The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-12-01
One of Lifes Little OldFashoned Women Angels is Mrs
 Our Soldiers and Also Teaching Others How to Knit
By DOLLY pALRYMPLE
never seen anything sweett
 than Mrs. Holman don't beliey

NWOUNE never seen anything sweeter If than Mrs. Holman. I don't believe it is necessary for me to even say Mrs. Fanny T. Holman, the dear. little old Fashioned mother of Birmingham's s everybody knows Mrs. Holman and everybody loves her.
 She's the sweetest, daintiest brightest darlingest little mother, just as big as minute, like a doll in a teacup," but
 when l was saying that to a great big husky man, he said: Aren't all real mothers-precious mothers-those little bitty, tiny things
 And they are; the tinier they are the bigger they are-the stronger, the braver. the finer, and somehow the more old fashioned, with their gentle little faces and beautiful old world ideas.
 Mrs. Holman is just the sort of mother you'd pick out if you weren't lucky enough to have one of your own, for the sweetest impression you have of her after little talk is that it wouldn't matter whatever happened, what sorrow or fate was yours, how wrong you'd been, or how right, you'd always find her tender sympathy and gentle, loving kindness held out to you, brim full and running over; and that's my idea of a real mother.
 What would you say if I told you that in spite of her s4 years, Mrs sIol- man attends to her own garden works it herself, and the household of pr. and Mrs. Phillips is supplies this morning. if you please, with new onions and new spinach direct from the little garden spot, all the work of Mrs. Holmans own hands.
 But this story wasn't to be about all those accomplishments, and her heart and her youthful mind and her active little body, but it was primarily to tell you that Mrs. Holman is knitting for our soldiers through her second war, of course the Spanish American war didn't last long enough, heaven be praised, for anybody to do very much; but the civil war, with all it's hardships and it's per- ills, its heart aches and it's bruises went deep into the heart of this sweet old fashioned lady and she loves to tell about how her teacher made a crochet needle out of the breast-bone of a chicken and taught her howsto crochet and later to knit
 The art of knitting, Mrs. Holman told me, hasn't changed at all since those days, but the materials have changed with which we do the knitting The wool we used during the civil war was far smoother, woven more evenly than it is today and the needles were of a different style: the same purling and knitting, though, is done and body doesn't have to know anything about sewing or crochetting or fancy work or anything to be able to learn to knit.
 Tn my Red Cross unit of 5o." Mrs. Holman said, T have one pupil who is q man-so our men need not fear criticism if they want to do their bit for our sol diers who have already gone to the front in this way. This man is now knitting his fifth pair of socks he is my neighbor and I am going to tell you his name, MT. H. F. Jones; I want to commend him for his kindness in doing this work and to hold him up as an example to other men. who, while they may not be able to go to the front them selves. can contribute a reminder of this sort to those who have gone
 Tn my Red Cross unit" Mrs. Holman said, 'all ages are represented, from F years old up to 7S; age is no handicap to the knitter, but this is one thing in which age has the advantage probably over youth, because nearly all older people knit well. I love work of all kinds. took up china painting when I was 70 years old. I learned how to paint and painted a dinner set for my daughter, Mrs. Phillips, using a gold monogram in the center and the tiny border of gold as trimming"
 Mrs. Phillips, in her clever, bright way with her keen sense of humor, deliehts to tell of how she induced her mother to enter certain contest not so very