Story by Jean Mathews
Shortly after Charles retired and in good health he was helping a friend move and the friend’s son started up the truck without a warning and Charles fell backwards out of the truck and was killed instantly. I remember him as a larger than life person and there is no doubt he enjoyed his alcohol but I never saw him drunk. MS was a dry state then and I remember going with him on a ferry across the MS river to LA and going into ta bar. I must have been very little but I knew not to tell ” Little Granny” Florence his wife. I also have vague memories of riding with him on the machine he rode up and down the line for repairs. He was about 10 years older than Florence. He had been married before but she had died in childbirth. His Mathews family all in the yellow fever epidemic in the countryside outside of Vicksburg. He was raised an orphan and did not know anything about the origins of his family.
Collins Families 