Get to Know Carlsbad Resident: Delta Collins

Delta Collins is world traveler who has lived in Carlsbad since 2001 and takes pride in decorating her home on Adams Street for the holidays.

At 88 and a half years old, Delta has been to 102 countries and even shipped 300 gifts this year to friends she has met over the years in those countries including places like Nepal and Kenya. 

Delta's house in Carlsbad is filled with artifacts from her travels and takes her two hours to give a musuem quality tour of her home. 

Delta is a very generous person with a very interesting background.

She grew up very poor in a town between El Centro and Mexicali during the depression. They lived on 40 acres of land that had mostly citrus trees. On Christmas she remembers her father cutting a tangerine tree so that they could have a Christmas tree. 

Her home is now filled with Christmas decorations. Her friend/roommate of 40 years, Lupe Munoz and her caregiver Martha Castillo-Garcia helped decorate the inside of the home she calls her mansion on the hill. The outside decorations were designed and installed by her secretary Sophie and her husband Bob Bratke.

Delta takes care of investments, but is pretty much retired after a long and interesting career path. She started working at the age of three at her father's farm, was a cadet in the Nurse Corps and then became a registered nurse, was a teacher, an accountant, a building contractor, lived a year in Russia selling Nu-Breath (a breath mint that takes away the odor of alcohol), and even did work for the FBI in Russia and was kidnapped and released by the Russian mafia!