My Father, who now lives in Indiana, is grateful for the opportunity to visit his childhood home and is appreciative that so many nieces and nephews took the time to attend his talk with James Pugh in Irondale in January 2013. GNH
Sunday, May 12, 2013
How a World War changed an Alabama Family, Part 1
by Glenn N. Holliman
War on Two Fronts - World War II at Home and Abroad....
Above the German Army 'goose steps' toward war under Adolph Hitler....
From 1939 until 1945, violence, unprecedented destruction of life and property and mass movements of military, workers and refugees swept Europe, North Africa, the Pacific Islands and Asia. Scarcely an American, civilian or military, was not affected by the investment of the United States in armaments and the training and positioning of 13 million soldiers, sailors and airmen during World War II.
Over 200,000 Americans died among the 50 million or so who perished across the battered planet. Six thousand Alabamians lost their lives among the 250,000 who mobilized.
In the United States, after a decade of the Depression, rearmament, a massive government stimulus plan if you will, led to full employment. Positions went begging as millions of young men were conscripted into the military.
The steel industry in Birmingham added 7,000 jobs in two years. Childersburg, Alabama, population 500, was overwhelmed by 14,000 construction workers to build a DuPont plant. Ship building in Mobile, Alabama increased the city's population from 79,000 to 125,000 between 1940 and 1943. Workers, pulled from economically depressed Alabama farms, literally lived in tents to take advantage of well-paying jobs in the Gulf Coast port.
For the first time in American history, large numbers of women worked outside of the home, filling positions once held exclusively by men. With their own pay checks, women enjoyed increased independence and an enhanced ability to determine their own futures.
Left, the iconic Rosie the Riveter of World War II fame, illustrated the importance of women in the work force.
Millions of men and women left home and relocated to work in war industries or to serve in the military. Geographical, gender, class and racial divides were crossed. Customs and mores altered under the pressures and stresses of world war and rapid change. There were marriages under war time deadlines, and later John Doe letters and divorces. American families were never the same.
The Holliman'>Ulyss Holliman family of Irondale, Alabama, with seven offspring born between 1908 and 1924, was not immune from these economic, social and military forces. This family saw three sons and a son-in-law go to war and a daughter propelled into the work force which would lead to a career track in banking. Three children would marry during the conflict. After the war, two sons would use the G.I. Bill to further their educations and go on to expanded careers in government and business.
Below on the lawn ca 1938 at 2300 3rd Avenue North, Irondale, between the Ulyss and Pearl Holliman house and the Robert and Vena Holliman Daly house (background), pose numerous members of the family not knowing they would soon be swept into a World War.
Left to right are Ida and Melton Holliman, young Ralph Holliman, his older sister Virginia, Ulyss and his wife Pearl Caine Holliman with her hands on Mary Daly (Herrin). Robert and Vena Holliman Daly are on the far right, the parents of Mary, the first grandchild of Ulyss and Pearl. Both Melton and Ralph would serve in France with the U.S. Army. Virginia would marry in early 1942, work at Robert's bank and discover she enjoyed a business career outside of the home.
Pearl, age 51 in this photo, would age dramatically during the war, consumed by worry for her children and their sacrifices.
Because this large family saved many of the letters they wrote each other during the conflict, one is able to relive these fateful years and explore the tensions and worries of a family and nation in transition.
Below a 1944 airmail letter from the oldest Holliman son, Melton, age 36, from his Army deployment station in New York, just before shipping overseas to England.
Below, an envelope from Bishop Holliman, age 23, to his sister, Loudelle Holliman Ferrell, age 29, who saved his letters from the War.
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