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Nancy Bellzona's Picture Book
The Collins - Aletha Artemis Collins


Aletha Artemis Collins"My, my, how homesick this picture of the old home place makes me," Jewel Wagner of Fairfax, Oklahoma, stated in 1993 when she was 87. "This is Mommy (Aletha Artemis Collins, Hobson, Mrs. Nathaniel Hobson) standing there on the porch and this is my sister, Dewey's boy, Ralph, standing by Dad's little dog.

Penny was the dog's name. Dad sure loved that little dog. He was a rat dog. He kept the place as clean from varmints, we didn't have a one there to dirty things up. When Dad was driving down the road, Penny would be beside him in the truck with his front paws up on the dashboard. When Dad was working in the field, Penny would wait by his truck, patiently, no matter how long it took Dad to finish. Penny died of chasing a varmint down into its hole. He dug down and the dirt caved in on him, by the time we found him, he was dead," Jewel remembered back over time with a nostalgia to grip one's heart.

Unless one has lived through these circumstances an appreciation of the value of a dog like this could not be understood. Varmints getting into chicken houses, destroying a family's source of meat and eggs in one night could be a serious loss. Rats on a farm are an impossible pest unless they are controlled. A dog like this could mean the difference in a family's living clean and stable during a time when any financial loss could be too much to endure for that family.


Aletha on the right, her sister Margaret, on the left


Nancy Bellzona Collins, Mrs. Joseph Hubbard Jones on the left
Her sister:  Aletha Artemis Collins, Mrs Nathaniel Hobson, on the right.
Pity the child or adult who crossed these fiery women's paths with wrong doing.
They believed in being "faithful to the end."  The love they exhibited for family and
God was unwavering.

From a descendant of  Nathanial and Aletha Collins Hobson...

The youngest son of my grandfather Nathanial Edmond Hobson and my grandmother Aleatha Artemis Collins, Eugene Debbs Hobson, my dad, died on 1 October 2006 at the age of 92, just two months short of his 93rd birthday.  He often talked about his aunt Bell, who was your grandmother.  My mom, who is 91, and my brother, Les, still live in Richmond, California.  I retired as professor emeritus of oceanography from the University of Victoria in 2001 after my 65th birthday.  Since then, I continue to do some consulting work in marine ecology, but most of my and my wife’s time is devoted to running our small farm, where we husband egg-producing chickens, grow fruit trees and berry bushes and lots of Christmas trees.  Our son, Jason, works for the Electronic Arts Corporation in Vancouver, British Columbia,  and he and his wife, Kamini, are expecting our first grandchild in late August.  Our daughter, Lauren, works for Parks Canada in Sidney, British Columbia, and remains unmarried.  Both graduated from the University of Victoria and Jason, continued on and obtained a master of science degree in physics from Simon Fraser University in Vancouver. 


 

 


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