Crash Kills Seven From One Family From Paragould

Sheboygan Press

July 6, 1957

Transcribed by : Tina Easley

COPEMISH, Mich. --

Seven members of a single family were

killed and an eighth critically injured in a car-truck crash outside

this northwestern Lower Michigan community Friday. It

was the worst July 4th holiday accident reported in the nation.

Three persons survived the crash, but two were in critical

condition at a Frankfort, Mich., Hospital.

Those killed were members of a Paragould, Ark., family in

Michigan to pick cherries between the harvesting of strawberries

and cotton on their own farm. It was their third season

in this cherry region.

Six older children of the family of 14 also survive. They

didn't accompany their parents.

Killed were Bynum Collins, 56 ; his wife, Florence, 45, and

five of their children: Linda, 14;  Gary, 13; Harold, 10; Thomas,

9, and Terry 5.

Three-year-old Dennis was the only Bynum Collins child in the

head-on collision to survive. He and a cousin. Clara Collins, 13:

and the truck driver, Warfield Laws, 52, of Lake City, Mich.,

were hospitalized,the boy and girl in critical condition.

Bynum Collins' brother and Clara's father, Wesley ,happened

upon the scene of the accident about an hour after it occurred.

He identified the dead, after stopping to offer aid.

Tina Easley
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