Biography of 	Smith, Homer S. Canton, GA., then Orleans Parish, Louisiana
Submitted by 	Mike Miller September 2000

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Homer S. Smith is one of the prominent insurance men in the South.  He helped organize 
and for many years has been especially identified With the Pan-American Life Insurance 
Company of New Orleans, a Louisiana institution with a notable record of growth and 
prosperity, a prosperity that is turned to the benefit of the home state, since a large 
part of the income of the company is invested in Louisiana.  Mr. Smith is the manager 
for the northern part of the state, with headquarters at Shreveport.

He was born in Canton, Georgia, March 18, 1881 and has been in business since early 
manhood, coming to Louisiana in 1902, he located in Concordia Parish, where he had his 
home for several years.

The Pan-American Life Insurance Company of New Orleans was organized in 1912, and is 
the youngest of about two-score companies doing business in Louisiana, and yet only 
three other such companies wrote a larger amount of insurance during 1923 than the 
Pan-American.  It also stands fifth in volume of business in force in the State of Louisiana.

Mr. Smith for twelve years has been one of the bulwarks of the company in expanding its 
business in Louisiana.  He established the Shreveport office in 1920, and is the executive 
in charge of the company's affairs in the northern half of the state.  His offices are in the 
Giddens-Lane Building.

Mr. Smith is a Knight Templar, a Scottish Rite Mason and Shriner.  By his marriage to 
Miss Sarah Gillespie, of Vidalia, Louisiana, he has one son, Albert Smith.

A History of Louisiana, (vol. 2), p. 134, by Henry E. Chambers.  
Published by The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, 1925.