Wirt Alfred Williams, Jr., who had three novels nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, was born on August 21, 1921, in Goodman, Mississippi, in an apartment in a dormitory on the campus of what later became Holmes Junior College at the time when it was an agricultural high school with living facilities. According to Wirt Williams's sister Catherine Colton Williams Graves, their "father was head of the school, and he and his wife occupied the apartment as manager/ chaperones for the students living there. They made very little money in those days, and the apartment was a real plus for them."
