- Date Of Birth: January 28, 1929
- Date Of Death: January 1, 2013
- State: Alabama
Mrs. Marie Bergh Collins, age 83 of Andalusia passed away Tuesday, January 1, 2013 at Andalusia Regional Hospital. A native of Lake George, New York, she was a church pianist, a piano teacher, and a former jazz pianist.
Mrs. Collins was born January 28, 1929 in Burlington, Vermont, daughter of the late Edwin Dewsnap Bergh and Carolyn Trask Bergh. She was a graduate of Bolten Central High School in Bolten Landing, New York and graduated from Ward Belmont College in Nashville, Tennessee. She went on to study music at Oberlin College Conservatory of Music in Oberlin, Ohio.
After college she worked as a jazz pianist in Chicago. Later she lived in Mobile, Alabama, before moving to Andalusia, Alabama. In Andalusia, she played the piano for The First Baptist Church of Opp, then Mt. Gilead Church and for the last four years at Zion Hill Baptist Church. She also taught piano for more than 40 years.
Survivors include her daughter, Louise Collins Johnson (Stephen Johnson) of Lakeland, Florida; her son, Edwin Bergh Collins of Greenville, S.C.; a grandson, Thomas Parker Johnson; a sister; a nephew; four nieces; four grand nieces; three grand nephews; and a great-grand niece. She was preceded in death by her first husband, Donald Charles Sheppard, and her former husband, Neal Tennille Collins.
