Mary H. Collins (b. Hodgson) (1839-1928) was born in Essex County, New York, and died in Denver, Colorado. Her family moved to Colorado as pioneers in 1861. She took her first art lesson in landscape painting with W. F. Porter in 1876, and she became an artist and teacher herself, known for her floral compositions and painted landscapes. She married Edward H. Collins in Denver in 1865. Her husband suffered from tuberculosis for years and turned to Christian Science in 1886, having learned of its success healing a friend, Mary Melissa Hall, who was a student of Mary Baker Eddy's. The Collinses soon became students of Bradford Sherman, who was also a student of Eddy's, by entering his Primary class. Afterwards, they both become students of Eddy's, completing her Normal class in February 1887. In August 1888, Eddy invited the Collinses to join her Obstetrics class, however there is no record that they did. In 1885, the couple visited Rome, Italy, where they met the American sculptor Luella Varney Serrao. They commissioned portrait busts, and a few years later, Serrao became their student, attending one of their Christian Science classes in Ohio. Sometime later, Collins, who had been impressed with the quality of Serrao's work, asked Eddy's consent to have a bust carved in Carrara marble made of her, to which Eddy agreed and sat for. Several reproductions were made by Serrao in 1890, one of which is in Longyear Museum in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, and another of which is in the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D. C. One of these reproductions was made for the Collinses and was later given to the Colorado State Historical Museum, however it was unfortunately destroyed in 1952. Collins joined The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts, in June 1906. She was a member of the General Association of Teachers. Collins was listed in the directory of The Christian Science Journal as a Christian Science practitioner in Denver from 1906 until her passing. After the death of her husband in 1900, Collins continued to paint and practice her faith as a Christian Scientist.

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