Dr. Jeremy Green

Jeremy Raleigh Green, M.D., passed away peacefully on January 10 from a non-COVID related illness, just weeks shy of his 89th birthday. He was an extraordinary man who touched countless lives on many shores and in many ways and leaves behind a family who love him dearly.
Jeremy was born in Queenstown, South Africa to parents Frank “Dusty” and Ruth Green. Dusty settled in Queenstown, where he met Ruth, after stints in the British Royal Air Service and Navy, and after trying his hand at farming and hunting in southern Africa. That same sense of adventure and wanderlust burned bright in Jeremy. He began his medical studies at 16, became a physician at 21, and then set out to travel the world. He would practice medicine in England, Northern Ire-land, South Africa, Australia and, of course, the United States.
He met the love of his life, Elizabeth, a British nurse, when he was working at St. James hospital in London. They eloped between hospital shifts, and would be married for more than six decades, producing three sons and seven grandchildren.
While working in Melbourne, Australia, a former colleague invited Jeremy to join him in developing a new clinic in “some place called Green Bay.” He and Elizabeth told themselves they’d go to Green Bay for “six months or so” before continuing on with their travels. But they fell in love with the city, and never left. He would serve on the staff of St. Vincent Hospital, St. Mary’s and Bellin, as well as Prevea Clinic.
Throughout his life, he was passionate about giving back to the profession and community that had been “so good to him and his family.” He was an active volunteer with the Medical Societies of Brown County and the State of Wisconsin, the Bay Beach Wildlife Sanctuary and Botanical Gardens, the N.E.W. Community Clinic, and Scholarships Inc. He was a strong believer in the importance of higher education, and so he dedicated much time and energy to helping the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay become more vibrant and successful. He helped establish the UWGB Health Service and served as an advisor for both the health service and the College of Human Biology for many years. He even served as a team physician for the men’s basketball and soccer teams.
He received numerous awards for service to his community and profession, from the UWGB Chancellor’s Award for Lifetime Service to the State Medical Society’s Physician-Citizen of the Year Award, and countless honors in between.
But he would have wished that we not dwell upon awards and honors because he insisted that his family was his most important honor and accomplishment. In fact, his favorite days with his family were those in which the kids and grandkids were all together in the backyard with the chaos of excitement and laughter that only happy children can create.
His colleagues in health care knew Jeremy as the “physician’s physician.” At the time of his retirement from active practice in May 2017, he was Wisconsin’s longest serving physician, and had mentored countless doctors and nurses who hoped to emulate the extraordinary sense of compassion that was at the heart of his approach to health care.
While it is almost impossible to separate Jeremy from “Dr. Green,” there were other sides to him that few people ever saw — and which endeared him to his family all the more. Few people knew, for example, that in his early years in America, he walked in solidarity with Martin Luther King Jr. —perhaps especially notable for a South African in those days. He deeply admired Winston Churchill, and read countless works about the Second World War. He was a passionate gardener and birder. In fact, he had such pride in his garden that he engaged in a battle of wits for years with the deer who would eat his precious hostas. In his youth in South Africa, he rode horses bareback through the hills around his home, swam in the local reservoir and even hitchhiked with pals up to Victoria Falls (in what is now called Zimbabwe).
His final days were spent comfortably in the Courtyard at Bellevue, often sur-rounded by family, and always comfortably cared for. His room was decorated with photographs of his family around the world, past and present, and some of the books by Kipling, Haggard and Bertram Mitford, that had filled him with wanderlust, much as they had his father before him.
As the end drew near, he recounted stories from his Queenstown youth and the homes he knew as “19 Oaks” and “Whistler's Corner.”
But most of all, he was comforted by the presence and the love of Elizabeth —that young British nurse he married between hospital shifts in London.
Jeremy is preceded in death by his sister Felicity “Flicka” Marshall and parents Frank “Dusty” and Ruth Green. In addition to Elizabeth, Jeremy is survived by sons Mark, Chris, and Adam and their wives Susan, Heidi and Karin. He is also survived by the grandchildren he was so proud of: Rachel Van Wey (Andrew), Anna Braddock (Nicholas) and Alexander; Peter and Emma (fiancé Ryan Galaz), Mattison and Andraya as well as his younger sister Virginia Green (Gordon Hart-ford) of Port Elizabeth, South Africa and his niece Alexandra Ritchie.
The family would like to thank Courtyard at Bellevue and Unity Hospice for their wonderful care in his last few months.
Funeral services for Jeremy Green will be private and limited to family due to COVID restrictions. Later this year, the Greens plan to celebrate his life with a ceremony that will be open to all friends and family, including his family and relatives around the world.
For those who wish to honor Jeremy further, the Green Family would invite them to make a gift in his name to either the Bay Beach Wildlife Sanctuary or the N.E.W. Community Clinic.