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Belinda Waldorf was born 14 May 1820 in Hartford, Trumbull County, Ohio. Her parents were John and Elizabeth (Mizner) Waldorf.

She met and married John Milton Holmes in or near Platteville, Wisconsin. In 1842 they crossed the Mississippi. For the next twenty-six years they lived and worked in northeastern Iowa in the areas that are now Clayton, Delaware, and Dubuque counties. They pushed further west to Montgomery County in 1868 and eventually to Massena in 1894.

The deaths of John and Belinda occurred in 1905. They had eight children who were scattered by 1894. Two lived in Massena.

Mary Celestia Holmes Black (1848-1915) was a Massena merchant. The Blacks had two children who died in infancy but were otherwise childless. They reared a foster son, Wesley Frazier.

Emery Wendell Holmes (1855-1929) was a teacher turned business man and dealt in lumber. Emery Wendell had five children: Clifford (1883-1949), Donna (1885-1940), Charlotte Belinda (1887-1975), Nathan Glenn (1889-1982) and Wilmanelle (1891-).