This is an oral history interview with Daniel B. Collins, Sr., class of 1934, conducted by Marilyn Summers on September the 8th, 1998. We are at Mr. 

Collins' home in Austell, Georgia, and the subject of our interview is his life in general and his days at Georgia Tech. Mr. Collins, thank you so much for letting us be with you here today. I'm happy to have you here. And we're looking forward to hearing your story. 

So now tell me where it all began. 

Well, I was born in Ackworth, Georgia, and that's in the upper end of Cobb County. My father was clerk of the court of Cobb County, and my mother was a native. And I have one sister who didn't live in the area, and she was already married. Quite a bit older. Yeah, big age difference. and what what year was it that you were born i was born in 1912 okay so that was when this was still country roads and things like country roads no paved roads in the area at all all dirt roads and ruts is six inches deep in the in the winter time can you remember that oh yeah i sure can I can remember that. How did your dad get to work every day? 

He rode the train. 

He walked about a half a mile from my house down to the railroad station and rode the train to Marietta, number three, NCN St. L. 

Railroad train to Marietta to work in the clerk's office, and then rode number was six back in the afternoon late back in and then walked home. The train linked all these little towns together. Yeah, it was a commuter train. Yeah, so they could all do it. And people did that back in those days. It was a common thing to ride the train. Common thing to ride the train. Cars were not too plentiful. As a matter of fact, off and on we had a car. And I I don't remember. 

I remember the first car I think that we had was an old Huttmobile and it stayed broken down half the time. The train was more dependable, huh? 

Yeah. 

So where did you go to school? 

Well, I went to the Akris Grammar School, of course, which was about a half a mile from my house, and I walked to school. And I walked back home to lunch because we didn't have a lunchroom. There were no lunch rooms. Most of the kids who lived in the country, of course, brought their lunch. 

But I came home usually to lunch because I could walk a short path and come home to lunch. We had an hour for lunch. And there was, of course, no lunch rooms and nothing like that in the school. Everything was simpler then, wasn't it? 

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. 

Now, your sister had already married and moved away from home, so there was a good age difference. sister my sister was about eight years older than I and she had gone to she went to state normal school and I was there and then taught school and married fairly young and moved away so so you're growing up time I kind of grew up alone pretty much alone. I'm almost like an only child. Did you like school? 

Oh, yeah. I liked it all right. I had my favorites and teachers and this favorite ones, of course, like everybody else. What high school did you go to? 

We had a high school at Eckworth High School. I graduated there, and I was fortunate enough to be in the upper end of the class in high school. 

I did pretty well I thought there but when I when I left and went to check I really got shook up let's go back to how when did you know you wanted to go to college how did you make up your mind that you were gonna do that oh well I don't remember but I I guess that I knew that I had to do something more than just high school to get anywhere in life and my I had a aunt an old maid aunt who was a schoolteacher and she put a lot of instinct in the media to get some education oh okay so you were nurtured told that's the way it was right yeah something happened early on when you were just a youngster you got your first crystal set right yeah yeah do you remember getting that where it came from Yeah, yeah, I remember. There was a jeweler there in Ackworth who was kind of up on building things. He had a bug and he built a small one and I got it from him somewhere. I don't remember how now. but anyway I got kind of a homemade set from him I got my first one there and we put up an antenna and strung it from one tree to another and put a lead in wire and a light and rust and everything on it and brought it into the house that was my my first set so you remember sitting and listening to it when you listen to it I remember getting KFI Los Angeles California on it you know and things like that that's pretty exciting wasn't it yeah you had a cat whisker and I all that you know that's a cat that's a cat whisker a cat whisker is a little thing that of wire that fits down into the that sets into the crystal on on those and you'd set that in there and you would get different stations oh that was before you could just dial up whatever you wanted? 

Well, no, you didn't dial it. 

You had some switch points there that you could set on the windings on the coil to adjust for different frequencies, and then they set that crystal to adjust also for accuracy. 

So now you were like about what, 12 years old maybe? 

Yeah, maybe 12, 13 years old. 

And you already could understand how this was I didn't understand much about it but I knew enough to the to operate and everything and I try to read a little bit about it and everything I'm just fascinated with it I imagine it was it was very unusual for its time there was no comparable type of entertainment yeah this involved electricity right it was bringing electronics it was the beginning of the energy yeah so you I'd get books and things like that and try to read a little bit. You'd start thinking about going to college then? 

I'd start thinking about studying about it, yeah. 

Now, did you experiment a little bit with your crystal set? 

I did that, and I'd start building them. You'd start building your own then? 

Yeah, and I built several of them. That's funny. And then I'd have other people would call me about them. 

And then the first thing you know, I was going out and fixing them and things like that so you understood how they worked fairly well if you could repair them then yeah that's the way I could do that so this when did you get the idea then that maybe Georgia Tech was where you gonna go did you ever consider any other school not really not really I think that was that was it because that was the only one I really considered what did you know about tech at that time I had a a cousin who had gone to take what do you remember his name yeah his name was Durham Collins Durham his mother was a Collins and he was called his name was Collins Durham and he went into the Navy after he graduated he was he was sort of a my hero how you're paying somebody you look up to there. Had you ever been to Georgia Tech before you registered to go? 

No. And never been into the big city to check it out or anything? 

Never had been to school. 

Do you remember, let's see if you were born in 1912, when you were like 16, 17 years old, the Tech played the Rose Bowl. Yeah. Did you remember listening to the game when you crystal set? 

Did you really? 

Oh yeah. See, I went right after the Rose Bowl. That's when you entered school. Yeah, yeah. That was a big year, see. They had a tremendous influx of students after the Rose Bowl. Because of the national publicity thing. Yeah, oh yeah. Yeah, that's just a flock of people came in. From all over the country. Absolutely, yeah. 

So when was the first time you saw Georgia Tech? 

I don't remember. probably when you went there huh yeah maybe I had been by probably but I didn't see much didn't know much about it so you entered school in 1929 yeah fall of 1929 and it was a hot place to be national Rose Bowl champion oh yeah they were making and I had a big influx of students as a result of that too that was the biggest registration year I think they had at all. And there you were in with the crowd. In with the crowd. In with the crowd. 

Now where did you live? 

I live in Brown Dormitory. What was the experience like? 

Had you ever been away from home before? 

Not much. Not much? 

I went home every weekend. Oh did you? 

Yeah. By how? 

By the train? 

Yeah. 

So you took the train just like your dad was taking the train. Yeah, I took the train. You took the train into Georgia Tech. Yeah. 

And brought, what, your suitcase or your trunk or something with you, with your stuff? 

I just took a light suitcase home, yeah. Sometimes I'd ride the bus. Oh, there was a bus that went? 

Yeah, there was a bus available, too. 

So what happened when you got into classes? 

Oh. Were you surprised? 

Yeah, I had a rough time with some. Some I did all right, Ann. 

I didn't have any trouble much with my English and foreign languages and things like that that i did pretty well i had a little i had a little trouble with math getting getting settled on it my high school math was not too good because the math teacher in my high school was the principal and he was he was out of the class in his office a lot of times and we we'd be in there playing and throwing racers and all that so foolishness was going on and then there all of a sudden you are in college and I didn't have a good so I had to take some remedial math when I got to tech I took some remedial algebra and intrigue but you must have been a quick learner because you caught on yeah well I had to do it stay in school do you remember I was on probation until I could get straightened out until I could catch up with my high school stuff. Do you remember any of your math teachers? 

Did you ever have D. M. Smith? 

Yeah yeah yeah I had D. M. Smith. 

Now we've been told that D. M. Smith is one of the best teachers in the whole world. He was good but a lot of them are afraid of him but he was good. Were you afraid of him? 

I respected him. No throwing erasers there unless he was throwing them. yeah he was a good teacher yeah yeah i learned a lot from him and fulmer fulmer was a good teacher yeah did you feel overall that all the professors were caring about you that they were going to help you get through i think they were they were interested in weeding out the ones that they felt like should be weeded out because they were wasting their time being there but they wanted to help the ones who were capable of going on so it was a good method yeah it's time it works right yeah did you make friends oh yeah yeah yeah I made one good friend Bob Hubbard was a friend even years after he left Tech what was it like to live in Brown dormitory it was all right I didn't particularly enjoy it in dormitory life, but it was all right. Were they rowdy? 

Huh? 

Was it rowdy? 

Uh, sometimes. Sometimes. Did you have a rat hat? 

Huh? 

Did you have a rat hat? 

Oh, yeah. I had a fight over that rat hat a lot of times. Tell me about that. 

What do you mean? 

Because there were always other students from other colleges out there trying to get you a rat. You'd be in big trouble if you didn't have it then, right? 

Yeah. 

So when you'd go to other places, people tried to steal it? 

Oh, yeah. 

Not only that, but when you were there, if you were out on the streets, there'd be some of their students out there trying to get you. My goodness. They'd go in there and tear your clothes off. You were a marked man if you had your hat on. Yeah, I am. Did you enjoy any social activities during your first year of school? 

Not a great deal. I wasn't too much of a socialite back in those days. I bet what you were doing was learning how to study, right? 

Yeah, I was a little bit too. 

I didn't have the funds or anything to get into fraternities because I couldn't afford a fraternity in the first place. It was too expensive. I had a good friend who was a senior at ATO right up the street. 

I went up there a few times, and I think I could have pledged there, if i had uh you know that was post -depression and times were hard then weren't they how did the money come for you to go to school do you remember where the money my mother and dad i don't know what they did without but they did without i'm sure a lot and i just uh i don't know they uh so did you recognize that they were making a sacrifice not as much as i after the factory. 

Everybody was struggling for money weren't they? 

Well yeah most everybody that I knew was struggling. 

So your folks would send you and you'd go back to school on Sunday night? 

Yeah. 

And then you would they give you money to get your lunch all week or? 

Yeah I'd have enough money to to get meals and things like that. They had enough money to give me to take care of my mother. I'm sure they did without a lot of things, you know. Where did you eat your meals? 

I ate most at the dining hall my early years. That would have been Britain dining hall. Yeah. When it was brand new. It had just opened a few years before that. Yeah, I ate the dine and all that. How was it? 

It was all right. It was just all right. 

Now the Varsity had just been built then too. Yeah. Varsity was new there. Did you ever go there? 

Oh yeah, I go to the Varsity. That was a night snack or something like that to go up to the Varsity. Many a night I've gone up there. 

When I moved up up my sophomore year out of the dormitory up the 75 North Avenue I go up there in my bathrobe at night they didn't care yeah okay go up there and pick up a couple of hot dogs you know at midnight studying and come back to the room hot dogs were not cold and the students walking around in their bathrobes there was no much traffic not much traffic on North Avenue see there was the varsity was just a hole in the wall back in those days it wasn't the big grand driver today so it was a pretty comfortable lifestyle there were lots of other kids around doing the same things you were doing yeah do you remember going to the football games oh yeah yeah did you ever have any odd jobs around the school to make extra money no you didn't have to do that so your mom and dad did pretty good for you then? 

Well, they did the best they could. The work that I did was done in Ackworth. I would do repair work, you know. I would do radio repair work around in the area at home. 

On the weekends? 

On the weekends, I could pick up a little work I could pick up a little money that few dollars this way now did you get to pursue any of your interest in the radio at the campus did you did you have any opportunities to work on radios there no I didn't have any opportunity how did you decide to go into electrical engineering well I guess that was that was the closest thing to my my likes of anything that I could have selected I I thought maybe that I might find something you know and in the field after I graduated but hitting hitting them the work market at the time I did was kind of rough because in the middle of the depression there just weren't too many things to do and I tried it with with a distributor I worked as service manager for this distributing company after graduation after graduation let's go back to school time were the electrical engineering courses kind of tough yeah they were particularly tough my first two years but after that I got I did pretty good. I did all right after my first two years. I kind of went along all right. I got along pretty good. You learned how to study. My grades did fail. Not excellent, but... You got better and better. Got better and better. Georgia Tech is a tough school. There was no question about it. 

Well, it was awfully tough for me, for the general. Did you ever go over to the student center, the old YMCA? 

Yeah. Tell me, do you remember that building? 

Yeah, I remember the old YMCA, yeah. Students go there to play pool or visit, hang out. Yeah, a little bit. Occasionally. I didn't go too often, but I went occasionally. After the Rose Bowl game, the team came back. They were called the Golden Tornadoes in those days, right? 

They came back. 

The team members were all real popular, as we're told, because they were heroes, right, for winning this game, even though they won it because California ran the wrong way. Yeah. 

Did you ever come across or ever see the bear that they brought back with them? 

Do you remember any stories about that or see that bear? 

I remember. I remember. Stumpy Thomason's bear. Yeah. They brought it on the field. Did you ever see it? 

Yeah. At the football game? 

Yeah. Because that's a story that everyone talks about now. It's become one of the Georgia Tech legends. Yeah. 

But you actually saw the bear. You were there when that happened. Yeah. he was a full-sized bear I guess maybe was I'm not sure it was in me like he was not quite not as big as you were as big as as big as some what was that was a time when after the roaring 20s we went into the 30s that it was pretty wild time in the roaring 20s and lots of uh hijinks and stuff did you find that on the campus at all that there was a lot of like did you ever go on a shirt tail parade yeah yeah you did so you had some good times yeah you did a few things did you ever go to a dance have a what ever go to any of the dances not many but one one or two i went up to fox and oh the fox had opened by that yeah the Fox opened long about that time. You used to go there? 

I went to one or two of the Fox dances. Did you go to see the movies or the shows at the Fox? 

Yeah. What do you remember about that? 

Don't remember much. No? 

Not too much. I just remember that the Fox opened at that time. Yeah that was a gala occasion when that Fox opened. It was in the papers and everybody was excited about it. Yeah. Yeah. Did you ever take a date there? 

Later. Not not while I was in tech. I couldn't afford to date much. 

So you didn't date very much. He couldn't date very much and he didn't have the money. First thing he didn't have a car. I didn't have a car and not many of the students had a car. No there were very few cars. car. People were using the trolleys mostly to get around it. Yeah, yeah. Was it a happy time for you Mr. Collins? 

Yeah I have some happy memories. Even broke huh? 

Yeah. 

Well do you remember your graduation? 

Your what? 

Your graduation. Yeah, yeah. Where was that held? 

That was... 

Did they have it at the Fox or were they having it on the campus somewhere in those days can't quite remember trying to remember do you remember if we had the did your mom and dad come do you remember that yeah well you were worth their investment and all their sacrifices then yeah i was trying to remember hey it was some it's auditorium I think might have been at the auditorium yeah later I think they started going over to the facts but I don't remember what you think I think with the auditorium I believe it all so you graduated in four years well actually I didn't actually I went more than that. Did you go a little longer? 

Yeah. Five years is pretty normal for a bachelor's degree so it might have been five years. I want to start it in 29. I graduated in 35. 34. 34. 

Well what happened as you got closer to graduation? 

Did you start looking for jobs then? 

Yeah there were no job placements you had to do your own looking there yeah I put out a bunch of fields a bunch of letters and all that sort of stuff yeah and what did you finally decide to do well I I had an opportunity to go with Fairbanks Morse but they wanted me to go up north leave Atlanta to leave and go leave the south but my mother and father were getting old and my sister was not well and she didn't live in this area and I thought it would have been a bad idea to do it so I had an opportunity for this other job so even though it wouldn't make quite as much money I decided to take it. He kept you here in the area where your responsibility was. 

Yeah to say where I could be closer to my mother and dad because I thought that would be better off so where did what job did you take then I took this one with the with the furniture company oh with the furniture company with the current company and I also had an opportunity to set up my own little business on the side doing what I had a service business set up a service business for repairing radio then later on a repair television so you were repairing things like just like you had been as a youngster you carry that business right on so did you do that out of your home no a little place in the business where i did it oh i see at mather yeah right at math yeah i did that so you kept your hand and see this uh uh i was not the manager of the store but my cousin was the manager of the store so it worked out i worked out okay for that period of time then later on he wanted to leave this because he also had another business he was a funeral right there oh i see on the side and he wanted to leave the furniture business so uh they wanted me because i'd been there a while they wanted me to take over the business so I did and I finally gave up my ship my repair business because it took this took the furniture being manager of Matthew kept pretty busy by that time where was it located it was located in Austell in Austell okay yeah so when you graduated you moved from Ackworth to Austell well yeah I was I moved to Austell in to run this business mr. 

Collins after graduation we determined you finally settled into Mather furniture company and you moved to Austell Georgia yeah where you live today right here in Austell tell us about what happened in those days well I worked under my cousin there for a couple of years or so and he decided he wanted to go into his own business he was an undertaker there too and it was taking too much of his time so Martha was acquainted with what I had been doing so they asked me to take over the operation so and they offered me a pretty good proposition was a salary and a bonus setup and so I did and I took it over and and we went from there and we did pretty pretty good we we had office crew and some outside people back in those days we used outside sales collectors I go and you contracted we contacted we were people in Douglasville and we worked a man in Douglasville and worked a man in and Clark Dale and so they went to those areas and got sales that's right and got sales and collections got routes set up things started picking up yeah and we were in this we were in this old hotel building and Austell had three stories in it and in 1937 they took the third story off they condemned that building and they took the third story off and restructured it and fixed it where it was suitable and so it we fix the store up and made it pretty good shape now did you have a sales room and that's in that building do people come to you to look at furniture I had a display this display floor and we had a what we call the ballroom up there where we had our storage facilities for sort of a warehouse did you buy your furniture from other distributors you brought it involved most of it from factories most not much from distributors except appliances and things like that from distributors both most of the rest of it from factories and I had worked with the company who had certain buying policies and everything like that and we've kind of worked together on who we bought from and everything so we could kind of buy the right prices and get the right prices. 

Mather had a number of stores and they had a store in Atlanta and store in Gainesville, store in Newnan, store in Carrollton, store in Greenville, South Carolina and some stores in Florida back in those days it was a pretty good sized group of stores and so we could sometimes buy collectively and we would attend furniture markets and get better deals for everybody yeah it was along about that time that you met your wife yeah I met her about I guess about 35 something 36 somewhere along in there and how long did you court her about a year before we married huh so you got and what was her name Alma Pettit P-E -T-T-I-T Alma Pettit so you got married here in Austell uh-huh and she she worked at a manufacturing plant there in Austell for a while and then she left and went to town and worked for the Georgia Hotel Association for so she was a career woman yeah she worked for two or three years yeah so we kind of got on our feet and then she retired and you started your family tell us about that well my first child was a And her name? 

Her name was Lynn, L-Y-N-N-E, Lynn. She was born in 1944, I believe, and she is now living in Tallahassee, Florida. 

She was married to Richard B Corbett, who is a professor at florida state university and lynn teaches she's a teacher in grammar school in in florida wonderful and do they have any children yeah they have a son who is uh living in uh wisconsin and a stepdaughter who is living in our so we're all over the country all over the country yeah and then who came next after Lynn that's my police your son was born yeah my son was born after after that he's a junior Daniel B. 

Junior and he was he was born about four years later and he he went school of course grammar school and and then he he was fascinated with with tech and he he went to tech he followed in his dad's footsteps didn't he he took different courses yeah he didn't take engineering he took business administration and he is now and has been for about 15 years a broker with Dean Witter Dean Witter Reynolds and does he have any children oh yeah yeah he has two boys and a girl and that little girl is a dog somebody's got their grandpa wrapped yeah she sure has it's something else she's about six years old now. Oh, so you have little grandchild. Yeah. Oh, that's wonderful. Yeah. 

Well, they'll like listening to your story, Grandpa. It's a nice story to tell them. Yeah. And boys, one of them was about 12 and one of them was about nine. Oh, that's great. Yeah. 

How long did you stay with Mather Furniture? 

I was with Mather for, gosh, I don't know how many years. Close to 50 years. yeah a long time long time but you did give up your little job of repairing you said you did learn how to repair televisions though besides radios oh yeah oh yeah so you developed an interest in that technology oh yeah yeah yeah but eventually you gave up your repair shop and you just stuck to the furniture business well yeah I had to because I couldn't just didn't have the time to do it yeah so you were with Mather for almost 50 years yeah that was a rich career yeah yeah and now when you look back on your life would you have changed anything or would you keep it pretty much the way it went well you debate on whether you made the right decisions or not you don't know but I don't know whether I'd change anything or not did going to Georgia Tech proved to be a good thing for you oh yeah I want to change that at all you wouldn't change that one and no absolutely not well that's good we're glad to hear that it was a meant to be that you would be a yellowjacket then huh absolutely absolutely my son it feels the same way he didn't so it's a tech legacy family that we're talking absolutely absolutely well thank you for telling us your story mr. 

Collins we're very happy to have it and happy to be with you today well I'm happy for you to come I wish I had something more interesting to tell you it's been very interesting sir thank you for your time.