Reed Blakeney, a Remembrance

by Glenn N. Holliman

The Blakeneys, Bakers and Hollimans of Old Alabama....

Reed Blakeney of Social Circle, Georgia died this past July 4, 2019 after almost 91 years of living.  He left us a large legacy of remembrances on the complexity of the Old South.  Both Reed and I are Alabama born, although he is a generation ahead of me.  I got to know Reed through my closer cousin, Rhodes B. Holliman.

Reed and the late Rhodes Holliman (1928-2014) were close and shared numerous trips to Fayette County, Alabama cemeteries looking for graves of Blakeney, Baker, Holliman, and other kinfolks.

Rhodes was a biologist, a professor at Virginia.  Reed, a retired businessman, but had a wonderful way with the English language.

Picture is of Reed Blakeney and Glenn Holliman, 2013

If you look back to my August 4 and 18th, 2013 blogs, you will read of my visit with Reed, a gentleman of the New South, born in the segregationist age and leader into the increased human diversity age of the 21st Century.  I love his book Sipsey, named after the river that runs through Fayette County and borders the original Blakeney and Holliman farms of the first half of the 19th Century.

Living adjacent to each other and travelers from the same part of the Carolinas, the two families mixed and mingled and that's how, by marriage, I am related to Reed.

To find the Reed Blakeney articles or any other in this blog, look to the bottom left column of this page, and in alphabetical order of first names (not surnames), go down the list.  Or go to www.bholliman.com, click to the Records page and type in Blakeney in the search box.  Up  will come a myriad of Blakeney manuscripts and research.

Below, 1958, five generations. Sitting is Belzy Ann Blakeney, and left, Elizabeth (Lizzy) Baker Holliman, Cecil R. Holliman, his daughter, Cecile Holliman Youngblood, and grand daughter, Cecile Youngblood Brown.  Cecil R. Holliman is the father of  Rhodes B. Holliman and the grandfather of Dr. Jim Holliman.

To bring this story together, Dr. Jim Holliman presented me on July 20, 2019 with a cane he had inherited through his father (Rhodes) from his great grandmother, Elizabeth (Lizzy) Baker Holliman (1879-1975), wife of James Monroe Holliman (1878-1938), one of my great uncles.

The inscription reads  "This walking stick was owned and used by Anna Elizabeth Baker, wife of James Monroe Holliman, Birmingham, Alabama. She died September 1975."

Left, Jim Holliman, M.D., shows me the inscription while his wife, Karen, looks on.  Physician Jim advises me that with my chronic back problem, I am soon be using the cane!

Examine Blakeney, Baker and Holliman  relationships and one has many stories of Fayette and Jefferson County, Alabama families.  

Let's close with a picture of Reed and his second wife, Donna in 2013. 




Reed has left us stories and poems and we are richer for his work. - GNH