Jeremiah (Jerry) Tax papers

Jeremiah "Jerry" Tax (1916-1999) was born in Northampton, Massachusetts on 31 January 1916, but raised in Brooklyn, New York. On 2 March 1941, he married Deborah Billig (1917-1997), who he had met when they both were students at the University of Maryland. Their daughter, Judith, was born in 1942. After joining the United States Army, Tax was sent to serve as a radio operator with the Signal Corps of the 71st Infantry Division, which landed in Le Havre, France, and saw action in France, Germany, and Austria between that time and the end of the war. Tax remained in Austria with Allied occupation forces until 1946, when he returned to the United States and was discharged from military service. In the post-war years Tax was a journalist, serving as a writer with the Washington Post, an editor with Reader's Digest, and from 1955 to 1981, he was both a writer and editor at Sports Illustrated, eventually becoming executive editor of that publication. Tax died in Great Neck, New York on 5 June 1999.