Park Holmes

Lemuel "Park" Holmes was born on Dec. 14, 1877 in Brownsville, Licking County, OH, the daughter of Lemuel W. and Emily (Miner) Holmes.

Park married Willa O. Davis (1880-1963), the daughter of R. Henry and Minnie (Welch) Davis of Putnam County, WV.

They did not reproduce but were beloved by Park's sister Bessie Iden and her two sons, among many others. 

Park had a slight build, and stood perhaps 5 feet, 8 inches tall.

In 1905, the Holmeses moved to Licking County, where they resided for many years at 109 Fleek Avenue. A distant cousin, Ulysses "Grant" Minard, also relocated to Newark about that time, and lived there for a long time.

In 1909, Park paid $150 to O.C. Watkins for a town lot in Brownsville. As they were living in Newark at the time, they may have used this as rental property, or as a second home. The deed was not recorded for some 14 years, until March 19, 1923.

Newark, Ohio, on the north side of the town square.

Newark Advocate, 1944

While in Newark, Park was a clerk and, said the Newark Advocate, "for a number of years was associated with the Swanson Drug company ... but had been retired for some time [at the time of his death]. He was a member of the Moose lodge and the Methodist church of Brownsville." 

As he aged, Park suffered from heart disease -- "angina pectoris" -- an infliction which lasted several years, and was the direct cause of his death.

Cedar Hill Cemetery

Park passed away three days before Christmas 1944, at the age of 67. Funeral services were held at Criss Brothers Funeral Home, with burial in Brownsville. He left an estate of personal property worth $9,000. 

Willa survived him by almost two decades. She made her home on Fleek Avenue, and later moved into the residence of her niece, Zelma Davis, of the Linnville Road area of Newark.

Willa died at the age of 87 on Aug. 4, 1963, at the Newark Hospital. the Newark Advocate reported that her sister, Minnie M. Keeton, had died just three months earlier.

They are buried together at Cedar Hill Cemetery in Brownsville, directly beside Park's parents.

Park's newspaper obituary, along with other obituaries of the Holmes-Miner branch, and typed manuscript history material about the Holmes family history is on file today in the genealogy collection of the Newark Public Library. This material was copied in 1996 for addition to the Minerd.com Archives.

Copyright © 2007, 2019 Mark A. Miner