My great-uncle Tom Collins wrote many letters to his daughter, Sister Collins. I found them stuffed in a chest of drawers that once belonged to the family. The letters, written in the late 1800s, revealed a heartbroken man. Tom Collins had been separated from his family because of cancer.
Tom was the son of a Confederate Soldier, Humphrey Collins, who fought in one of the hottest battles in the war at New Hope Church in Dallas, Georgia. Not much is known of Tom except from cemetery records: He was born in McPherson, Georgia, in 1856 and died of cancer in 1903. He married Nancy Carrie Lane in Dallas, Georgia, who died in 1940 in McPherson.
His love for his daughter was expressed throughout the letters, which told of his regrets and loneliness. His sister kept the letters, which were preserved by her son, Alton Holland, and then by his son, Tom Holland. When I first saw the letters, they were over sixty years old.
After reading the letters, I visited the Dallas City Cemetery and, reading the tombstones, understood the family history that played out in the backwoods of North Georgia!
The Collins genealogy has been traced and is available to members of georgiapioneers.com
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