Services for Hershel Hollin, 82 years old, 6 months and 27 days, will be held at 3 p.m. June 16 at Milledgeville United Methodist Church in Milledgeville with Leland Alexander and David Weatherford officiating.
Burial will follow in the Milledgeville Cemetery at Milledgeville.
He was the son of the late Barney Lee Hollin, Sr. and the late Nannie Bernice Spencer Hollin. He grew up in the Milledgeville area and was a standout athlete in basketball and baseball. He was on the Morris Chapel All-District team that went all the way to play at Vanderbilt University.
In 1960, he married the love of his life, Doris Bartholomew Hollin who survives. They were married for 61 years, 8 months and 18 days. Even in his last days, he never wanted her to leave his side. Together they had one child, Mitzi Leann Azevedo, and if you knew him, you knew that he absolutely lived for that girl, and she did him. There was not a bigger Daddy’s girl in the world, and he ate that up! She always called him her Superman, and she believed it with all her heart. There were two things that made him the happiest and that was his wife and his daughter, but Mitzi used to joke that Connie, his special niece, was the favorite! That was an inside joke that made everybody laugh.
He was a jack of all trades, and if there was anything that he was not good at, no one ever found it. As a young man he drove a backhoe, ran a grocery store, helped build houses, learned to plumb, wire houses, build and rebuild motors and weld, and he was a heck of a shortstop! However he spent the majority of his working life at Grinnell, later known as Anvil, Inc, in Henderson. He was one of the first few hired at Grinnell after the plant opened, and he stayed there for 33 years until he retired as a General Forman. Being retired never slowed him down. He became the neighborhood “fix-it” man, a member of the Milledgeville Volunteer Fire Department, a member of the City Council, a grandfather who went to every game possible for Brian and Kristen and even “his boy” Dylan Lott. He never stopped. His mother, Mama B, often quoted a child-like Mitzi when Mitzi would say and truly believed, “My Daddy can fix anything!” It did not matter what it was; he could fix it. A broken toy, a broken lamp, a broken refrigerator, even a broken heart. He could fix anything.
He leaves behind his daughter, Mitzi Azevedo of Adamsville; a special niece who he considered a daughter, Connie (David) Hanna Weatherford of Milledgeville; grandchildren Brian (Tera) Azevedo of Milledgeville, Kristen (Trent) Azevedo Martin of Dyersburg, Courtney (Scott) Myracle of Morris Chapel and Eric (Shelby) Weatherford of Adamsville; four great-grandchildren, Hershel Reed Azevedo, Brooks Wayne Martin, Olivia Reese Azevedo and Hollin Katherine Martin; a brother, Teddy (Ann) Hollin of Milledgeville; one sister, Jimmie Nell Martin, of Hickory Hills, Ill.; a brother-in-law, James (Dub) Bartholomew of Sardis; a special nephew, Barry Bartholmew, of Decaturville, who was his partner in crime in more games of “High Nine” than could be counted and was just a best buddy; nephew, Charles Hollin, of North Little Rock, Ark., who was born only hours after him on Nov. 16 and who was as close to him as a brother.
He was preceded in death by his parents; a sister-in-law, Brenda Bartholomew Hanna; brothers, Barney Lee Hollin, Jr., Ellis Hollin, Thomas Sidney Hollin, Johnny Ray Hollin, Willie Dee “Porter” Hollin, Edwin Jones Hollin, Loner Eugene Hollin and James Bell Hollin, who died in infancy; a special nephew, Clint Kennedy, and his mother, Glenda Bartholomew Kennedy; and his mother-in-law, Ruby Lee Bartholomew.
