THROUGH
MOUNTAIN MISTS
Early Settlers of Union
County, Georgia
Their
Descendants...Their Stories...Their Achievements
Lifting the
Mists of History on Their Way of Life
By: Ethelene Dyer Jones
Charles Roscoe
Collins: His Life and Times (Part 2)
Paying tribute
to a man whose life was characterized by service to others is easy.
Such a life was lived by Charles Roscoe Collins (1907- 2000). He wore
many hats: son, husband, father, teacher, school administrator, lover
of history and preservationist. On the other hand, writing such a
tribute is hard. Everything can't be included, and there's the outside
chance that some of the most important contributions of the person will
inadvertently be omitted.
Go back to this
column for July 4 to read the beginning account of this man, born in
the hills of Choestoe to James Johnson Collins and Margaret Ann Nix
Collins, the youngest of their six children. Charles Roscoe, better
known as "Ros," made his appearance in the
Collins home on September
20, 1907. He lived a full and productive
life of over nine decades. He didn't stumble over obstacles but saw
them as challenges to overcome.
By way of
education, he went to Choestoe School near
his home, walking from his home over a mile in all sorts of weather. He
often recalled some of the outstanding teachers who early-on influenced
him to be studious, pursue knowledge, and consider teaching as a career
for himself. Following Choestoe, he boarded at the Blairsville
Collegiate Institute. There he played on the basketball team,
practicing on an outside court, and going to competitions as their
coach, the Rev. Harry Smith, could garner transportation to take the
outstanding team to Dahlonega, Gainesville, Demorest
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Mr.
Charles R. Collins points out the memorial window at Choestoe Baptist
Church honoring his parents, James Johnson Collins and Margaret Ann Nix
Collins.
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and
elsewhere. He graduated with honors from the Blairsville Collegiate
Institute in 1927.
It was a long
distance from Choestoe in the mountains to Mercer University in Macon, Georgia.
Roscoe packed his meager belongings in a "cardboard suitcase" (as he
termed his traveling bag). He wore, on that long trip, a "linsy-woolsy" suit made by his cousins, Avery
and Ethel Collins, from wool sheared from sheep, and woven into cloth
on their hand loom. Then they tailored a suit--pants, jacket and vest-
out of the sturdy material. "I was warm in that suit," Ros said, and it served him well for years as
his best dress-up suit. I once saw him hold up the brown pants, died
that color from oak bark, as he made a talk on mountain ingenuity and
crafts. That old wool suit and the pants became symbols for Roscoe
Collins for the "make-do" road of his young manhood.
He rode on the
top of a load of logs over Neal Gap to Gainesville, then caught the train on to Macon, Georgia and Mercer University. He
said that the Rev. Harry Smith helped to arrange a scholarship for him
at Mercer University to
pay some of his tuition and board. Roscoe worked, too, as he studied,
to make ends meet. He spent two years at Mercer, but did not get his
Bachelor's degree. That was to come later. He had to stop his education
for awhile and begin his teaching career to earn some money to
continue. His first teaching job of consequence was in the Hall County
Public Schools at Gainesville, Georgia.
Some of
Roscoe's kinfolk had moved to Colorado
seeking a more economically-secure way of life. There they worked on
large farms or ranches, purchasing their own when they earned enough
money. All of their stories sent back home by letters enticed the young
man Ros Collins to go to Colorado.
While there, he did odd jobs for a living and attended the Colorado
State College of Education in Greeley,
earning his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1938.
Back in Georgia,
Roscoe taught school, becoming the first principal (and also a teacher)
at the Town Creek Consolidated
School. He
told me of walking the several miles from his father's farm to get to
Town Creek early enough to build the fires in the heaters in each of
the four classrooms. He was still wearing that linsy-woolsy
suit he took to Mercer away back in 1927. It kept him warm as he walked
on cold days. His evaluation of his years of teaching and administering
the Town Creek School was that he taught some of the brightest young
lads and lassies there of anywhere in his 40+ years of teaching.
Ros
enjoyed telling people that he had "taught in the four corners of Georgia and
many places in between." He had a long stint in St.
Mary's, Georgia. On
his 90th birthday (September, 1997), I was present to see a large motor
coach bus full of people who had been his students travel to
Blairsville from St. Mary's to honor Mr. Collins, to testify to his
influence on their lives. All had a good time remembering. It was
exhilarating just to be a part of that big birthday party and to hear
the heart-felt accolades.
On June 4, 1940,
Charles Roscoe Collins and LaVerne
Cheshire (a fellow teacher) were united in marriage in Lakeland, Florida. She
was a daughter of Robert and Minnie Lemack
Cheshire. Ros and LaVerne
continued their careers as teachers, he clocking up more than 40 years
at his retirement and she having 35.
Their daughter,
Becky Ann, was born August 7, 1947, and
adopted by Ros and LaVerne
when she was a baby. When Becky Ann grew up, she married Garland Moose
of Suches, Georgia. Ros and LaVerne delighted in their three grandchildren,
Rodney, Robby and Carrie. Becky Ann, like her parents, became a
teacher.
As he continued
to teach, Roscoe took classes at Oglethorpe University in Atlanta, Georgia,
where he earned his Master of Education degree in 1948. He went back to
Mercer University in
the summer of 1952 to take a course commonly called then a workshop for
in-service educators. I was a student at Mercer University at
the time, working on the last requirements for my Bachelor of Arts
degree. As good fortune would have it, Roscoe and I were both students
in that summer workshop. Roscoe, in his joking way, liked to call the
workshop classes, which were over a three-week period from 8 in the
morning until 4 in the afternoon with only a short break for lunch, the
"Paw-Paw Patch" classes. That was because we had to come up every day
with innovative ways to teach, and one day Roscoe and I together
"performed" the song, "Way down yonder in the Paw-Paw Patch!" We could
barely refrain from laughing as we sought to show how rhythm, music and
action help to reinforce younger students' learning.
Although I had
known Roscoe Collins all my life, and we were neighbors (and cousins)
on Choestoe, that summer workshop at Mercer University made
us life-time friends. We discovered our common interests in history and
family roots, as well as education. He retired long before I did, but
after my retirement, my husband Grover, he and I took many "historical"
treks together so that he could point out significant milestones, like
the Logan Turnpike and the Mule Springs Camp. We also made trips to
visit the Rev. Harry Smith in Forsyth, Georgia. We
had a lot of time to talk and to appreciate history.
He had a
distinguished career in education in "the four corners of Georgia."
His service to his home county of Union
included being teacher, basketball coach, principal
and county school superintendent. After 42 years as an educator, he
retired in 1972.
c2008 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published July 10, 2008 in The Union
Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights
reserved.
[Ethelene
Dyer Jones is a retired educator, freelance writer, poet, and historian.
She may be reached at e-mail edj0513@windstream.net;
phone 478-453-8751; or mail 1708
Cedarwood Road,
Milledgeville,
GA
31061-2411.]
Updated August 5, 2008