HISTORY OF KENTUCKY AND KENTUCKIANS, E. Polk Johnson, three volumes,
Lewis Publishing Co., New York & Chicago, 1912. Common version, Vol. III,
pp. 1224-25. [Full page photograph of Mr. Williams included with bio.]
[Jefferson]

EDWARD L. WILLIAMS--The field of insurance is constantly attracting men of
enterprise, energy and laudable ambition, who find in this scope for their
dominant qualities, recognizing that business offers excellent
opportunities for advancement.  There has been no greater development in
any line of business than in insurance during the last quarter of a
century, and at the head of some of the strongest companies of this
character stand men of pronounced business ability, with marked capacity to
plan and to perform.  Among this number is included Edward L. Williams,
president of the Southern National Life Insurance Company of Louisville.
     Edward L. Williams was born in Glasgow, Barren county, Kentucky, on
May 10, 1866.  He is the son of Dr. W. A. Williams and Mary Jane (Graves)
Williams, both natives of Kentucky.  The Williams family came to Kentucky
from Virginia, the Kentucky settler having been Captain Williams, a
Revolutionary soldier, who was great-grandfather of our subject.  The
maternal grandfather was Bartlett Graves, a prominent man of Barren and
Hart Counties, Kentucky, who surveyed all the land in those counties and
took up large tracts of land and was at one time the wealthiest man in
that section of Kentucky.  Dr. Williams A. Williams was a graduate of the
Louisville Medical College and practiced all his life in Glasgow.
     Edward L. Williams attended the public schools at Glasgow and the
Southern Normal School founded by his brother, J. Thomas Williams, at
Bowling Green, Kentucky.  At the beginning of his business life, before
he knew just the particular groove into which he was destined to fit, he
commenced with taking an engagement with the Adams Express Company at
Glasgow, and later on was engaged with a planning mill and in contracting
at the same city.  In 1895 he entered into the life insurance business as
a solicitor.  From that time on each step in his career was one of advance,
bringing him a broader outlook and greater opportunities.  He did not learn
the lessons of business life from experiment, which always involves
expensive blunders, but has ever made a close study of conditions and
problems before embarking upon any enterprise and has therefore brought to
the solution of every question sound opinions and thorough understanding.
     Soon after he started in as a solicitor he was made district manager
and then superintendent of agents for Kentucky for the Aetna Life Insurance
Company.  The next step in his progress was an agency instructor for the
New York Life Insurance Company working out of Louisville.  Finally, in
November, 1908, he organized the Southern National Life Insurance Company,
of which he was elected president at its organization.  Thirteen years'
connection with life insurance has made him thoroughly acquainted with
the business, its methods of conduct, its management, its necessities and
its possibilities and in the important position which he now occupies he
has instituted plans and methods, the value of which are being demonstrated
in the success attending them.
     Mr. Williams is married to Mary E., the daughter of J. P. Snellings,
of Alexandria, Louisiana, and they are the parents of two children:
Mary S. and Edward L. Jr.
     Mr. Williams has always been a student and hard worker and has worked
his way up to prominence, manifesting a fidelity of purpose, an
indefatigable enterprise and a fertility of resource that has enabled him
to carve his name deeply on the records of insurance in the state of
Kentucky.

Williams Graves Snellings
=
Glasgow-Barren-KY VA Hart-KY Bowling_Green-Warren-KY LA

http://www.rootsweb.com/~kygenweb/kybiog/jefferson/williams.el.txt