Bamberg County Mourns Army Veteran, Milliken Weaver Frank McCollum

Frank McCollum’s 85 years traced a familiar Bamberg County path: Army service, steady mill work, church, family, and quiet time fishing on the riverbank. He died at home on Sunday, April 19, 2026, and his obituary records a life that looked a lot like the county’s own working and military heritage.

McCollum was born in Barnwell County, the son of George Washington McCollum and Annis Wilson McCollum. He later served in the United States Army before returning to civilian life and spending 30 years as a textile weaver at Milliken Textile. In a part of South Carolina where industrial jobs shaped generations of households, that kind of career was more than a job history. It was the backbone of family life, marking long shifts, dependable paychecks and the kind of work that tied whole communities to the mills.

The obituary, posted Monday, April 27, 2026, said visitation and funeral services were held Thursday, April 23, at Folk Funeral Home in Denmark. McCollum was buried with military honors at Bamberg County Memory Gardens in Bamberg, where the cemetery lists more than 1,800 memorial records and remains one of the county’s major burial places for local families. The pallbearers named in the notice were Dillion McCollum, Mason McCollum, Cody Kinsey, Dylan Platt, Josh Ecklar, John Wayne McCollum and Alphonso Crosby “Al.”

McCollum’s love of fishing, especially fishing on the riverbank, gives the notice its most personal detail and the one neighbors are likely to remember. It places him in the landscape of Bamberg County itself, where rivers and rural land have long shaped the rhythm of daily life as much as factory clocks and Sunday church services. The obituary described him as a devoted husband, father and Christian man who will be deeply missed.

His years at Milliken also connect his life to a larger South Carolina story. Milliken came to the state in 1884, when it built a plant in Pacolet, and the company did not become Milliken & Company until 1976. For men like McCollum, textile work defined an era of wages, skills and family stability that still echoes across counties like Bamberg. His obituary preserves that history in one name, one family and one local life lived close to home.