LEWISTON — Veteran Holly Fleming’s road to earning a bachelor’s degree started and ended with her biggest cheerleader: her daughter, Frances, 11.

Fleming, of Poland, was among the 1,700 University of Southern Maine graduates Saturday in Portland.

Fleming completed her studies at USM’s Lewiston-Auburn College, where her daughter spent a lot of time the past four years, occasionally going to class with her mother.

“I lived there,” said Frances, a fifth-grader at Poland Community School.

“She knows all the professors,” her mother said, adding that she’s received a lot of support at the Lewiston campus. “It’s been like a second family to me. Everybody knows everybody.”

Fleming decided to go to college at age 34 after getting out of the U.S. Air Force and working a string of jobs.

“I needed to better myself,” she said. “I’m taking care of a child. She’s been the driving force. She’s swayed my every decision.”

Fleming grew up in Westbrook and graduated from Westbrook High School. “My mother forced me to go to college right after high school,” Fleming said. “I didn’t want to go.”

In her second semester she asked her father to take her to meet military recruiters. “He thought I was just going to talk to them. I signed up that day.”

That did not go well with her mother, she said.

In the Air Force she received training and worked as a medic, first in Korea, then in Alaska.

“I loved it,” Fleming said. “My last part of the job was in the emergency department where Frances was born at Elmendorf Air Force Base. I got out of the service at the end of my second enlistment.”

It was 2006. Her daughter was 1 year old. “They said, ‘You either get out or you’re going to Iraq next month,’” Fleming said. “I just couldn’t.”

She made the right call for her daughter, but leaving the Air Force was a tough decision, she said.

“I miss the Air Force,” Fleming said. “I miss all it stood for. I miss how I felt when I was in.”

She and her husband moved to Maine and settled in New Gloucester. She worked different jobs, caring for seniors with dementia, then with mentally ill clients. She worked at a day care, an embroidery shop, a slate manufacturer.

At one point she questioned what she should do with her life.

She applied for college on the GI Bill. Not long after she started classes, she and her husband divorced.

To Frances, her mother’s decision to go to college didn’t seem important. 

“I get it now because I’m older,” she said.

For four years she’s watched her mother stay up late every night working on papers. “It’s been a big, emotional roller-coaster ride,” Frances said.

Last week Fleming was among USM graduating veterans honored at a ceremony attended by U.S. Sen. Susan Collins. During the program, “Frances kept looking at me and said ‘I’m so proud of you, Mom,’” Fleming said.

Frances smiled and whispered: “I’m on Sen. Collins’ Facebook page!”

Fleming is now focused on finding a job. With a degree in social and behavioral sciences, she hopes to counsel veterans leaving the military.

“My goal is to take care of people,” Fleming said. “When I started the Air Force, they break you down and train you. At the end there’s some briefings, but it’s not like they put the pieces back the way you were. You get out and say, ‘Now what am I supposed to do? Who am I?’ It’s hard.”

Frances said her mother went to college for both of them, “to make sure I’m taken care of, that I have an awesome future, that we have a roof over our head.”

Graduation is a big step in her mother’s life, “in our lives,” the girl said. 

“I know she’s going to find (a job),” Frances said. “She’s going to love it. She’s going to be amazing. I’m very proud of her. I can’t wait to see what comes next.”