1914 Biography - William S. Holmes

Holmes, William Shields, superintendent of the Louisiana State school for the deaf, Baton Rouge, La., was born in Jefferson county, Miss., August 14, 1866; son of Joseph R. and Lucy (Shields) Holmes, the former of whom was born in Jefferson county, Miss., July 26, 1844, and was a son of William Holmes, a native of Kentucky. The paternal ancestors of the family came to the South from New York state. The mother was a native of the state of Georgia, but was reared in Louisiana. Joseph R. Holmes was a veteran of the Civil war, having served in an artillery company of the Confederate army. After the war, in 1865, he located in Jefferson county, Miss., where he followed the avocation of a farmer during a number of years. In 1881 he removed to New Orleans, and there became a clerk in the office of the Louisiana state superintendent of public instruction, and assisted in the removal of that office to Baton Rouge, when the State Capital was changed from New Orleans to the former city. He remained a resident of Baton Rouge from that time on, and died there Nov. 19, 1913. His widow resides in Baton Rouge. The subject of this sketch is their only child. In the course of his education William Shields Holmes attended Louisiana State university. After the completion of his education he engaged in the grocery business, and is now a member of the wholesale grocery firm of Holmes & Barnes, Ltd., of Baton Rouge, which was organized in 1891. Mr. Holmes is a member, by election, of the Louisiana State University alumni, and has at all times kept up an active interest in educational affairs generally. His appointment to his present responsible and important office, as superintendent of the Louisiana State School for the Deaf, Dec. 26, 1912, came entirely without his solicitation. He is a member of the Methodist Episcopal church, South, and has taken an active part in church and Sunday-school work for 30 years or more. He is also a member of the Knights of Pythias. Mr. Holmes married Miss Caroline Bilger, of Clinton, La.

Contributed 2021 Nov 04 by Mike Miller, from Louisiana: Comprising Sketches, edited by Alcee Fortier, published in 1914, volume 3, pages 208-209.