HOLMES, William Shields, Jefferson Co., MS., then E. Baton Rouge Parish,
Louisiana
Submitted by Mike Miller



**********************************************
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm
**********************************************


Louisiana:  Comprising Sketches of Parishes, Towns, Events, Institutions, and
Persons, Arranged in Cyclopedic Form (volume 3), pp. 208-209.  Edited by Alcée
Fortier, Lit.D.  Published in 1914, by Century Historical Association.

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.