Nancy Ann Collins

It was a school day and her daddy was in such a hurry to get back to the hospital that even though he remembered the baking powder for the breakfast biscuits, he picked up her mother’s white corn meal instead of flour to make the white gravy for those biscuits. Brothers Sam, John and Joe were very surprised that a baby had come. Brother Ben was at college and clueless. Mama was large at the time and no one had discussed the expected event, because two years earlier tiny Glory Collins died at birth. Three year old Sissy was not quite sure what it meant that Mama was not home and there was talk of a new baby sister.

She looked almost as wide as she was long, but soon grew into an active little person with dark naturally curly hair and a sprinkle of freckles across her nose. She was always on the move, into everything and was more curious than was good for her. She loved school, particularly art. Her senior year she won the Cleburne High School Art Award and prepared to go to college to major in art. In 1974 she graduated from Texas Christian University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Art with a major in oil painting and a minor in commercial art. She continued painting and participating in art projects until her stroke in 2011.

Although she spent time in day jobs to support her art, she found many ways to get satisfaction from those day jobs. While working at Tom Thumb Super Store in Fort Worth she would often help elderly customers after hours, providing transportation to doctor visits, business appointments, and personal shopping. Often the store would get calls from customers wanting to know if Nancy was on duty because they wanted to come while she was there. Later, after moving back to Cleburne, she worked with special needs students in the public schools in the area. She was able to teach a small seven year old how to speak who had language acquisition problems. She used art, music, and literature to motivate and provide stimulation for him. One morning she noticed one of little girls was not well and was about to convulse after getting off the bus and entering the classroom. Nancy took action, notified the office and parents, and called the ambulance. The child had taken the wrong medication because the parents placed all the family meds on a tray in the living room and expected the children to get their own. Later, Nancy took treats and nail polish to Fort Worth Children’s hospital because she knew the little girl needed “just some special attention.”

Nancy was later specially trained to work with the babies of students in the Cleburne Public Schools. Her first charge was a seven week old little boy, son of the seventh grader. At the end of the school year when everyone went home for summer vacation, she worried who was going to take care of the little guy, since his mom was only thirteen, herself. Not long after this, Nancy fell into a long stretch of ill health and moved to Huntsville to live with her sister Mary Evelyn. In Huntsville she worked as a nanny for two Sam Houston University faculty children. “The best job I ever had,” she said later.

Then came the heart attack and resuscitation, triple by-pass, a stroke, aorta surgery, carotid artery cleaning, and then the last illness. Along the way Nancy was a friend to many who needed a friend, a loving sister and aunt, a committed Christian, and the kind of person that looked not at the exterior, but the essential human that needed finding. She was essentially happy, even though life brought her some very depressing situations. She always missed her parents, but today she is with them and free from depression, sickness and pain. Good for her.

Nancy you are loved.

She is survived by her brother, Joe D. Collins and his wife, Sheila, of Mesa, Arizona; sister, Mary Evelyn Collins of Beaumont and Huntsville; sister-in-law, Patricia Collins of Tucson, Arizona; and thirteen loving nieces and nephews.

Nancy is preceded in death by her parents; three brothers; two nieces; and three nephews.

A memorial service for Ms. Collins will be at 4:00 p.m., Wednesday, January 27, 2016, at Broussard’s, 2000 McFaddin Avenue, Beaumont. A second memorial service will be at 4:00 p.m., Friday, January 29, 2016, at Elkins Lake Baptist Church, 206 TX-19, Huntsville, Texas. A private committal service was held at Broussard’s Crematorium, Beaumont.

Memorial contributions may be made to Lamar University Foundation, in care of The Collins Family Scholarship, P.O. Box 11500, Beaumont, Texas 77710.