bernice evans williams
1926-2000
Life Story
Early Life in Newton County
Bernice Evans was born on February 16, 1926, in the Lawrence community of Newton County, Mississippi, to Albert Evans and Rosie Mitchell Evans, who was later known as Rosie Mitchell Smith. She grew up in Beat 4 of Newton County as part of a large African American farming family alongside siblings who included Josie, Earnest, Maggie Lee, Amos, Cora Mae, James, and Lottie Mae.
By 1930, four-year-old Bernice was living with her family in rural Newton County. A decade later, the 1940 Federal Census recorded fourteen-year-old Bernice—whose name was entered as “Batrice”—attending school and having completed the fifth grade.
Like many children growing up in farming households during the Great Depression, Bernice’s responsibilities extended beyond the classroom. The census recorded her working approximately thirty-two hours a week as an unpaid family worker on the family farm. Her childhood therefore reflected the demanding realities faced by many rural African American families, where education, household responsibilities, and agricultural labor often existed side by side.
Marriage and the Great Migration
As a young woman, Bernice left Mississippi and became part of the broader movement of African Americans who established new lives in northern cities during the Great Migration.
On April 22, 1948, at the age of twenty-two, she married James Williams in Detroit, Wayne County, Michigan. Her marriage record identified her parents as Albert Evans and Rosie Mitchell, providing another documentary connection to her Newton County family.
By 1950, Bernice and James had established their home on Ellsworth Court in Royal Oak Township, Oakland County, Michigan. The census recorded twenty-four-year-old Bernice managing the household and caring for their young children, including Barbara Jean, James Jr., and infant Billy Charles.
Their household also included extended family members, among them Bernice’s widowed sister Josie Treadwell and a young relative, Glenda Jean.
The household offers a glimpse into the family networks that often accompanied the Great Migration. Moving North did not necessarily mean leaving family behind. Brothers, sisters, cousins, and other relatives frequently lived together or near one another as they established themselves in unfamiliar cities and communities.
City directories from the mid-1950s continued to place Bernice and James on Ellsworth Court, demonstrating that Michigan had become their established home.
Family Connections Between Michigan and Mississippi
Although Bernice built her adult life in Michigan, the documentary record shows that her connection to her Mississippi family continued for decades.
On April 26 and May 3, 1978, The Newton Record published legal notices concerning a Newton County Chancery Court proceeding involving property associated with the estate of Randle Mitchell.
Bernice Williams was named among the heirs of her mother, Rosie Mitchell Smith, along with her siblings Josie V. Treadwell, Ernest Evans, Maggie Lee Sankey, Amos Evans, James Evans, and Cora Mae Arrington.
The proceeding provides an important documentary link between Bernice’s life in Michigan and the Mitchell family from which she descended in Newton County. Decades after migration had carried several members of the family hundreds of miles from Mississippi, matters of kinship, inheritance, and property continued to connect them to their Southern roots.
The legal notices also associated members of the extended family with an address on Iroquois Street in Detroit, further illustrating the family network that had developed between Mississippi and Michigan.
The Great Migration had changed where members of the Evans family lived, but it had not erased the relationships connecting them.
Becoming Fareedah Aleen
One of the most intriguing chapters of Bernice’s later life was her adoption of a new name.
Social Security Administration records document that on October 14, 1982, the woman born Bernice Evans formally recorded the name Fareedah Aleen.
Her gravestone provides additional evidence of this important transition. Rather than preserving only one identity, the stone connects her earlier and later names, confirming that Bernice Evans Williams and Fareedah Aleen were the same woman.
The name Fareedah is Arabic in origin and generally carries meanings associated with something unique, precious, singular, or rare. Arabic names such as Fareedah also have longstanding associations with Muslim communities.
The choice is historically interesting, particularly because Arabic and Islamic names became increasingly visible among some African Americans during the twentieth century. However, the meaning and cultural background of the name do not establish why Bernice personally chose it.
The surviving records presently available do not tell us whether becoming Fareedah Aleen reflected religious faith, cultural identification, personal preference, or another influence. Without family testimony or additional documentary evidence, her reasons should not be assumed.
What the evidence does establish is meaningful enough: Bernice chose the name Fareedah Aleen, and that identity was significant enough to be permanently preserved on her gravestone.
It became another chapter in a life that had already carried her from a rural Mississippi farming community to metropolitan Detroit.
Later Years
In her later years, Fareedah continued to reside in Detroit, with records placing her on Robson Street.
By then, more than half a century had passed since the little girl recorded as “Batrice” Evans had worked alongside her family on their Newton County farm.
Her lifetime encompassed enormous social change. She experienced the Great Depression, World War II, the Great Migration, the Civil Rights Movement, and the transformation of Black life in both the rural South and the industrial North.
Her own journey reflected several of those larger historical movements while remaining distinctly her own.
Death and Legacy
Fareedah Aleen, born Bernice Evans, passed away on October 11, 2000, at the age of seventy-four. She was laid to rest at Elmwood Cemetery in Detroit, Michigan.
Her gravestone provides a particularly meaningful conclusion to her documented life. By preserving both her earlier and later identities, it connects the child born Bernice Evans in Lawrence, Mississippi, with the woman who eventually chose to be known as Fareedah Aleen in Michigan.
Her life stretched from a Black farming household in Depression-era Newton County to metropolitan Detroit during one of the greatest movements of people in American history. Yet Mississippi never completely disappeared from her story. More than three decades after she left the South, Newton County court records still documented her place within the extended Mitchell-Evans family.
Bernice’s story also demonstrates something found repeatedly among families shaped by the Great Migration: distance did not necessarily mean disconnection. Family relationships, inheritance, property, and memory continued to stretch between Mississippi and Michigan long after migration had created new homes hundreds of miles apart.
One part of her story remains unanswered: Why did Bernice Evans Williams choose to become Fareedah Aleen?
The historical record gives us the name but, for now, not the story behind it. Rather than filling that silence with speculation, the unanswered question deserves to remain open for future family memories or newly discovered records to answer.
What we can say with certainty is that the name mattered to her. It followed her through the final chapter of her life and was ultimately carved into the stone that marks her resting place—permanently joining Bernice Evans of Lawrence, Mississippi, and Fareedah Aleen of Detroit, Michigan, as two identities within one remarkable life.
Resting Place
Elmwood Cemetery, Detroit, Michigan
Photos/Albums
Sources
- 1930 U.S. Census, Newton County, Mississippi, Beat 4, population schedule, Albert Evans household, Bernice Evans; National Archives microfilm publication T626.
- 1940 U.S. Census, Newton County, Mississippi, population schedule, Albert Evans household, Bernice Evans, recorded as “Batrice”; National Archives microfilm publication T627. The census records her as fourteen years old, having completed the fifth grade, and working approximately thirty-two hours during the designated week as an unpaid family worker on the family farm.
- Michigan Marriage Records, Bernice Evans and James Williams, April 22, 1948, Detroit, Wayne County, Michigan. The marriage record identifies Bernice’s parents as Albert Evans and Rosie Mitchell.
- 1950 U.S. Census, Royal Oak Township, Oakland County, Michigan, population schedule, James Williams household, Ellsworth Court; National Archives population census records. The household included Bernice Williams, her children, her widowed sister Josie Treadwell, and Glenda Jean.
- Detroit-area city directory, 1955, James and Bernice Williams, Ellsworth Court, Royal Oak Township, Michigan.
- The Newton Record (Newton, Miss.), April 26, 1978, legal notice concerning Newton County Chancery Court proceedings involving property associated with the estate of Randle Mitchell and the heirs of Rosie Mitchell Smith; naming Bernice Williams and other members of the Mitchell-Evans family.
- The Newton Record (Newton, Miss.), May 3, 1978, continuation or republication of legal notice concerning Newton County Chancery Court proceedings involving the estate of Randle Mitchell and heirs of Rosie Mitchell Smith.
- Social Security Administration, Applications and Claims Index, Bernice Evans Williams/Fareedah Aleen, name change recorded October 14, 1982.
- Gravestone of Fareedah Aleen (Bernice Evans Williams), Elmwood Cemetery, Detroit, Wayne County, Michigan; photograph documenting both her earlier and later identities.
- Social Security Death Index, Fareedah Aleen, formerly Bernice Evans Williams, born February 16, 1926, died October 11, 2000.
- Elmwood Cemetery record and gravestone, Fareedah Aleen, died October 11, 2000, Elmwood Cemetery, Detroit, Wayne County, Michigan.
- Reference work on Arabic personal names or Arabic language, entry for farīdah (فريدة), meaning “unique,” “singular,” or “precious.”
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