Dorothy Ann Collins

Born in Lenior, North Carolina her family eventually settled in the San Fernando Valley, where she met the love of her life, Earl Collins. Married at 17 they made their home in Sylmar California raising 3 children. Here she earned quite a reputation among her children’s classmates as being the “Best Mom”. Her nephew’s – three that come to mind, GW, Jimmy and Michael, all spent many hours at Aunt Dorothy’s, and never wanting to go home!

She was a stay at home mom who didn’t actually stay at home much. She was the Brownie Scout leader, Den Mother, Bowling league mom, and baseball scorekeeper She ran kids around to accordion lessons, Sunday school, horseback riding lessons. She was a school room leader, and even provided all the kids in the neighborhood swim lessons so they would be safer when swimming in her backyard pool.

When it came to the kids in the family, she always made sure that they had money for school pictures, school clothes, lunch money, year books, prom, prom dresses, and wedding dresses and she always managed to fit in a trip or two to Disneyland. As wonderful as a mother she was to her own children and all the other kids in the family, she was even a more amazing grandmother, or better known as Grammy, to Leslie, Steven and Leanne. This is where the summers were spent, at Grammys, this was not only the best place to be but the only place a kid wanted to be. Who else would play Candy Land and the Memory Game with you for hours on end, where else could you swim all day and then go out to eat afterwards. Ice Skating, movies, Lake Shasta and Disneyland trips, eating out, shopping, Grammy was the one to be with.

Earl had passes away in 1982, and her life centered around her grandkids, but as they too grew up, something even better came along, great-grandkids! Yes, she literaly packed her bags and moved to Kettering Ohio to be there for the birth of her 1st great-grandson, Ethan,and a few years later her 1st great-granddaughter, Brooke was born. For Grammy this is what life was all about, and she mentioned several times that the few years she was able to spend in Ohio with Ethan and Brooke were the best years of her life.

Unfortunately, her health began to fail and she needed to move back to California. On the bright side, she was blessed with yet another great-granddaughter, Gracie. Grammy got the biggest kick out of just about everything Gracie said or did. She was amazed at her personality and being around a little one again, really made her smile. Family was important to her and the last few years as her health declined the vacations is what she truly enjoyed, the trip to Hawaii a few years back, was one of her favorite times, the last few years as her health declined even more, the Beachhouse trips-even though hard on her, meant a lot to her, and Christmas in Frazier Park was something she really wanted to try to do again.

Besides her grandkids, she was an oil painter, a big Dodger fan, a doll collector, she loved owls, Red birds in the snow, she played some Guitar, an excellent cook, she liked snow skiing, gambling, country music, and a good friend of her’s Tom got her into Nascar a bit, but of course her biggest love was Elvis. She wasn’t able to enjoy much of the above the last year of so, but she had hundreds of photos, that she looked at over and over again, night after night, smiling and reliving the many wonderful places and people that made up her memories and life.

Her sister Carol came to stay with us and help with her everyday care along with several amazing care givers, Julie, Adella, Yesina, Eslinn, Theresa, and Rosa. They all spoiled her and loved her very much. Carol made her so many Lemon Meringue pies that we all started calling Dorothy “Little Miss Lemon Sweetie Pie”. So as heaven opens up for Dorothy, we all say goodbye to a loving mother, sister, sister in law, son in law, aunt, cousin, friend, neighbor and our Grammy, who we will miss so much, but who left us so many memories that we will cherish forever and we thank you for such wonderful memories and as Elvis would say, Thank you, Thank you very much.