Clyde Holley

Clyde L. Holley, 103, a Hill County native and longtime Dallas resident who was an award-winning traveling salesman for more than 50years, died June 14 at Wesley Woods Retirement Center in Waco. He had lived in Waco for the past five years. In the mid-1930s, Mr. Holley began working as a salesman for E. C. Atkins & Co, an Indianapolis-based manufacturer of saw blades. After serving in the Army Air Corps during World War II, primarily at Ellington Field in Houston, he and his wife, Lola Hayes Holley, lived in Houston briefly before moving to Dallas in 1945. Mr. Holley became a manufacturer's representative for Houston-based Peden Iron and Steel and several other hardware companies. His territory included wholesale hardware concerns in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana. Leaving his Dallas home on a Monday morning and making calls throughout the week before returning home on Friday evening, he put thousands of miles on his automobiles, usually Buicks. At home while her husband was on the road, Lola Holley kept the books. Still on the road into his 80s, he was one of the last of a breed, a genuine traveling salesman. A salesman is not what most people think of when they think of salesmen -- a fast talker who talks out of both sides of his mouth