A look at Helen Browne Comer

By Jack Coley (Contact) | Alex City Outlook

Published Wednesday, October 28, 2009

One of the most interesting and, perhaps, kindest persons to have lived in Alex City was Mrs. John Fletcher Comer. Mrs. Comer was born Helen Browne in Washington, D.C. Her father, Aldis B. Browne, was quite a prominent attorney in our nation’s capital. His daughter was educated at Goucher College and later married Mr. Comer, one of the sons of Governor B.B. Comer. The young couple first lived at Comer, Ala., near Eufaula, and later moved to Old Town Plantation near Louisville, Ga. Mr. Comer owned and operated this cotton and corn plantation, and lived there with his young family until the youngest child, Aldis, died at five years of age. Mrs. Comer, who believed that the distance from good medical care was responsible for her child’s death, declared that she would never live at Old Town again.

The Comer family visited his father, Governor Comer, who had recently acquired a mill in Alex City, which was added to the Comer-owned Avondale group of cotton mills. The governor decided that his son, Fletcher, should be sent to manage this acquisition, so Mr. and Mrs. Comer, with their three surviving children, Mary, Bragg and Dora, came to Alex City in 1919.

The Comers lived in a beautiful, two-story white house quite near Avondale Village. The house was located in a grove of pine trees, behind what is now Mark King’s Furniture Store. The home was gracious and well-staffed. The children soon became very popular with their schoolmates, and the family settled into Alex City life.

This is when Mrs. Comer became known and revered as a compassionate, understanding and generous friend to all employees and families of Avondale Mills. She knew each person by name and encouraged their visits and the sharing of their problems which she always tried to help solve.

Mrs. Comer always was aware of sickness and death in the community, and she always responded to the needs of the people. There were food, blankets and an understanding and sympathetic voice available to those who were sick or bereaved. She and her driver delivered Christmas gifts to the homes of all the employees and all babies born to employees were brought to her home for her inspection and a gift.

There was a group of houses of black employees located at the site of the old shopping center where Rose’s and Sho Nuff barbecue are now. The area was called Comer’s Quarters. Every day, a dairyman would deliver fresh milk for the children. Mrs. Comer’s sister had married a shoe manufacturer and lived in Massachusetts. The sister would come for a visit every year in the late summer. During the visit, she and Mrs. Comer would have all the children in the Quarters to trace the outline of the right foot. Later in the fall, a new pair of shoes for each child would arrive from Massachusetts.

Mrs. Comer did not neglect the rest of the community. As a member of the Tuesday Study Club, she helped to found the Alex City municipal library, and she was most active in the local Red Cross. Mr. and Mrs. Comer were active in the Methodist Church, and it was during their stay here that the Comer Memorial Methodist and Baptist Churches were organized.

I believe it is safe to say that Mrs. Comer was one of the most beloved and respected ladies of the town. Unfortunately, in her later years, she developed a very crippling form of arthritis which restricted her movement until her death in 1935.

One of Mrs. Comer’s friends wrote of her: “She was a girl in a brilliant circle in Washington, who has for eighteen years lived in a little country backwoods town and she has grown finer all the while. She has that clear vision and lovely spirit which is very rare – an unusual combination of exceptional mental, physical and spiritual power.”

A true story of Mrs. Comer’s goodness goes like this:

Upon hearing of the drowning of a child of one of the employees, Mrs. Comer went quickly to the home where she was met at the door by the grief-stricken father. Mrs. Comer asked if the family needed anything. He very politely declined. Then she offered specifically food, money, flowers. Again the offer was courteously turned down. At this point, Mrs. Comer said: “Well if there is nothing else I can do; will you please let me come in and cry with you?”

Jack Coley’s column on Alexander City appears each Thursday in The Outlook.

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