User:Robert McClenon/Carr Collins, Jr.

Carr P. Collins Jr. (1918-1985) was an American businessman, diplomat and an amateur genealogist.

Early life
Carr P. Collins, Jr. was born in 1918. He was the son of Carr Collins, Sr. (1892-1980) and Ruth Woodall Collins. His paternal grandfather, Vinson Allen Collins (1867–1966), was a Texas politician. Prior to that, the Collins family came from Mississippi.

He received a Bachelor's degree in commerce from Southern Methodist University in 1939. He attended Harvard University for one year and then joined the United States Army Air Corps and served in World War Two. He commanded the US air escort for the formal Japanese surrender about the US battleship USS Missouri.

Career
Shortly after the war, he started a business career and joined his father's insurance company, Fidelity Union Life Insurance Company, in Dallas, Texas. He later served on the New York Stock Exchange Panel of Arbitrators.

He was also a diplomat. In 1960, he took part in a trade mission to Pakistan on behalf of the United States Department of State. From 1962 to 1972, he served as United States Vice Consul in Italy.

An amateur genealogist, he was the author and publisher of Royal Ancestry of Magna Charta Barons (1959).

With Charles Fielding, he wrote The Story of Dion Fortune, a biography of Dion Fortune aka Violet Mary Firth, one of the leading figures in early 20th-century Western occultism.

Personal life
He was married three times. His first wife, Calvert Collins, was the first female member of the Dallas City Council. He died in Dallas in August 1985.

Death
He died in 1985.

Legacy
Collins Hall on the campus of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, is named in his honor. It was first used as a hall of residence and was lter repurposed as a classroom.