One of the 13 Founding Fathers of the Delphic Fraternity.
William Shelby Janes
1854 - 1929
(digitally designed tombstone.)
William Shelby Janes was born in 1854 to Nelson Janes and Philena Baker in Geneseo, New York. An actual birth date for William Shelby is unknown. He is referred to as Willie in the genealogy record of the Janes Family which traces its history to William Janes who migrated from England to New Haven, Connecticut in 1637.
William Shelby was educated at the Geneseo Normal School where he was about 17 years old when he became a founding member of the Delphic Society.
After Geneseo, William S. Janes moved to La Porte, Indiana to work at a manufacturing company where he held the positions of express agent, time-keeper, and pay-master. He married Flora Miller on May 23, 1889, and they had at least ten children.
William Janes died sometime in 1929 at the approximate age of 75 and is buried at Pine Lake Cemetery in La Porte, Indiana.
Sources:
The Janes Family: A genealogy and brief history of the descendants of William Janes, by Frederick Janes, 1868, p. 354.
The leading citizens of Livingston and Wyoming Counties, New York, 1895, p. 389.