A little piece of Family History

Fed Holladay with his wife Alice

I wanted to take a moment to jot down some very interesting family history. This is from my dad’s (Kenneth Roddie Holladay) side of the family. I took some time to call Mabel Moss who is 80 years old and the daughter of Selmer (the oldest of Fed’s children). She was very helpful with dates and information. My dad also helped give me information on my great Grandpa Fed.

King Fredrick Holladay (also known as Fed). He was born May 3, 1878 and died of a heart attack January 16, 1964, at the age of 87. His wife was Alice. Born May 20, 1881 and died October 10th 1947. They were married on Christmas day in 1904. Together they had 10 children. Selmer, Druciler, Reece, Dave, Bud, Roddie Columbus (my grandpa, we called him Papa), Alieen, Christine, Cordella (died at age 3), Alice (died at age 2, she fell in the fire place and lived only 24 hours after that).

Fed worked long hard hours raising cotton and farming his land in South Carolina. Fed’s father James Irey Holladay started a prayer alter that Fed continued to add rocks to and pray for many years. Each day he’d go down to the woods to a particular big tree. It was there that Fed spent many hours in prayer. He would place a rock at the base of the tree each time he would go there to pray.

Fed loved the Lord and he would bow before Him in church when he would pray. Pop (my dad) remembers a time when he and some friends we’re going to play baseball out in the pasture. They grabbed some of the rocks for bases, when Fed said “leave those rocks around that tree alone”. He didn’t want anyone messing with his special prayer alter where he met alone with the Lord, just he and God. The Rock on the Stump

In 1991 my family flew to South Carolina and visited all sorts of neat places. We got to tramp through those over-grown woods and actually see the place where my great grandpa Fed prayed. He probably even prayed for his future grandchildren, and great grandchildren. It was neat to see many rocks still there. We piled up a suitcase full of those rocks and brought them home. Pop gave each of us a rock from that alter, as a reminder to pray. When Daddy (Brian) and I got married Pop glued my rock to a piece of the stump where he proposed to your Granma (my Mom) on. He told us to keep it in our bed-room, as a reminder to pray together as a married couple.

For our children: How important it is to come together and pray as a family and as a couple. Each night we pray with you. Sometimes we pull out our prayer journal and write down the things we want to pray for or we may look at the pictures of people we want to include in our prayers. Other times we’ll just gather together and pray about our concerns of the moment. Each of you pray, then Mommy and Daddy will close with prayer. Our hope is that you see the importance of spending time with God in prayer. We love you so much and pray for you always!