Award-winning baker overcomes challenges to compete at Indiana State Fair
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) – Mary Alice Collins is a name many in the baking community are familiar with.
She has entered pies, cakes and other baked goods for more than 50 years at the Indiana State Fair. She’s won more times than you can count.
But when she competes in the pie competition at the Fair on Saturday, she will likely be impressing and inspiring the judges before they even taste one of her pies.
One year ago, after she entered pies in the fair, she and her husband, Darl, went on a mission trip in Springfield, Illinois.
About a week into the trip, she started feeling ill. She thought it was food poisoning. It was septic shock.
“They said, ‘well, if she makes it through the night, she’ll make it, but we don’t know whether she’s going to do that or not,’” Mary Alice said.
“It was awful. It was awful. I’m not very much for shedding tears, but I shed a few those first few days,” Darl said.
In order to save her vital organs, the doctors told her she needed to cut off her fingers and legs.
“The nurses and doctors told me ‘You have one of the best attitudes I’ve ever seen,’ I get emotional, but I just kept thinking positive, ‘I’m gonna get better, I’m gonna get better.’”
She made it home, even reached her goal of walking by Christmas. But then in July, more stomach pains.
“I went in for my hysterectomy surgery. When they got in there, they came in and said, ‘We have more problems.’”
It was ovarian cancer.
“I had already sent in my entry for the fair and I said, ‘Honey, I don’t know if we can do that or not,’ and he said, ‘We’re going to do what we can.’”
So just as they sit together in her six-hour chemotherapy session, they work together in the kitchen to prepare the pies for competition.
“And if I win something, that’s great. If I don’t, I know that I have entered, I know I can say I’m an inspiration to anyone that has any kind of handicap, you can do what you want to do if you try hard enough,” Mary Alice said.
An attitude.
“She could have said, we could have decided, we can’t do this, but it’s always been in the back of her mind,” Darl said.
A love.
“Without him and his backing of saying, ‘You can do it, you can do it,’ I don’t know where I would be.”
Far sweeter than any raisin pie.