THROUGH
MOUNTAIN MISTS
Early Settlers of
Their
Descendants...Their Stories...Their Achievements
Lifting the
Mists of History on Their Way of Life
By: Ethelene Dyer Jones
The
Life and Times of Dr. Mauney Douglas Collins – Part 2
Front row, left to
right: Dora Collins, Mary Louise Jackson Collins,
Jean Benjamin Collins (holding dogs, Tip and Tige); Albert Dyer
(Mary's son-in-law); on Albert's lap, Watson Benjamin Dyer
(Mary's first grandchild);
Second row, left to
right: Mauney Douglas Collins; Norman Vester
Collins; Laura Collins; Callie Kate Collins; and Nina Collins
Dyer.
In this family portrait, Mary Collins was holding the family Bible.
The children are
holding ceramic objects they wanted to display.
Some are "a hen and chicks," an indication that they had survived
a chicken pox epidemic.
Death by
typhoid fever had claimed the life of Mauney Douglas Collins’ father,
Archibald Benjamin, on April 4, 1897. Being the eldest boy in the
family at age eleven (his older brother, Francis Arthur, had died as a
one-year old), and his mother, Mary Louise Jackson Collins having seven
children to raise, the young M. D. (as he was called) buckled down to
responsibility and hard work. Some would say these hardships made
a man of him. An examination of his subsequent life shows that,
indeed, he did become a man—and an outstanding one at that.
Herself
recovering from typhoid and the birth of Dorothy Dora one month
earlier, Mary Jackson Collins faced her grief in a weakened
condition. But with sheer determination she assessed her
possibilities.
First under
consideration were the two country stores her husband Ben owned, one at
their home in Choestoe and one at the Coosa Gold Mines. With no
one to take over the management, go to Gainesville for supplies, and
tend the stores—combined with the deficits of thousands of dollars “on
the books” which she could not collect from debtors, Mary Collins
decided to close out both the stores. She then concentrated on
the farm and livestock. Her frugality, hard work and good
management kept the large family from starvation.
In each of her
children, and especially in Mauney Douglas, there came both from
precept and example a strong sense of work ethic and
responsibility. Mauney plowed the fields, planted crops,
cultivated them and reaped a bountiful harvest, enough to keep the
family going from year to year.
Education was a
very high priority with Mary Collins. All of her children
finished grammar school at Old Liberty, mainly under the tutelage of
her brother, Thomas K. Jackson, a good teacher. As they finished
seventh grade, she began to seek ways to educate them further.
When M. D.
finished Old Liberty School, Mary Collins went with him by wagon to
Hiawassee, Georgia to the Hiawassee Baptist Academy, a school founded
in 1886 by Dr. George W. Truett, noted Baptist leader who had been born
in nearby Hayesville, NC.
At Hiawassee,
Mrs. Collins rented a small house. They took provisions from home
for M. D. to live on at that small cabin near the school. At the
time the young Choestoean entered Hiawassee Academy, tuition was $1.10
and rent on the cabin was fifty cents per month. Students had to
purchase their textbooks, provide their furnishings, fuel and
food. It was twenty miles over a rough mountain road by way of
Brasstown from Choestoe to Hiawassee.
M. D.’s first
roommate at Hiawassee Academy was another Choestoe lad, Jack Lance, who
would in the future himself become a noted educator and president of
Young Harris College. The boys got along well as they “batched”
in the small cabin, doing their own cooking and studying by the light
of an oil lamp. Trips back to their respective farm homes in
Choestoe replenished their supplies of food. They did not live in
luxury by any means, but they got by. And both did
extremely well academically.
M. D. Collins
had $14 in cash in his pocket when he went to Hiawassee Academy.
Somehow, he made it stretch over five months of his first term there.
His first
teachers at the academy were the president, Professor A. B. Greene; Mr.
Leonard Kimsey; and Mr. Frank Lloyd. Through those excellent
teachers, M. D. was introduced to the classics of Latin, Greek, the
world’s great literature, and “higher” mathematics, social and physical
sciences, and archaeology.
He distinguished
himself both in academics and in the debate society. At the end
of his first five-month term, his business acumen had been so frugal as
to allow him to purchase at Berrong’s Dry Goods Store his first
“store-bought” suit for $2.75. His new suit was striking, with
pin stripes. He completed his ensemble with tie and a dress shirt
with a celluloid collar. Up to that time, his dress suits had
been made by his mother from cloth woven at her home loom from wool
gathered from their own sheep.
In the summer of
1902, Mauney Douglas Collins began his own teaching career back at
Choestoe at Old Liberty School from which he had graduated seventh
grade. His uncle, Tom Jackson, was still the teacher there.
That summer, a record of over 100 pupils were enrolled. Mr.
Jackson needed help so he enlisted his nephew as the second teacher.
M. D. Collins
was seventeen when he began teaching at Old Liberty. He kept this
job for four years. His beginning salary was $22.50 per month,
$112.50 annually for a five-month term of school. He taught in
the summer when crops were “laid by,” and again in the winter months.
Spring terms, he
again attended Hiawassee Academy, continuing his own education.
When he was home at Choestoe, he helped his mother with farm
tasks. Life was hard, but the family had plenty to eat and Mary
Jackson was a good manager. She and her children kept lofty goals
as a major priority. Propelled by his drive to learn and to
achieve, much lay ahead for M. D. Collins, intelligent and aspiring lad.
[Next week: The Life and Times of Dr. M. D. Collins will
continue.]
c2003 by
Ethelene Dyer
Jones; published October 2, 2003 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
February 5, 2009