Sacramento County
Biographies
WILLIAM SELBY LEWIS
WILLIAM SELBY LEWIS.--Sacramento has
always been fortunate in the quality of men to whom has been entrusted the
heavy responsibility of fire-protection for the community, involving both the
conservation of valuable property and the protection of precious lives; and she
is never likely to be disappointed if she continues to select for such
important posts men like William Selby Lewis, the wide-awake, far-seeing and
faithful captain of Engine No. 6, at Oak Park. His popularity is the most
natural thing, when one knows his own appreciation of each and every man
associated with him in the arduous work, and sharing with him the heavy
responsibility of the office and department.
A native
son, with a very commendable pride in the Golden State with which he is thus
historically linked, Mr. Lewis was born in Sacramento on August 27, 1890, the
son of John and Jennie (Roberts) Lewis, the former a native son, and the latter
a native daughter. They were substantial rancher-folk, and they are still
living and enjoying some of the fruits of their worthy labors.
William
Lewis attended the public schools, and as a youngster learned the blacksmith
trade in the shops of the Southern Pacific Railroad Company, where he remained
for three years and eight months. Then he was in San Francisco for a short time, and after
that, in 1913, he availed himself of an opportunity to join the Sacramento fire department, glad to
serve his native city, and feeling a special fitness, for more reasons than one,
for this kind of venturesome work. Although a married man, Mr. Lewis served in
the World War. On September 22, 1917, he entered Battery C, 347th
Regiment, Field Artillery, 91st Division, training at Camp Lewis, where he was made
sergeant. He was sent overseas on July 13, 1918, and served in the St. Mihiel
sector for eight days in the front lines. After the armistice he was for a time
in the Army of Occupation, being stationed at Fehren, near Thryer, and later
returned to Brest. On his return to the United States he was honorably discharged
at the Presidio, April 26, 1919, when he returned to his post in the Sacramento fire department. He is a
member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars.
Mr. Lewis
has been captain for the past two years, and he wears his uniform with becoming
dignity, always otherwise clad in good democratic sociability and fraternity,
so that he is ever affable and approachable, ever willing to respond. He was
first with Engine No. 5, and then he came to his present position at Oak Park. In 1915 he was one of
fourteen men selected to go to the firemen’s contest at the Panama-Pacific
Exposition in San Francisco, and there he won first prize in ladder-climbing
and was awarded a medal. He plays the saxophone in the Sacramento Firemen’s
Band and is vice-president of the organization. He belongs to the Firemen’s
Relief and Protective Association, and is ever ready to do what he can to
improve the department in other than official ways. He is fond of baseball and
also of hunting and fishing.
In San Francisco, on February 20, 1917,
Captain Lewis was married to Miss Edith Florence Holmdrup, a native of Sacramento and a daughter of Hans and
Anna (Petersen) Holmdrup, natives of Denmark. Mr. Holmdrup has been in
the employ of the Southern Pacific for many years, and is now rate clerk. Edith
Holmdrup was reared and educated in this city and is a graduate of the Sacramento high school. They have two
children: June and William Selby, Jr. Captain Lewis belongs to the Knights of
Pythias.
Transcribed by Vicky Walker,
8/14/07.
Source: Reed, G. Walter, History of Sacramento County, California With Biographical Sketches,
Pages 969-970. Historic Record Company,
Los Angeles, CA. 1923.
© 2007 Vicky Walker.