When Holmes was born July 9th, 1861, in Jackson, TN, his father, a teacher by profession, was serving in the Confederate Army. During the years that George Holmes's sons, James and Walter, were growing up, the family lived in Covington, TN, where his father was principal of a girls' seminary. The boys' mother had died when they were young, and the elder Holmes re-married. James, who was known as "Jimmy", was two years older than Walter and became blind at age two months after an illness.

Walter Holmes received a B.A. degree from Union University in Jackson and then entered newspaper work. He was at first employed on the Kansas City Times but in 1888 he moved to Memphis to take a job with the "Commercial Appeal."

A warm, dedicated man with a sly sense of humor and imbued with a strong sense of mission. Holmes came to assume so benevolent a role in the lives of Ziegler readers that he was called "Uncle Walter" by thousands who had never met him.

In June 1927, readers of the Ziegler had been given a chance to show how they felt about the editor. They responded to a letter from Robert Irwin, then president of the American Association of Workers for the Blind (AAWB), asking them to donate from 10 cents up to one dollar for the purchase of a gold watch to be presented to Holmes at the AAWB convention. The response was so overwhelming that, even though all gifts in excess of a dollar were returned to the senders, enough money was raised to buy Holmes not only a watch but also an automobile. It is typical of the man that his first thoughts about the auto was how much the blind workers at the Ziegler plant would enjoy being taken for rides in the country.

He died February 7th, 1946, in a fall from the window of his New York hotel, the mystery surrounding the circumstances of his death was never solved. Some were convinced that the frail octogenarian had been pushed out of the window by a thief to whom he had trustingly opened his door. Holmes did suffer from vertigo, and it is possible that he suffered an attack while he climbed up to adjust the curtains, and fell out. The curtains were still in his grasp when he was found on the roof of an extension over lower floors.

In death, as in life, his principal concern was with the well-being of blind people. His will provided that the bulk of his modest savings be spent outright to provide typewriters and radios to blind people who could not afford to buy them. Many hundreds benefitted by this $27,000 bequest in the years following Holmes's death.