On his eightieth birthday, Dr. Jeremiah Holleman received an unusual request from his three children. They asked him to write his life story. The result is not only an interesting tale of his own experiences, but a patchwork rendering of American life throughout the twentieth century.

In the tradition of Southern storytelling, Holleman relates his beginnings as the child of a farm/ mill owner in Pickens, Miss. For his family of nine, money was scarce during the Depression years. To raise tuition money for college, he worked summers as a lumberjack, an electrician, and a construction worker, never afraid of hard, honest work.

After graduating from Millsaps and completing his M.D., he served in medical detachments during World War II and the Korean War and was promoted to the rank of major. The details of his Mobile Army Surgical Hospital have been told in the popular television series MASH, and Holleman shares a few insights that never made it into the series or film. Most importantly, his memoirs mark the progress of American life, such as his family’s first automobile purchase and his first encounter with a primitive dialysis machine.

Millsaps Magazine  |  Millsaps | Last Edited August 31, 1999