Brotherhood : A Black Masonic Lodge Comes to the Aid of Its Long-Lost Founder

Three years ago, Joseph B. Collins, a frail 79-year-old widower suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, was living alone in Compton. His yard was overgrown with weeds, his stove was disconnected, and he had no hot water. Penniless, he bummed cigarettes and depended on meals delivered by a charity.

About that time, Willie E. (Bill) Mack, an officer of the Prince Hall Masonic Lodge in Santa Ana, was wondering what had become of Collins, who founded the lodge in 1958 to help care for black brethren in need. In recent years, Collins had dropped out of sight.

“We sent him a monthly newsletter and it came back marked ‘Not Deliverable,’ ” Mack said.

But Mack’s curiosity led the lodge to rediscover--and virtually rescue--the much-honored Masonic leader.

In April, 1992, Mack went to the address in the membership file and was shocked by the awful conditions. He realized that Collins’ memory was fading fast--yet there were some things the retired mail carrier hadn’t forgotten.

“He gave me a Masonic handshake and a broad smile,” said Mack, a political consultant and former chief of staff for Assembly Speaker Willie Brown.

Since then, lodge members have showed their gratitude and respect for their former leader by taking him under their wing.

“These people have really stepped up to the plate for this guy,” said Michael Skudstadt, an Anaheim lawyer hired by Prince Hall to win custody of Collins. “They have basically given him back his life.”

Mack said he learned that Collins had fallen under the care of the Los Angeles County Office of the Public Guardian.

Collins’ only child, a daughter born with Down’s syndrome, died in 1968. And after his wife died in 1979, he drove the family Cadillac home from the funeral, never to touch the wheel again, Mack said.

“He does not have a single relative in the whole world,” Mack said. “No nieces or nephews. We are the only family he has.”

Lodge members began visiting Collins four days a week, bringing him food and cigarettes and trying to improve his situation.

Barbara Kubik, division chief for conservatorship services for the public guardian office, said Collins was referred in October, 1991, by Adult Protective Services workers who had found him “disheveled and confused.”

From then on, she said, the office took over Collins’ finances, cleared up bills he had forgotten, stopped foreclosure on his house and did its best to see that his needs were met.

“He was a difficult man to deal with,” she said, noting that he often would not permit gardeners on his property, refused to see doctors, and allowed strangers to eat his food and take his money.

Collins’ stove was disconnected so he wouldn’t hurt himself, she said, and he was too confused to use a telephone. The office arranged for Meals on Wheels to serve him and a neighbor to provide additional food, and it paid his overdue bills from his pension and Social Security checks.

But the Masons contend that until they stepped in, Collins’ refrigerator was empty and he even lacked hot water because the gas pilot light had gone out.

They took their criticisms to the public guardian office, Mack said, and the care improved significantly. “When we complained about his medical condition, they started sending a home nurse,” he said, “and a maid was hired who had the house sparkling.”

Mack said the Masons were further angered when, after Collins was hospitalized for the removal of a tumor in October, 1993, he was sent to a Compton nursing home--and his own house was sold at auction.

Kubik said the house was sold because Collins needed nursing home care, and the proceeds were used to pay the charges for it and the hospital care.

Before Collins’ furniture was sold, however, the lodge retrieved his personal belongings, including Masonic gavels, aprons, plaques, a Bible and a historic Masonic sword.

The Masons didn’t want Collins to remain in an institution, so they asked to take care of him.

Kubik said her office initially opposed the idea, having been advised by physicians that Collins should remain in a nursing home. But the office ultimately relented, and in October, the Los Angeles Superior Court awarded conservatorship of Collins to one Prince Hall member, Melvin Shanks, and conservatorship of his finances to another, Warren Bussey.

Collins, now 81, has moved into the Shanks home in Santa Ana, about a mile from the Prince Hall lodge, known as Wiley L. Kimbrough Lodge No. 91.

Shanks’s wife, Gloria, a member of the Eastern Star, the Prince Hall women’s auxiliary, said Collins spends his days accompanying her on walks and paying visits to “brothers.” No longer alone, she said, “he lives a family life.”

Longtime lodge members have fond memories of Collins, although he no longer recognizes some of them and finds it difficult to speak.

“He is the guy who got us together,” said Isaac Curtis, 80, a charter member.

“This is one of the social organizations that was very vital to the building of a sense of community when blacks moved out of the South into urban ghettos,” said Lawrence de Graff, professor of history at Cal State Fullerton.

Santa Ana’s Prince Hall is housed in a timeworn, one-story stucco structure in the neighborhood where the vast majority of Orange County’s blacks lived until the late 1970s.

Today, members are scattered throughout Orange County .Nonetheless, in the last two years, lodge membership has expanded from fewer than 85 to 157.

One recent day, Collins stood in the middle of the lodge hall and gazed at the 21 pictures of Past Worshipful Masters.

Asked whose picture was the first in line, Collins struggled to speak, simply smiled and softly thumped his chest.

And he hasn’t forgotten why he became a Mason.

“I wanted to be somebody to help,” he said.