Moving to El Paso County for Arthur’s Health

[This is an excerpt from a transcript of interviews between Emmilou Collins Edmonds Adams and her father, Carlos C. Collins, recorded February 14, 1982. Passages in italics are his actual words, although portions may have been omitted for brevity. Portions in brackets [] were added for clarification.]

Carlos Collins -

We lived in Abilene for a number of years. Ray [Ray Collins 1889-1984] and Arthur [Arthur Collins 1887-1908] were in college at that time. But Ray and Arthur both developed Typhoid Fever one summer and they were in pretty bad condition for awhile, especially Arthur. He never really got over it. After his fever left him, it was found out that the reason he didn’t recover quickly was that he had tuberculosis which required special care and at that time it was generally thought by the medical profession that the best way to treat TB was open air and travel. That was the main treatment, if any.

I know that Dad [Albert Buell Collins1862-1942] took Arthur one summer down in a covered wagon down south as far as Leakey and Uvalde. Spent nearly the whole summer traveling around but he didn’t recover.

Dad met a man in Abilene who had filed on some Texas School land out in El Paso County. He had 8 sections or a little more than 8 sections. He had some big sections. It required – I think they paid a dollar an acre for it – that he live on the land for 3 years. Well, he had lived on it about a year and a half and he wanted to get rid of it and Dad thought it would be a good place for Arthur – this for the family to live. Have a place that was dry and open, a kind of climate that was good for TB.

So Dad traded his farm in Fisher for his title to the land out there. It was over 5000 acres. They were camped out there and Arthur in a tent. He didn’t live very long and finally died out there in El Paso County, which is close to a little section house by the name of Plateau which is about 20 miles east of Van Horn, Texas.

So in view of the fact that the man who filed on it hadn’t lived on it the required 3 years we had to go out there and live on it for about 8 months before we could prove up on it and get clear title to the land. I don’t remember just how long we stayed there but it was about 1908 or so.

Finally we moved back to Fisher County and farmed the land I think that Uncle Uriah [Uriah Collins 1858-1960] had. They had moved away from there to Abilene for school purposes. But we went back to Fisher County and lived on his ranch there and by that time Beulah and I were ready for High school and we went to high school in Roby.