San
Joaquin County
Biographies
HOLMAN BROS.
Prominent among the successful men
of affairs whose strenuous lives enable them, while carving out some fortune
for themselves, to also serve their fellowmen and help to advance the
community, the Holman brothers, grain and stockmen of the Farmington section of
San Joaquin County, rank among the foremost in these important industries. They own and operate 1,177 acres of choice
wheat land, where they exercise the most modern system of planting, cultivating
and harvesting of crops, thus reaping a fine quality and a large quantity of
choice grain. The company known as the
Holman Bros. is composed of James T. Holman, senior partner, and William Edgar,
both born in Randolph County, Missouri; members of a family of six children
born to William B. and Martha (Prather) Holman, also natives of Randolph
County, Missouri. The Holman and Prather
families came to Missouri from Kentucky in the early ‘30s and here the father
and mother of the Holman brothers was born, reared, educated and married. William B. Holman was a successful merchant
and at the same time carried on quite extensive farming interests in Missouri
until 1874, when he brought his family to California and settled near Linden,
where he engaged extensively in stock and grain raising until his death in
1908, survived by his widow until 1920, when she, too, passed away. William B. Holman spent more than a third of
a century in the Linden section and was identified with its development in an
unselfish way. Fraternally he was a
Mason. After his father’s death, James
T. Holman, being the eldest of the family, assumed the responsibility of the
family and large farming interests left by his father, and his brother William
Edgar became partner with him in the stock and grain business, which has been
so successfully carried on by them.
On October 18, 1892, occurred a
double wedding which united James T. Holman and Miss Luella G. Needham and
William Edgar Holman with Miss Lillian V. Needham, accomplished daughters of
Charles E. and Olive L. (Drake) Needham, and sisters of Hon. James Carson
Needham, judge of the Superior Court of Stanislaus County, residing at
Modesto. Mr. and Mrs. James T. Holman
are the parents of one son, Earl Leigh, a graduate of the University of
California, who served in the A. E. F. during the World War as second
lieutenant in the engineers; at the present time he is assistant superintendent
and engineer state controller light and power at Sacramento. Mr. and Mrs. William Edgar Holman are the
parents of one son, Charles. James T.
and William Edgar Holman are members of the Farmington Lodge, I. O. O. F.,
while their wives are both active in the Rebekah Lodge and all are staunch
Republicans. James T. Holman serves as a
trustee of the Farmington school.
Transcribed by Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Pages
855-856. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2011 Gerald Iaquinta.
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