Descendants of John Wilson COLLINS: (Father of Eva Mae Collins)
(Pictures and links below)
1 John Wilson COLLINS b: February 02,
1861 in Lerado, Clermont Co., OH d: June 29, 1951 in South
Lebanon, Warren Co., OH Burial: South Lebanon Cem., Warren Co., OH
.. +Laura Alice ELSTEN b: August 09, 1862 in Fishersburg,
Madison Co., IN m: July 29, 1882 in Warren Co., Ohio d: August 05,
1935 in South Lebanon, Warren Co., OH Burial: South Lebanon Cem., Warren
Co., OH
..... 2 Guy Raymond COLLINS b: June 04, 1883
in South Lebanon, Warren Co., Ohio d: March 10, 1967 in South
Lebanon, Warren Co., Ohio Burial: South Lebanon Cem., Warren Co., Ohio
..... 2 Maude COLLINS b: August 30, 1886
in South Lebanon, Warren Co., Ohio d: December 12, 1968 in
Cincinnati, Hamilton Co., Ohio Burial: South Lebanon Cem., Warren Co.,
OH
......... +Vance Lee JACOBS b: September 27, 1882
in El Dorado Springs, Missouri m: January 06, 1906 in South Lebanon,
Warren Co., Ohio d: 1968 in South Lebanon, Warren Co., Ohio Burial: South
Lebanon Cem., Warren Co., OH
..... 2 Elmer Leroy COLLINS b: March 13,
1890 in South Lebanon, Warren Co., Ohio d: October 13, 1907
in South Lebanon, Warren Co., Ohio Burial: South Lebanon Cem., Warren Co.,
OH
..... 2 Rose Irene COLLINS b: August 25,
1892 in South Lebanon, Warren Co., Ohio d: July 04, 1979 in
Miami Valley Hospital, Dayton, Ohio Burial: South Lebanon Cem., Warren
Co., OH
......... +Marion Albert ROSS b: October 08, 1889
in Goshen, Clermont Co., Ohio m: April 23, 1912 d: June 1925 in Miami
Valley Hospital, Dayton, Ohio Burial: South Lebanon, Warren Co., Ohio
..... 2 Myrtle "Marie" COLLINS b: September
24, 1894 in South Lebanon, Warren Co., Ohio d: September 03,
1960
......... +William H. STEPHENS b: June 30, 1895
in Xenia, Greene Co., Ohio m: November 22, 1919 d: 1970 in Mercy
Hospital, Hamilton, Ohio Burial: Hickory Flats, Butler Co., Ohio
..... 2 Eva
Mae COLLINS b: October 25, 1898 in South Lebanon, Warren Co., OH
d: October 19, 1991 in Roslyn, Montgomery Co., PA Burial: St. John's Cem.,
Jackson, MI
......... +Roland Joseph
CLARK b: September 16, 1899 in Beaver Twp., Pulaski Co., IN Baptism: April
28, 1900 St. Joseph Ch., Pulaski Co., IN m: November 16, 1927 in Dayton,
Montgomery Co., Ohio d: December 20, 1971 in Jackson, Jackson Co., MI Burial:
St. John's Cem., Jackson, MI
Notes on John Wilson Collins (1861-1951):
In 1861 Abe Lincoln was President, and the Civil War was about to start. We don't know how the war touched his family except that his mother's brothers and son Orlando were in the army and cavalry. He was 37 at the time of the Spanish American War and 57 during World War I. He carried a lunch bucket to his job as railroad foreman and would save a piece of cake or pie for his youngest daughter, Eva. Later he worked at the Kings Powder Co., which became Peters and finally Remmington. He was an Irish Methodist who sang bass in a barbershop quartet and danced the Irish jig. He did not permit any other type of dancing. His crippled hand was probably carpal tunnel syndrome. He owned a two story home and large yard in rural South Lebanon OH where he raised his six children. There was a piano and windup Victrola in the house without electricity on King Street. He had a horse and buggy for transportation. In his years as a widower he continued to live alone in his house with the help of his son Guy. Even during his advanced years he sent Christmas cards to his grandchildren. Finally when Guy was too old and ailing to care for him any more, John went to a nursing home, developed gangrene in a leg and died shortly after the amputation at the age of ninety. In a letter to his daughter Eva he directed that the gold watch chain she had given him should go to one of her sons upon his death, but no one knows what happened to it.
John appears on the 1870 census for Pleasant Plain, Harlan
Township, Warren County, Ohio as an 8 year-old living with his parents
and siblings, and on the 1880 census as an 18 year-old laborer still at
home. (Born in February of 1861 he should have been 19 on the census.)
He married two years later at age 21. His father states that John
is over 21 on the marriage certificate 22 July 1882. The marriage
took place on July 29, 1882. John and Laura celebrated their 50th
wedding anniversary in July 1932. I was there as a one-year-old.
For a family portrait taken in 1930 click HERE
John Wilson Collins, his four sisters and half-sister Picture
John and Laura playing croquet in their yard
Link to Laura Elsten's Ancestors: CLICK
Ancestor tree for John Wilson Collins: LINK
Link to John's father, Jacob Collins:
Link to Laura's father, Stephen Arnold Elsten
Notes on Laura Alice Elsten (1862-1935):
Laura spent her childhood in Madison and Hamilton Counties, Indiana, but the family moved to Warren County Ohio in 1879. Two years later her mother died. The next year Laura's father remarried and Laura also got married. She lost her son Elmer Leroy to typhoid at age 17 but lived to enjoy many grandchildren . She was 36 when her youngest daughter Eva was born. She had a close relationship to Eva, who speaks in loving terms about her parents in the poems she wrote. Laura raised chickens for the family dinner table and for eggs. Since Eva gave names to the chickens, she was not fond of eating them. Laura enjoyed visits from her children and grandchildren, and when the families moved away from South Lebanon she wrote letters to them. Those letters show a concern for her family, friends and neighbors. Once she had a stroke and was in a coma. She could hear her children planning her funeral, thinking that she was dead, but she recovered. Three years after her fiftieth wedding anniversary she had a real stroke resulting from high blood pressure and died four days before her 73rd birthday. She was buried next to her son Elmer and was joined years later by her son Guy and her husband John.