Woman of the Century/Delia Collins

COLLINS, Mrs. Delia, educator, philanthropist and reformer, born in Franklinton, Schoharie county. N. Y., 25th November, 1830 Her mother died when she was a young woman, and her father soon afterward moved to Michigan. Miss Delia Krum at the age of fourteen years entered the State Normal School in Albany, N. Y., and was graduated after the usual course. In 1846 she accepted the assistant principalship of a school in Geneseo, N. Y., associated with Henry W. Collins as principal. He was a graduate of the State Normal School. They were married in Franklinton in 1849. They moved to Elmira, N. Y., and Mr. Collins was largely instrumental in the surveying and laying out of that city. In 1855 they moved to Janesville, Wis. Mr. Collins was elected superintendent of the city schools for several terms, and was connected with the founding and building up DELIA COLLINS. of the Institute for the Blind in Janesville. He was the first president and one of the founders of the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company, of Milwaukee, Wis. In 1865 he became an invalid, and was confined to the house for eleven years. It was at that time the public life of Mrs. Collins began. Mr. Collins had founded a large business. His excessive labors brought on nervous paralysis, from which he never recovered. There were two sons and a daughter born to them in Janesville. Their daughter died, and business matters involved their property with great losses. Mrs. Collins, in the pressure of home matters, the continued and hopeless illness of her husband, opened a select school for young women, and taught French and German and English literature. Her influence among the literary societies of the city was extensive. In 1876 Mr. Collins died. In 1884 Mrs. Collins became interested in Bible study, Woman's Christian Temperance Union work, church and city charity, and did much in those lines. Her health became impaired, and, becoming acquainted with Miss Carrie Judd, of Buffalo, N. V., known as the publisher of "Triumphs of Faith," she accepted the doctrine of "Divine Healing" and was healed of a long-standing spinal trouble, and has since been sustained in both health and the faith work. She is now established in Fort Worth, Texas, where she moved with her sons in 1888. In connection with Woman's Christian Temperance Union work, she, with Mrs Belle Burchill, of Fort Worth, opened a bootblack's home, which finally resulted in the founding of an orphanage. A building was given for their work, and the home now contains nearly seventy children. She also assisted in opening the Union Bethel Mission of Fort Worth. Its purpose is to reach the people on the street and the children. Mission Sunday-schools are founded and carried on, also nightly gospel meetings and tent gospel meetings. Her next work was the opening and founding, with other women, of a woman's home, a home for unfortunate women on the streets. A foundling home in connection with it has been started. She was engaged in the winter of 1891-1892 in delivering lectures throughout Texas in behalf of the home. She has had the State social purity department work of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union in charge, and is also the president of the Woman's Board of Foreign Missionary Work of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church 01 North Texas.