The Old Man…and the Dog
Major Works
- Goodbye Ole Miss (memoir) 2004
- The Old Man and The Dog (1984)
Biography of Carroll Seabrook Leatherman
Carroll was born in 1928 in Memphis, Tennessee. She attended Miss Harris’s School in Miami, Florida, and Finch College in New York. In 1949, she married Richard Leatherman. They raised three children at their plantation near Commerce Landing, Mississippi, and Memphis, Tennessee. Carroll founded the Women’s Serenity House in Memphis in the 1970’s. It was the first facility for women in that city. She and her husband, Richard, also donated 150 acres in Walls, Mississippi, to be used for public education and meant to be part of a much larger, carefully planned community initiated by the Leathermans.
After being told ten years ago that she might die soon of cancer, she hurried to write Goodbye Ole Miss, a story of the disappearing lifestyle of Twentieth Century Delta gentry. The term “Ole Miss” in her title refers, not to the university known by that name, but to a woman, like Leatherman’s grandmother and herself, who were the mistress of a plantation. Her memoir Goodbye Ole Miss, was published in 2004.
She also wrote The Old Man and The Dog, the story of the training of “Miss Dot,” a U.S. and Canadian field trial champion. The dog endures numerous problems on her way to becoming a champion. It was published in 1984.
Leatherman died of cancer on December 31, 2010.
Related Websites
- Life Stories: Outspoken Carroll Leatherman was a genuine steel magnolia. Barbara Bradley of the Commercial Appeal. 2011
- Obituary for Leatherman (2011)