Cass County Democrat newspaper, 4 Jun 1915, Harrisonville, MO:

W. P. Collins, aged 66 years, died Saturday morning in Jackson county. The body was brought to this city and services which were conducted by the Rev. Locke, were held at the home of the dead man's sister, Miss C. B. Collins, Monday morning; interment was in the Pleasant Hill cemetery. Mr. Collins, who had been in very poor health a number of years, became seriously sick about Wednesday of last week and his sister here was notified by mail, but the letter was delayed by the flood and did not reach her until Saturday morning. About the same time came the message that her brother was dead. Mr. Collins was born in Kentucky June 29, 1849, and is survived by three children - Mrs. Frank Beswick, Kansas City; Miss Vella Collins, of Los Angeles, and a son, George, who has not been heard from for years. His wife died about 15 years ago at Norman, Oklahoma, shortly after they had moved there from Florence, Kansas, where they had lost a little daughter two years old. Some 25 years ago Mr. Collins was stricken with that dread affliction, locomotor ataxia, and from that day had been a cripple, but, despite the handicap, he managed to keep up and going. His last business venture was in this city some two years ago in the poultry and egg line, but his health failed entirely at that time and he was never himself again. Miss Collins, his sister, had tried to persuade him to come back to her home where his aged mother lives, but he had conceived a peculiar aversion to a return to Pleasant Hill, hence his death away from home. Mrs. Beswick, the daughter in Kansas City, has been ill for a month, following the birth of her baby, and she was unable to be here to attend the funeral.