Bess's niece, Fanny Flag, who inspired by the cafe and setting, wrote Fried Green Tomatoes which became a famous movie.  

Under later ownership, the cafe expanded into the Daly Hardware building and changed its name to the Whistle Stop and yes, serves fried green tomatoes as an entree.

Below from Mary Daly Herrin's scrapbook are some mementos from the business her father and uncle ran.

After catching up on family comings and goings, and discussing some hint of the coming pandemic (Charles was touching elbows rather than shaking hands, a foreshadowing of the coming turbulence), my sisters and I bade our cherished relatives goodbye, warmly remembering our father, aunts and uncles and many earlier times together.  

More on our visit in the next blog. - GNH

A Visit Between Two Storms

by Glenn N. Holliman

On March 3, 2020 a vicious late-winter tornado touched down in Nashville, Tennessee, hop-scotched along I-40 east and destroyed homes in the suburbs of Cookeville, Tennessee.  There 18 persons died in just a few minutes of horror.

Fortunately my sister Becky Holliman Payne and her family who live in that Cumberland Plateau community escaped the violence and quickly joined hundreds of others in providing relief to those afflicted.  A long scheduled trip to visit cousins and our old home places in Alabama had been planned with my sister, Alice Holliman Murphy and me.  We  were to fly from our domiciles in Texas and Pennsylvania respectively to Nashville on March 5th and then drive south.

As the Nashville airport was open and professional first responders were busy at work, we decided to go ahead with our plans.  We met that afternoon of the 5th, and the three of us drove  to Florence, Alabama.

Little did we know that one storm was behind us and another, more dangerous, approaching!

The next morning, we spent much of the day with our first cousin, Bob Daly, son of Robert W. Sr. and Vena Holliman Daly at his home north of Florence.  His home is really a nature conservancy where for decades Bob has nurtured his 40 acres as a wildlife park.

Pictured are Alice, Becky and Bob.

A  Ph.D. in biology and botany from Auburn, Bob taught for decades at the University of North Alabama and also conducted hundreds of environmental studies for governmental and corporate agencies.  It is not an exaggeration to say that Bob is one of the most knowledgeable persons living concerning the flora, fauna and animal life of the Tennessee River Valley.

His home, which he shares with his wife, Joy, his high school sweetheart from Irondale, Alabama, reflects Bob's taste in outdoor life.  The home feels like a comfortable forest lodge with wooden paneling, chandeliers of antlers and walls festooned with scenes of wildlife and southern history.

Below the Daly 'lodge' in the woods of North Alabama.

Bob bands hummingbirds, captured in a special trap filled with sugar water on a back porch.  Generally he attracts up to 400 of these tiny birds each migration season!  The ladies are watching a video on his computer of dozens of these beautiful creatures feeding.

Outside on the grounds, two cousins, now seniors in life, reminisce on how we used to hunt arrow heads along Alabama river bottoms and scorpions under the scrub oak trees on the Daly farm in Irondale, oh say 60 years ago or so!

Below are photographs I have saved (and hundreds and hundreds more of family) from the various  albums.  Here is a quick trip down memory lane of Bob and family in the 1940s and 50s.  The initial picture is of Bob in the sailor's hat, one year old me and my mother, Geraldine Stansbery Holliman (1923-2015), on the front lawn at 2300 N. 3rd Avenue in Irondale, our grandparents house.

The one below is damaged, but shows Bob on the left,  Pam Holliman in the center, Ralph and Motie Holliman's first born.  Three year old me on the right. The year is 1949.   Again photographed at Ulyss and Pearl Caine Holliman's Irondale home.  Judging from the way Pam and I are dressed, this must have been a Sunday in the summer.

Below, Bob, Becky and Glenn at Daytona Beach, Florida in 1955. Grandmother Holliman had died in May 1955, and the Dalys and  Bishop Hollimans took Ulyss Holliman on vacation.  I remember a day of fishing with my grandfather, father and Bob. Below we are digging for sand fleas.

Finally, Bob with his father, Robert W. Daly, Sr. (1901-1959) and his mother, Vena (1909-1990).  The family loved to visit Florida and fish.  These experiences no doubt helped develop Bob's life long interest in biology.

After the better part of the day with Bob, and significantly increasing our knowledge of nature's mysteries,  my sisters and I bid goodbye to our very knowledgeable first cousin, and drove on to Gadsden, Alabama where we lived from 1960 to 1964.  More on our trip in the next blog. - GNH 

An Alabama Family in World War II, Part 43

by Glenn N. Holliman

World War II Ends for an Alabama Family

In July 1944, the American Army broke out of the hedgerows of Normandy, France and after heavy fighting by September pushed the Nazi war machine beyond Paris and almost to the German border.  Then the rains began, foul weather that engulfed my Uncle Melton Holliman’s medical unit near the Colmar Pocket close to the Rhine River. 

As I wrote in my last World War II article, Melton, age 36, sleeping rough with an evacuation unit, became ill, high blood pressure, and was shipped back to England.  His condition was so serious he returned to the States, his time in Europe over.  By the summer of 1945, he was discharged and returned to his career as a pharmaceutical salesman in Mobile, Alabama.

My father, Bishop Holliman, left Boston in August 1944 escorting what must have been the slowest convoy in the North Atlantic, a 35 day crossing.  His destroyer, the Barker, a World War I ship of 900 tons, delivered a flotilla of tankers and oil barges into Falmount, England.  There the ship pushed off into the English Channel and almost engaged in gunfire with three English destroyers who the captain had mistaken for German E-Boats.  No harm done except some lost sleep.

After a few days patrolling off Cherbourne, France the ship escorted empty transports back to Falmouth and then to Belfast, Ireland.  There my father rented a bicycle and pedaled into the Irish county side.  Back on convoy duty, his ship sailed to the Azores.  There for two days he went ashore, played some baseball and swan in clear blue seas.  Another three weeks of escort duty brought my father back to Boston.

While my father plowed the ocean that summer and autumn, my Uncle Ralph Holliman crossed the Channel from his English posting, along with his air corp transport unit.  He had the best duty of all three brothers, stationed not far from Paris for the rest of the European War. A clerk, he made rank of sergeant, and even obtained an 8 day leave to England.

Left, Ralph at a desk, not in France, but years later at work.  He climbed the corporate ladder quickly moving his family eleven times in twelve years.

Below, Ralph wrote from France describing V-E Day in Paris!

With the surrenders of Germany and Japan in spring and summer of 1945, Ralph came home the summer of 1945 to his young wife, Motie and entered Birmingham-Southern College on the G.I. bill.  When their first child, Pamala, came along, he left school and went to work for American Bakeries, venturing into a long and lucrative career with that national company.


Left, Motie, Ralph's young wife and my mother, Gerry Stansberry Holliman, meeting for the first time in February 1945 in Irondale.  They were two of the three war brides of World War II, the other being Virginia Holliman Cornelius.

Back to my father – He had reconnected with Miss Geraldine Stansberry of Philadelphia in June 1944.  The stars must have been in alignment.  They had met in September 1942 and while sparks flew for my future mother, not so with my father.  She wrote him often; he seldom replied evidently not ready to settle down.  The summer of 1944 was different.  He fell in love, deeply and by October 1944 when docked for a month in Boston, invited her up and they spent time together. 

February 1945, Bishop finally received leave to go home to Irondale, Alabama (after sailing to the Caribbean and serving as a target for US submarines firing practice torpedoes). Gerry came down from Knoxville, Tennessee (her new home where she lived with her sister as her mother had died the year before). She stayed for a week with the Robert Daly’s, their home adjacent to the Ulyss and Pearl Caine Holliman, my grandparents at 2300 N. 3^rd Street.  Melton, now stationed at Foster Army Hospital, Jackson, Mississippi and on light duty, took leave also and the two brothers had a reunion. 

Left, my parents in February 1945.



Right in February 1945 in Irondale, left to right, Robert Daly, Bishop Holliman in uniform and his father, Ulyss Holliman.

The visit was a success, and four months later (after another cruise to Ireland and back), my parents married June 26, 1945 in Philadelphia where his ship was docked.  The Germans had surrendered on May 8^th, and on August 15^th, the Japanese did also.  By early September my father, along with thousands of others, received his discharge.  He had served 3 years and 10 months, most of the time as a radioman listening for German U-Boats.    His most dangerous service had been at the 1943 invasion of Sicily when his ship was bombed by the Luftwaffe.

Right a summer day in 1945 in Irondale, Alabama before my father, Bishop Holliman, far right was discharged from the Navy.  Left to right, Vena Daly, Patti Holliman, Virginia Holliman Cornelius, Bob Daly, Gerry Holliman and her new husband, Bishop.

Christmas 1945, a brother-in-law (below) was still overseas, my Aunt Virginia Holliman’s high school beau and since 1942 husband, Walter Cornelius. He shipped to the Central Pacific in 1945, and spent months on the island of Saipan.  He would not get home until 1946.  Virginia (right) had given birth to their first daughter, Carol, in 1944.

It would be the Christmas of 1946 before all were home to enjoy a grand family reunion.  World War II was over, the veterans found jobs and the Baby Boomer generation soon followed!

My father all his life remained modest about his long service in the Navy.  Yet he and my uncles, indeed the whole family sacrificed as did millions of others that first half of the 1940s.  

Happily the Holliman family of Irondale, Alabama suffered no deaths or physical wounds.  But the world, their world, would never be the same.  

A Post WWII Christmas for an Alabama Family

by Glenn N. Holliman

Christmas 1946 - All Together Again

It was the first Christmas when all the sons who had gone to war - Melton, Bishop and Ralph - and a son-in-law, Walter Cornelius, could be together with the extended family.  This Birmingham/Irondale, Alabama nuclear family was reunited after the travail of war.  All the persons pictured above still lived near the childhood home of the seven siblings - Melton, Vena, Euhal, Loudelle, Bishop, Virginia and Ralph.  Euhal and family lived in Gadsden and Melton's branch in Mobile.  In a few years this would change.

And in a few years there would be many more children, the 'Baby Boomers'!

This is a photograph I have starred at many times in my now long life.  The names placed under the photograph are all correct except the name 'Susan' in Virginia's lap.  That is Carol Cornelius born 1944.  Her sister Susan would come along in 1949.  As Charles and Loudelle Ferrell are referred to as Dad and Mother, perhaps cousin Charles H. Ferrell labeled us.

While examining this picture and rearranging others a few weeks ago (I have hundreds of photographs of the Ulyss and Pearl Caine Holliman's descendants and happy to forward them to those requesting), I was amazed to discover a second photograph taken evidently right before or right after each other.  See if you spot the differences.  It took me a few minutes to do so.

Some eyes are open or now closed.  Grandpa Ulyss is closer to Pearl.  Patti is now on the front row, partially blocking Carolyn.  The bottom photograph is not as sharp; perhaps that is why a second was taken.

Mary, holding her brother Bob, is the oldest cousin and the remaining person who may remember the details of the pictures.  The rest of us were too young, and all the adults have passed away.

There are 12 grandchildren in this picture.  By 1956, there would be 19 grandchildren, but alas Grandmother Pearl had died in May 1955 and with that the Christmas reunions ceased to be.  Both Bishop and Ralph families had moved out of state for employment opportunities.

Who took the pictures?  I believe it was Virginia's good friend, Verlice Nichols, pictured below.  This picture was taken with the Robert and Vena Holliman Daly home in the background.  Many of the Holliman pictures were taken at this location adjacent to the Ulyss and Pearl home.  Why?  One the location of the sun, persons looking south and two, did the Daly family own the camera? 

After my father Bishop died in 2018, my sister Becky and I connected with Verlice, then in her late 90s living in an Arizona retirement home.  She telephoned us several times, and we talked of her memories of Irondale and growing up in the 1930s.  Sadly earlier this year we received a call that she had died suddenly.  Another chapter closed.

As I have reviewed hundreds of pictures the past month, I noticed that my grandfather often stared off into space when posing for pictures.  Notice in the two pictures above he does not look into the camera.

Above is the first known picture of Ulyss taken ca 1900.  The copy under the picture is by Rhodes B. Holliman (1928-2014), grandson of John Thomas Holliman (1844-1830), my generation's great grandfather.   From the beginning, Ulyss avoided a direct gaze at the camera.  Interesting.

Thanks for reading and hope this is helpful to those of new generations who wonder from whence they have come.