Four Generations of James Clinton Hollingsed as told by James C III

I knew that there was a possibility that I would encounter new relatives when I began this blog. The idea was intriguing. Having found the Hollingsed family connections with the Foleys, this was one I pursued. Finding another name exactly the same as the ancestors was a real help in locating the current family. Still, it was with trepidation that I dialed the number for the first time.
I had to introduce myself as a possible distant cousin. Luckily, the folks I called were the right ones and they had heard of the Foleys in their family. What I learned was more than worth the call.
The Hollingseds also had a written family history passed down through several generations. Here is their story.

The original James Clinton Hollingsed was a brakeman on the Big 4 railroad. He was killed between 2 cars when his son, James C. Hollingsed Jr was 15 years old.
JC Jr grew up and worked into the railroad business as well,working for the American Express, then later the Railway express out of Mattoon, Ill. He became Route Agent for the REA, working out of E. St. Louis when JC III was born.
His job was to supervise various offices of the company and involved in train travel most all of every week, getting home on Saturday and often leaving Sunday evenings. He later was transferred to Lafayette, Indiana, Kokomo, Indiana., back to E. St. Louis, and Connersville, Ind. He was then made general agent(no travel) at Springfield, Ill. in 1926. In 1931, because of depression cutbacks, he was made agent in Chicago Heights. In 1943 he was made general agent in Terre Haute, Ind, and later transferred to Maywood, IL, from which he retired in 1951.
James C Jr never was unemployed and always had a "white collar job". He was born in Chicago (an avid Cub fan) but because of his father's death he had to quit school, so never got beyond the first year of high school.
James C III recalled one case that James C Jr had to testify in an embezzlement trail of a man named Rutledge in Petersburg, IL. This man was a descendent of the Rutledge family who had a daughter, Ann, the legendary sweetheart of Abraham Lincoln. Her grave is in Petersburg,near New Salem state park. Her tomb has a poetic epitaph by Edgar Lee Masters on it ending: "bloom forever, oh republic, form the dust of my bosom." She died about 1830.

James C Hollingsed Jr. married Mattie Agnes Foley of in DuQuoin, IL. She started to school in Centralia. After grade school graduation in Carbondale she attended the "Normal", So IL state normal university for 3 years. This was really a high school with the last year devoted to practice teaching. But Mattie Agnes wanted no part of teaching, so she quit after 3 years and went to work for the Illinois Central Railroad as a stenographer. Her father, Daniel Edmund Foley, was a section foreman and track supervisor for the I.C. Mattie worked in the railroad division offices in Carbondale, Centralia, and Memphis, Tenn. She also worked in a similar job one year in Bakersfield, Cal. She and grandpa were married in 1915 and that ended her working career. They were married by a father Samuel Stritch in Memphis, who later became Samuel Cardinal Stritch, archbishop of Chicago and a member of the Roman Curia, the papal cabinet.

This material was written by James Clinton Hollingsed III for his son, James Clinton Hollingsed IV and the last.