Dr. Bruce Graham Pratt, Sr. Obituary (1927

Bruce Graham Pratt, Sr., DVM, DMS, 89, of Beaufort, died peacefully August 31, 2016 surrounded by family and friends at his beloved home, Holly Hall Plantation. He was born in Neenah, Wisconsin, on February 22, 1927, the son of Sarah Meyer Pratt and George Nathaniel Pratt, Sr., MD. He moved to Holly Hall Plantation on Lady's Island as a child in the late 1930s. He attended Beaufort Elementary school and the Hill School in Pottstown, Pennsylvania. He spent his first year of college at Princeton University before enlisting in the Army. He served in the Army for 2 years before returning to college at Alabama Polytechnic Institute (now Auburn University) where he received his Doctor of Veterinary Medicine. He returned to Beaufort where, for his first years, he was the only large animal veterinarian in Beaufort and its surrounding four counties. He later opened Holly Hall Animal Hospital. He practiced for more than fifty years. He married Katherine "Billie" Wilson of Burton, South Carolina, on December 22, 1947. He and Billie raised their four children at Holly Hall. Dr. Pratt was a lifelong, avid outdoorsman who loved hunting and fly fishing and who cared deeply about the environment. This year, just after his 89th birthday, he caught his 150th and 151st sailfish 'on the fly' off the Osa Peninsula of Costa Rica. In addition to hunting and fishing, he was a serious SEC football fan who covered everything from himself to his car in the orange and blue of his beloved Auburn Tigers. He finished nearly every conversation with a hearty "War Damn Eagle!" He was also a generous, selfless member of the communities he was tied to. he supported various causes such as the Nature Conservancy,; the Storm Eye Institute at the Medical University of South Carolina, including a program whose purpose is to eradicate preventable blindness in third world countries, especially South America; to Beaufort Memorial Hospital, where his father served as one of the hospital's first chiefs of staff and where his mother founded the hospital's Women's Auxiliary, including supporting the renovation of the BMH Emergency Department; and to the College of Veterinary Medicine at Auburn University, where one of his gifts endowed a chair in small animal orthopedic surgery. He was one of the founding members of the Beaufort Academy and supported the school throughout his lifetime. He was always quick to give all of the credit for his generosity to his maternal grandfather, who founded White Laboratories of Newark, NJ and which manufactured Feenamint, a popular laxative. Every time he accepted thanks publicly for one of his charitable gifts, he would laugh and say that the gift was possible because his grandfather Henry "made America move." He is survived by daughter Roxanna "Sanna" R. Pratt of Buffalo, WY; son Bruce G. Pratt, Jr., of Beaufort; son Thomas N. Pratt, Sr. (Lynn) of Roswell, GA, and their sons, Thomas N. Pratt, Jr., Robert R. Pratt, George G. Pratt, and William T. Pratt; daughter Sarah "Tosh" K. Pratt Carden of Beaufort, and her children, Katherine Mills Carden and James H. Carden, Jr.; and sister Sallyann Pratt Cowles of Naples, FL. He was predeceased by his parents, his half-sister Frances Pratt Dickinson and his half-brother George N. Pratt, Jr. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to the Beaufort Memorial Hospital Foundation, P.O. Box 2233, Beaufort, SC 29901, or to the College of Veterinary Medicine, Auburn University, c/o Diana Turner, 317 S. College St. Auburn, AL 36849-5517 (please write "The Bruce G. Pratt, DVM Chair" on the check).