Holloway, William A.

Submitted by Mike Miller

William Archie Holloway, M. D., is to be designated not only as one of the representative physicians and surgeons residing in Iberville Parish, but also one of the successful exponents of sugar planting in this section of the state, and as a citizen of distinctive liberality and public spirit. He has held various offices of public trust, including that of sheriff of Iberville Parish, a position from which he retires, after an efficient service of eight years, at the close of the year 1924. In the practice of his profession he has maintained his home in the city of Plaquemine, which, as the judicial center of the parish, has likewise represented his official headquarters during his administration as sheriff. The Doctor has been virtually retired from the active practice of his profession since 1914, after having made therein a record of prolonged and effective Service

Dr. Holloway was born in Clay County, Alabama, on the 12th of January, 1863, and in Coosa County, that state, his father, James M. Holloway, was born in the year 1846. James M. Holloway was reared and educated in Clay County, Alabama, and there continued his farm enterprise until his removal to Louisiana in 1870, when he here became manager of a large plantation near Thibodaux, Lafourche Parish. In 1876 he thence removed to St. John the Baptist Parish, where he became manager of another large sugar plantation, and in 1881 he became manager of a plantation near Plaquemine. From this place he removed to West Baton Rouge Parish, where he continued to figure as an efficient plantation manager from 1886 to 1890, his service of similar order having thereafter been given in St. Charles Parish until l896, when he returned to Iberville Parish and purchased the Star Plantation. He retained this place, as a sugar plantation, for the ensuing three years, and then purchased and removed to the Evergreen Plantation, to the operation of which he continued to give his attention, as one of the substantial and honored citizens of Iberville Parish, until the time of his death, in January, 1901. Mr. Holloway was ever a staunch democrat. He was affiliated with the Masonic fraternity, the Knights of Pythias and the United Confederate Veterans. He served as a valiant soldier of the Confederacy during the last two years of the Civil war. In Clay County, Alabama, as a young man, Mr. Holloway married Miss Helen Malcom, and there her death occurred when her only child, Doctor Holloway of this sketch, was an infant. For his second wife Mr. Holloway wedded Miss Elnora Tenny, who was born at Thibodaux, Louisiana, and who now resides in Los Angeles, California, as does also the younger of her two children, Alice, who is the wife of Philip Postell, a commission merchant in that city. Dr. Eugene Holloway, elder of the two children of the second marriage, is a representative physician and surgeon engaged in practice at Plaquemine.

After attending private schools in his native county in Alabama and at Thibodaux, Louisiana, Dr. William A. Holloway was for two years a student in the University of Louisiana and one year in the literary, or academic, department of Tulane University. After a three years' course in the medical department of Tulane University he was there graduated as a member of the class of 1884 and with the degree of Doctor of Medicine. In that year he established himself in the practice of his profession at Plaquemine, and in Iberville Parish he continued his faithful and able ministrations in his exacting profession for the long period of thirty years, his retirement from active practice, as previously noted, having occurred in 1914.

Doctor Holloway is a democrat and is well fortified in his political faith and practice. During a service of twelve years as a member of the police jury of Iberville Parish he held the office of president of this body eight years, a similar period having marked his administration as president of the parish hoard of education. In 1916 he was elected sheriff, and at the time of this writing he is still the incumbent of this office, by reelection in 1920. His home place, adjoining Plaquemine on the south, is an attractive property, and in Pointe Coupee Parish he is the owner of a well improved sugar plantation of 2379 acres. In his home city he is a director of the Citizens Bank & Trust Company and a stockholder in the Iberville Bank & Trust Company.

In the Masonic fraternity Doctor Holloway has received the thirty-second degree of the Scottish Rite in the Consistory in the City of New Orleans, where also he is a Noble of Jerusalem Temple of the Mystic Shrine. His basic, or ancient-craft, affiliation is with Acacia Lodge No. 116, A. F. and A. M., at Plaquemine, and of the same he is a past master. There also he is a member of Thistle Lodge No. 60, Knights of Pythias, of which he is past chancellor, and of Plaquemine Camp of the Improved Order of Red Men, as well as Plaquemine Lodge No. 1398, B. P. 0. E. The Doctor still retains membership in the Iberville Parish Medical Society and the Louisiana State Medical Society. He and his wife hold membership in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South.

In the World war period Doctor Holloway was a member of the draft board of Iberville Parish, and gave much of his the to its work, besides lending his aid in the furtherance of all local patriotic activities and service.

December 31, 1893, recorded the marriage of Doctor Holloway and Miss Mattie Sparks, at the Belmont Plantation, in Pointe Coupee Parish, she having been a daughter of the late Thomas G, and Jennie (Barrow) Sparks, and her father having been a successful cotton planter. Mrs. Holloway was summoned to the life eternal in the year 1898, and she is survived by one son and one daughter: T. Sparks Holloway, who was in the nation's transport service during one year of the World war period, remains at the paternal home and is serving as deputy sheriff of his native parish; Elnora likewise remains at the paternal home.

On the 26th of February, 1900, at Bunkie, Avoyelles Parish, was solemnized the marriage of Doctor Holloway and Miss Nannie E. Rhodes, her father, the late John T. Rhodes, having been a representative cotton and sugar planter in that parish, and the family name of his wife, likewise deceased, having been Marshall. Doctor and Mrs. Holloway have eight children: Joycie, Helen, William Archie Jr., James Madison, Nannie, Beryl, John T. and Eugene. At the time of this writing, in the spring of 1924, all of the children are still in the parental home circle with the exception of Miss Helen, who is a popular teacher in the public school at Scott, Lafayette Parish. William A. Jr., James M. and Nannie are students in the Plaquemine High School.

Madison Holloway, grandfather of the Doctor, was born in Arkansas, but passed the major part of his life as a farmer in Clay County, Alabama, where his death occurred, as did also that of his wife, whose family name was Long and who was a lifelong resident of Alabama.

NOTE: The sketch is accompanied by a black and white photograph/drawing of the subject.

A History of Louisiana, (vol. 2), pp. 295-296, by Henry E. Chambers. Published by The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, 1925.