Collins Collection
Andrew Gordon Collins was born in Cedarville, Ohio, in 1865. He lived his entire life on his home farm, established by his great grandparents, outside of Cedarville, except for his teen years in Xenia, Ohio, where he graduated from Xenia Central High School. Eventually assuming ownership of the farm, he maintained a production of grain and raising livestock. Gordon was a Cedarville Township trustee for several years and was involved in engineering and building some of the township roads. He was also a member of the Cedarville School Board and was president of the Board when a new school building was constructed in 1917. Gordon and one of his sons were two of the organizers and developers of the Producer's Livestock Cooperative Association based in Springfield and Dayton, Ohio, and later in Cincinnati. Gordon was instrumental in the decision of his cousin, Anderson Collins and wife Ada to donate their farm of 100 acres to Cedarville College in the late 1920s. That farm was later sold by the College administration and the proceeds added to the endowment fund. Gordon and his wife Mary had eight children, all of whom graduated from Cedarville College from 1916 to 1931. Andrew Gordon Collins died in 1929 and is buried in Woodland Cemetery in Xenia, Ohio.
Mary Rife Collins was born 1870 at and raised on the Rife home farm near Clifton, Ohio. She attended the Clifton school and high school, and then completed part of one year at Antioch College. Mary then taught in the nearby one-room county school for 2 years before her marriage to Andrew Gordon Collins in 1891. Mary was a leader in church, school, and local activities and she and her husband were life-long members of the Clifton United Presbyterian Church. Mary and Gordon had eight children, all of whom graduated from Cedarville College from 1916 to 1931. After the death of her husband in 1929, she eventually moved to Xenia, Ohio, with her last years spent in a nursing home in Columbus, Ohio. Mary Rife Collins died in 1957 and is buried in Woodland Cemetery in Xenia, Ohio.
In 1975, Gordon and Mary Collins were honored by Cedarville College by naming the remodeled Science Center, originally built in 1923, Collins Hall. That building was razed in 2014.
Centennial Library Collection Catalog Record
