Byline: Jan Galletta
Oct. 7--The St. Elmo neighborhood where the late gridiron great Reggie White spent much of his childhood was a friendly location, where folks seldom locked their doors, said his mother, Thelma Collier, 62. The Chattanooga woman and her two oldest children lived in several homes within the community, but she said many of their best times took place in a rented residence on Balcomb Street, which the family occupied from the time her famous son was 4 years old until the end of his second-grade stint. 'Everybody in the neighborhood was very good and looked out for each other,' she said. 'Everyone was protective of each other's children, and they (children) felt free to go outside. It was safe.'
There was little traffic on Balcomb, and children often played in the street while their parents sat and chatted on their front porches or on those of their neighbors, according to Ms. Collier. She said her sons Julius Dodds, 48, and Reggie (1961-2004 ) walked to the St. Elmo School, now apartments. Daughter Christie Collier wasn't born until 1971 and went to Brainerd, Ms. Collier said. 'Reggie was good in English, and Julius was an honor student in everything,' said Ms. Collier, 'but because Reggie was bigger than the others at St. Elmo, he watched out for all the little kids.' On one occasion, he came home mud-covered from having plucked a friend out of the sewer where some bullies tossed the younger boy, she said. But his usual after-school routine was to play sports at St. Elmo Recreation Center and to rush home to see the gothic TV soap 'Dark Shadows.' 'Then he'd get scared at night and want to come sleep with me,' she said. She said that when he misbehaved, her younger son lost his showwatching privileges instead of getting a spanking, perhaps because 'he grew so much, so fast; every day, it was like he was just swelling,' she recalled. Young Reggie fed his appetite with trips to the nearby Kay's Kastle and ran to the former Red Food store on Broad Street to fetch groceries for his mother. She said, 'One time, he was being treated for bronchitis -- probably, it was that sarcodosis which (later) killed him -- and was put on a diet. 'But that didn't last long; we didn't get along too well on that soup and Jell-O diet,' she said. Holidays were fun for St. Elmo's young set in the '60s, according to Ms. Collier. She said she and her mother, who lived in Wheeler Homes, would cook for days, setting up three tables to seat their extended family. On the Fourth of July, 'we had picnics and shot off fireworks in the yard,' she said. 'One Halloween, I put Reggie in a wig and dress to trickor-treat, and a neighbor told him he was the prettiest little girl she'd ever seen,' said Ms. Collier. 'After that, he went as a cowboy or Batman.'
Summer vacation often found her boys boarding the bus for a ride to the Warner Park pool or piling into Ms. Collier's father's car for swimming and a cookout at Booker T. Washington State Park, said Ms. Collier. She said they made cups of fruit-juice 'frozens,' which they scooped out with spoons, and sold hot dogs at church socials to aid the youth program at the Piney Woods church they attended. 'Reggie loved animals, and he was always bringing something like hamsters home,' said Ms. Collier. 'One time he was outside and called me to come see his dog. There was this big Doberman just straddling the windows of the porch looking in. We kept it two weeks and found it another home.' It was in the St. Elmo neighborhood that Ms. Collier met her late husband, Leonard. She said that he taught Reggie to drive and bought him a 1960 Cutlass he later took to class at Howard High School. Now an East Brainerd resident, Ms. Collier said, 'I'd like to move back to St. Elmo one day. 'It was about the best neighborhood I ever lived in. And it was such a nice place to raise children.'
E-mail Jan Galletta at jgalletta@timesfreepress.com
Copyright (c) 2006, Chattanooga Times/Free Press, Tenn.
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