Starting Friday with a BBQ on Billy Goat Hill that was enjoyed by many, with plenty of family story swapping. Saturday was a visit to Canowindra markets, Billimari and Soldiers Flat, followed by a dinner at the Bowling Club in Cowra with 36 family members attending. Sunday's big event was held at the Services Club, with around 130 members of the Collins family attending.

Visitors came from far and wide - Perth, North Queensland, Adelaide and Yunta South Australia, Melbourne, NSW Central Coast, Sydney, Junee, Wagga Wagga, Lismore, Lithgow, Dubbo, Cowra and Canowindra.

The oldest attending member of Milton Collins grand children was Ken Dawes (age 81) from Cowra and the youngest member was Carolyn Wallace (age 58) from Eastern Creek in Sydney.

The eldest member of the Australian Collins Family was Zetta Karay (age 84) from Adelaide South Australia. The Youngest was Kayla Wallace (six months) from Erskine Park Sydney (descendant of Harold and Mary Collins)

Monday a picnic was held in Brougham Park to wind up the event.

The weekend was a great success and everyone who attended had an excellent time, learning a lot about their family heritage.

A little about the Collins Family.

Henry Collins and his wife Charlotte Ann Collins (nee Prior) left Wonna, near Burra SA in 1906 and travelled to Cowra NSW. They were forced off the land they had owned in SA by severe drought, losing most of their sheep and crops.

The family packed up their belongings and set off to their new land in Billimari, near Cowra NSW. The men travelled over land with their possessions and a few Merino sheep. It took them six weeks to make the trip, while the women and children came by train .

The family consisted of Henry and Charlotte their children, Henry William (Will), Milton Harold, Ethel Maud and Elsie May. Wilhelmina Jane (Jane) married George Martin, and she died in child birth at Wonna SA. George Martin and children Hilda and Jane came to Billimari with the rest of the family. Another daughter, Edith Alice married Frederick Reed and stayed in Peterborough SA.

They settled at Bangaroo, off the Rivers Road and called the property "Collinsville", facing the Lachlan River.

It seemed a wonderful opportunity to be able to select land with a two mile frontage to the Lachlan River, Henry being determined to have a good water supply, but in the first year he lost all his crop of lucerne in a flood. It is told that the force of the water was so strong that it washed the stove out of the house, this later being found in a tree down river.

Henry William (Will) Collins married Blanch Green. Ethel Maud Collins married Stuart Walker. Elsie May Collins married Claude Brown.

Milton Harold Collins was born in Burra, SA in 1891. Milton married Margaret Betsy Hines from Soldiers Flat.

Milton and Margaret lived with his parents at Bangaroo until after the birth of their second child Doris. They then purchased property at Billimari where the rest of their children were born. Margaret died of pleurisy and pneumonia on the 3 March 1928 after the birth of Noel.

Milton and Margaret had 10 children.

Nellie 8 June 1911 - 7.April 2011. Married Les Paton.

Frank 1 July 1912 - 23 June 2004. Married Irene (Rene) Matheson.

Doris 16 October 1912- 28 December 2012. Married Leo Dawes.

Percy 9 May 1915-30 August 1995. Never married.

Twins Arnold James 30 September-1917- 26 November 1942, and Frederick William 30 September 1917- 1918.

Harold Whitney 16 June 1919-13 August 1999. Married Mary Britten.

Twins Mervyn 7 July 1921-2 April 2006. Married Mary (Mollie) Randall.

and May 7 July 1921-8 February 2003. Married Roy Paton.

Noel Raymond 3 March 1928-31 January 1998. Never married.

The oldest girls Nellie (aged 16) and Doris (aged 14) suddenly became mother to the other children, Noel being a new born. They, with the help of their father Milton kept the family together.

Milton later sold that property and moved to Binni Gap. After a while he married Catherine Sheehan. Milton sold that property to the Army in 1946 for a soldier settlement.

He then moved into Cowra and purchased a General Store in Fitzroy Avenue that was run by Cath and Noel.

Milton then had a carrying business called M.H. Collins, General Carrier, Cowra.

He employed sons Percy and Harold. He sold the trucking business after four or five years and worked with Cath and Noel in the store until 1950. He purchased and sold properties in and around Cowra and Darby Falls road, east of Cowra until 1955. Browns road on the Boorowa road south of Cowra. After the death of his wife Cath he purchased a home in Young road Cowra. Then in 1963 he moved to Adelaide in South Australia and married Clair Coon (nee Prior).

Milton died on 7 October 1969 aged 78 years in Adelaide and is buried in Cowra cemetery. Clair died in 1982.

Arnold James Collins, second son of Milton and Margaret Collins, worked on properties around the district and he was well known in and around Cowra.

Arnold enlisted from Captain's Flat where he had worked in the mines, in June 1940. He was 22 at the time. Arnold was taken prisoner at Ambon, South West Pacific, sometime in February 1942.

Private Arnold James Collins, son of Milton Collins, of Fitzroy Avenue, Cowra, was executed by the Japanese while a prisoner of war, on Ambon Island.

The men were made to kneel their hands tied to the back of a stake, head bent forward, while the Japanese officer executed then with a sword. The Japanese executed 11 men.

Milton received no word of him until he received notice of his death, from the Department of the Army.

Arnold is buried in a mass grave, in Ambon War Cemetery. Coll. grave 21. B. 5-14. November 26, 1942.

- Ann Smith