Bernese Gay Holmes was born in Stafford Springs, Conn., in January 1872, and was educated in the public schools of that place. Coming with his parents to California in March 1889, the first stop was Pomona, but the family, after looking over other locations, decided upon this section of the San Bernardino valley as a permanent home, and arrived in Redlands in August of the same year. In 1892, Mr. Holmes took a course in the Woodbury Business College of Los Angeles and in March 1896, entered the Union Bank as bookkeeper, which position he recently resigned and was soon after appointed secretary of the Redlands Preserving Company. He owns a ten-acre tract, set to lemons, near the southwestern corner of the city, which he has always cared for himself. He is a director of the Redlands Fruit Association.
(Source: Illustrated Redlands, 1897, p. 64)
