Born and raised in rural South Lebanon, Warren County Ohio, Eva was the youngest of the six children of John Wilson Collins and Laura Alice Elsten.  Her father was of Irish, French,  and German descent and her mother of German, French, Spanish, Dutch and English.   Twelve days before Eva's ninth birthday her seventeen year old brother Elmer died of typhoid.  The other siblings died at advanced ages.  On a few occasions their two story clapboard house would be flooded by the Little Miami River.  One such flood damaged Eva's piano, which she had learned to play very well.  As was normal for the time and place, they had a water well and an outdoor pump.   In back they had an outhouse.  Her mother raised chickens, which Eva called by name.  That made her reluctant when it came time to eat them.  Except for long trips in the family horse and buggy, Eva walked or ran.  Her favorite game was to run and have the other children try to catch her.  If she had been a boy, she confided, she would love to have played football.  She built a strong body that lasted almost 93 years.

In grade school and high school Eva was the prettiest and among the tallest girls.  She had a fondness for nice clothes, and looked gracefully elegant in all her pictures.  Academically she excelled in English and math.  She learned secretarial skills like stenography and typing at Miami-Jacobs Business School.  When she was twenty she worked in an ammunition factory making bullets for World War I, because it paid more than secretarial work. She worked in Kings Mills, a train ride commute, before moving to Dayton to work for the Simonds Abrasive Company.  While she was thus employed, a handsome ceramic engineer caught her fancy.  Immediately she staked her claim by declaring to the other secretaries, "Stay away from him; he's for me."  On November 16, 1927 they were married by a Roman Catholic priest in the rectory; for in those days mixed marriages could not take place in the church.  She was a Methodist, who observed the tabus against alcohol, dancing and gambling.  Soon she became a Catholic and retained her strict moral upbringing.  The dirtiest word she ever uttered was, "shoot!"  Her honesty today would be considered extreme.  If a grocer gave her five cents too much in change, she would walk back to the store to return it.  She taught her children not to accept payment for favors.

 In 1932 the young couple with two children attended the fiftieth wedding anniversary of Eva's parents in Ohio.  They returned for the funeral of Laura Elsten Collins August 5, 1935 with three children.  Fortunately for her, although the stock market crashed after the birth of their first child, Eva had domestic help while she was raising the five children.  She had her first child at age 30 and the fifth one at age 40.  Shortly before the birth of the fifth child, Roland J. Clark got a better paying job as Technical Director for Precision Grinding Wheel factory in Philadelphia.  The young family moved  to Friendship Street in the Mayfair section of Philadelphia.   After the youngest son's birth, Mrs. Donovan next door recommended Catherine Chapman to help out.   Catherine, a single immigrant from Scotland, was a hard working  cook, dish washer, laundress, baby sitter and second mother.  Her Scotish accent was precious.  In 1938 the family moved to a new brick and stone duplex on Hartel Street in Holmesburg, closer to the factory.  Catherine continued working for Eva until 1956.

Although Eva was friendly with the neighbors, her social life in the child raising years was limited to movies and restaurants as weekly escapes from the noise of the children.  When the boys were in high school she joined the La Salle High School Mothers' Club and had many good friends to visit and converse with on the phone.  She would have to leave these friends and neighbors when her husband lost his job at Precision, and they had to move to Jackson, Michigan for a job at the Macklin Company in 1956.  The company later became a part of Bendix.

The children trekked to Jackson at Thanksgiving and again some time during the summer from their respective homes in Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York.  Eva loved to see her children and grandchildren, and had many games for the little ones to play.  She would take her visitors to Ella Sharp Park to see the rose gardens, and usually to the Sweden House Smorgasbord  or the Red Lobster restaurant.   She would make the favorite pie or cake for whichever child should visit.

The children constantly urged her to move closer to them or to move in with one of them, but she insisted that she loved her home and neighbors.  By 1980 she had started neglecting her diet, which previously had been a turn away from sweets and cholesterol.  She had been eating egg substitutes and soy bean sausages.  Now she was eating cookies, donuts, pies and cakes. She began halucinating.

The children lost no time in deciding that willingly or not their mother had to move.  On August 20, 1981,   two sons and two daughters-in-law packed her furniture into a U Haul and headed for Willow Grove, PA.  Eva had a room in the basement with her familiar furniture and clothing, but she didn't seem to notice.   After three years of caring for her, the daughter needed a break.  Eva spent the summer with the oldest son.   Reluctantly in the summer of 1985 her daughter had to put Eva in Roslyn Nursing Home where she visited her and took her for walks until she was no longer able to walk.

Her condition was never diagnosed by a doctor as Alzheimer's, and it could have been the result of a series of mini strokes.  From her entry in July 1985 until her death on October 19, 1991 she deteriorated mentally and physically.  In the final months arthritis and osteoporosis had curled her hands into fists and her body into a near fetal position.  Yet during her early years the nursing home attendants praised her for her sunny disposition and sense of humor even when she was no longer able to talk intelligibly.