My Genealogy Hound

A. H. HOLMES is one of the rising young business men of Norman, Kearney county, Nebr. He was born in Canada June 6, 1863, and is a son of Henry and Harriet (Elliott) Holmes, both natives of Ireland. The parents emigrated to Canada in 1854, and there the father followed the peaceful vocation of a farmer for several years. In 1862 the Holmes family located in Jefferson county, N. Y., where the father died in 1868.

The mother and two children, A. H. and Maggie, accompanied by the maternal grandparents, emigrated to Harlan county, Nebr., in November, 1874. They took homesteads and built the first house in Antelope township, now the wealthiest in the county. The country was exceedingly wild at that time, and antelope and buffalo could be seen in great numbers almost any time. Here this pioneer family lived, enduring all the trials and hardships incident to frontier life, moulding the raw unbroken prairie into well cultivated farms. The mother died in 1888, and the only daughter, Maggie, became the wife of N. G. Stevens, January 22, 1890.

A. H. Holmes, whose name heads this sketch, is now the only living representative of the family name, as far as he knows. Being left alone, and being a young man of keen perception, he concluded to become a druggist. He accordingly obtained a situation in a drug store at Wilcox, Nebr. He subsequently became proprietor of the only store in town, but sold out in a short time and went into business as a partner of Dr. English, at Bird City, Kans. He continued there for a short time only, then came to Norman, and established a drug store, July 24, 1889, and has since been doing a most successful business.

Mr. Holmes is a young man of splendid business capabilities, and enjoys the high esteem of all who know him. He owns two excellent farms near Wilcox, Harlan county, and has considerable means invested in his business at Norman. He is full of push and enterprise, and never fails to make a success of whatever he undertakes.