"DADDY" - Alfred Noah Collins
Betty Collins Brown
September 2010
I never knew Daddy when his legs were the same length; I was born after the accident in the coal mine, but I’ve noticed in early pictures of him, how tall and straight he stood. I didn’t know him prior to his military service in World War II, but I’ve noticed in the picture taken in France during his service there how tall and proud he stood.
In 1946 after the mining accident, the doctors wanted to amputate both legs, but by “circumstance” there was an experienced doctor from New York working in the hospital in Jenkins, Kentucky where Daddy lay near death, blood dripping from the bed and running across the wooden floor (this told to me by Mommy). Dr. Godsend (I’ll call him because I never heard his name spoken) was hired by the mining company to treat the miners who were daily injured in one way or another in the coals mines. Although this was the worst case he’d seen, he disagreed with the local doctors about amputation. After all, Alfred was a young man, only 25 years old, and had already witnessed the horrors of war (that’s another story for another time) and now this tragic accident of being trapped between two coal cars completely crushing both legs below the knees. According to Mom, Dr. Godsend said “I want to save this man’s legs” and he did; but Daddy was never the same again.
I remember him sitting near the coal stove in the winter, with his pants’ legs pulled up to his knees, rubbing his legs and picking out small slivers of bone that had worked their way to the surface of his mangled legs.
In my opinion, there were many factors in his life as a child and as an adult that made him who he was. He could be fun, loving, kind, tender, gentle; but he could also be just the opposite when he became overwhelmed with painful memories and problems. He could be unkind, but not as unkind as his father had been to him.
My best memories of Daddy are probably around the time I was six to eight years old. He had been baptized and was attending church with us. He had an old pick-up truck (early 50’s model) and he would take us for rides and picnics.
By 1952, he had gone back into the mines and was working the night shift. Mom would put a banana in his lunch box and I learned that if I was out of bed when he got home from work in the early morning hours, he would save the banana and bring it back home to me. I had never tasted any fruit other than an apple or orange. The banana was wonderful! As I ate it, he would take his finger and wipe coal dust off his hard hat and playfully make a black mark on my face. It was the only sign of affection I can remember receiving from him.
Then another tragedy: the car accident that killed his friend. Daddy was driving. He started drinking again; but continued to take us to various churches and radio stations to sing: He was so proud of Kathy Gail, Vicky and me – the Collins Sisters, but his memories were just too painful to bear. Mom stopped allowing us to go with him because of the danger associated with his drinking and driving.
During Daddy’s life, there would be long spells of sobriety and then long spells of intoxication; but the hardest thing he ever had to deal with, I think, was when we learned Mom had cancer. All those years, she had been his source of strength, the one he leaned on, the one we all learned on and now she was undergoing a mastectomy and cobalt treatments and spent weeks at a time in the hospital in Charlottesville, Virginia. Half the siblings were grown and gone; I being one of them. The others still under the age of 18 pretty much had to fend for themselves because Daddy couldn’t handle the pressure. I think this explains the differences in the memories. Different siblings (according to whether he was sober or not during their most impressionable years) knew him in different ways. It was really like two families: the ones born before and the ones born after moving from the two room cabin in the “holler” – 11 children within a span of 23 years.
Daddy lived a hard life, a very hard life; harder than any of us knew at the time and harder than any of us can imagine now. Not only did he suffer the consequences of his childhood hardships, then the accidents, but he also developed black lung when he was in his early 40’s and lived 20 years with a condition that robbed him of the breath we took for granted.
I know he loved his children. I know he was proud of his children. I know he made mistakes, and I know he did a lot of things right, too. Forced by life’s circumstances to leave home and enter the coal mine at the age of 15; drafted into military service at the age of 21, crushed in a mining accident at the age of 25, then returning to the mines and working countless hours underground to make a living for his family. Against all odds, he persevered and together Alfred and Ella raised eleven children who today are successful and well-adjusted adults. I, too, am proud to say I am a child of Alfred Noah and Ella Mae Collins.
September 2010
I never knew Daddy when his legs were the same length; I was born after the accident in the coal mine, but I’ve noticed in early pictures of him, how tall and straight he stood. I didn’t know him prior to his military service in World War II, but I’ve noticed in the picture taken in France during his service there how tall and proud he stood.
In 1946 after the mining accident, the doctors wanted to amputate both legs, but by “circumstance” there was an experienced doctor from New York working in the hospital in Jenkins, Kentucky where Daddy lay near death, blood dripping from the bed and running across the wooden floor (this told to me by Mommy). Dr. Godsend (I’ll call him because I never heard his name spoken) was hired by the mining company to treat the miners who were daily injured in one way or another in the coals mines. Although this was the worst case he’d seen, he disagreed with the local doctors about amputation. After all, Alfred was a young man, only 25 years old, and had already witnessed the horrors of war (that’s another story for another time) and now this tragic accident of being trapped between two coal cars completely crushing both legs below the knees. According to Mom, Dr. Godsend said “I want to save this man’s legs” and he did; but Daddy was never the same again.
I remember him sitting near the coal stove in the winter, with his pants’ legs pulled up to his knees, rubbing his legs and picking out small slivers of bone that had worked their way to the surface of his mangled legs.
In my opinion, there were many factors in his life as a child and as an adult that made him who he was. He could be fun, loving, kind, tender, gentle; but he could also be just the opposite when he became overwhelmed with painful memories and problems. He could be unkind, but not as unkind as his father had been to him.
My best memories of Daddy are probably around the time I was six to eight years old. He had been baptized and was attending church with us. He had an old pick-up truck (early 50’s model) and he would take us for rides and picnics.
By 1952, he had gone back into the mines and was working the night shift. Mom would put a banana in his lunch box and I learned that if I was out of bed when he got home from work in the early morning hours, he would save the banana and bring it back home to me. I had never tasted any fruit other than an apple or orange. The banana was wonderful! As I ate it, he would take his finger and wipe coal dust off his hard hat and playfully make a black mark on my face. It was the only sign of affection I can remember receiving from him.
Then another tragedy: the car accident that killed his friend. Daddy was driving. He started drinking again; but continued to take us to various churches and radio stations to sing: He was so proud of Kathy Gail, Vicky and me – the Collins Sisters, but his memories were just too painful to bear. Mom stopped allowing us to go with him because of the danger associated with his drinking and driving.
During Daddy’s life, there would be long spells of sobriety and then long spells of intoxication; but the hardest thing he ever had to deal with, I think, was when we learned Mom had cancer. All those years, she had been his source of strength, the one he leaned on, the one we all learned on and now she was undergoing a mastectomy and cobalt treatments and spent weeks at a time in the hospital in Charlottesville, Virginia. Half the siblings were grown and gone; I being one of them. The others still under the age of 18 pretty much had to fend for themselves because Daddy couldn’t handle the pressure. I think this explains the differences in the memories. Different siblings (according to whether he was sober or not during their most impressionable years) knew him in different ways. It was really like two families: the ones born before and the ones born after moving from the two room cabin in the “holler” – 11 children within a span of 23 years.
Daddy lived a hard life, a very hard life; harder than any of us knew at the time and harder than any of us can imagine now. Not only did he suffer the consequences of his childhood hardships, then the accidents, but he also developed black lung when he was in his early 40’s and lived 20 years with a condition that robbed him of the breath we took for granted.
I know he loved his children. I know he was proud of his children. I know he made mistakes, and I know he did a lot of things right, too. Forced by life’s circumstances to leave home and enter the coal mine at the age of 15; drafted into military service at the age of 21, crushed in a mining accident at the age of 25, then returning to the mines and working countless hours underground to make a living for his family. Against all odds, he persevered and together Alfred and Ella raised eleven children who today are successful and well-adjusted adults. I, too, am proud to say I am a child of Alfred Noah and Ella Mae Collins.
