charlie willis evans
1937-2013
Life Story
Early Life in Central Mississippi
Charlie W. Evans was born on November 10, 1937, in Mississippi, the son of Thomas Evans, Jr. and Armanda “Mandy” Evans.¹ He was born into a large family whose roots were firmly planted in the rural communities surrounding Union in east-central Mississippi.
Charlie grew up with numerous brothers and sisters, among them Willie Maude, Lela Mae, B. Wesley, Lillie Mae, A.C., Dewey, Nathaniel, Ethel, Joe Lewis, R.C., Jerlene, Emma Lou, and Larry. Over the years, census takers recorded several of their names differently, reflecting the spelling and transcription variations frequently encountered in historical records.
By 1940, Thomas and Mandy’s family was living in the Mogulusha community of Neshoba County. The census recorded the surname incorrectly as “Earns,” with Charlie appearing as Charles W. Earns. The same record reported that the family had been living on a farm in rural Newton County in 1935, demonstrating that the Evans household had crossed the Newton-Neshoba county line during the years surrounding Charlie’s birth.²
The census recorded Charlie as four years old. That age conflicts with his later documented birth date of November 10, 1937, which would have made him approximately two years old when the census was taken. Later records consistently identify 1937 as his birth year.¹
Growing Up Near Union
By 1950, the Evans family was once again living in Newton County, on a farm outside the Union city limits. Their home was located along a road leading off the highway between Little Rock and Union.³
Thomas and Mandy were still raising a crowded household of children, and Charlie grew up surrounded by siblings of varying ages. The family farm formed the physical and economic setting of his childhood.
The 1950 census recorded Charlie as ten years old, creating another discrepancy with his later November 1937 birth date, which would have made him twelve.³ Taken together, the census records demonstrate the caution necessary when reconstructing ages from historical enumerations. Despite the inconsistent ages, the records clearly place Charlie in the Thomas and Mandy Evans household during both his early childhood and youth.
Charlie grew up in the same agricultural environment as his older brothers. Dewey and Nathaniel were recorded as farm helpers in the 1950 household, providing a glimpse of the work that supported the family and shaped the world in which the younger Evans children were raised.
A Life Rooted Near Home
While several of Thomas and Mandy Evans’s children eventually left Mississippi and established homes elsewhere, Charlie’s documented adult life remained closely associated with the Union area.
His Social Security record indicates that his Social Security number was issued in Mississippi in 1959, when Charlie was a young man of approximately 21 years.¹
Public records from later decades continue to associate Charlie W. Evans with Union, Mississippi, including rural and town addresses connected with Route 4, Short Road, James Street, and Hudson Chapel Road.⁴ Although such records tell us relatively little about the details of his everyday life, collectively they demonstrate a long and continuing association with the community in which he had grown up.
This makes Charlie’s story somewhat different from that of siblings whose adult lives eventually carried them to Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Nebraska, Georgia, and other parts of the country.
Charlie stayed close to the family’s Mississippi roots.
The Evans Family and the Meaning of Place
Charlie’s lifetime connection to Union is particularly meaningful when viewed against the history of the larger Evans family.
Thomas and Mandy raised their children in a household that moved between rural Newton and Neshoba counties. As those children reached adulthood, many eventually dispersed across the country. Some followed employment opportunities and family connections hundreds of miles from Mississippi.
Charlie represents another side of that family history: the family members who remained.
For people who left rural Mississippi, home was often remembered through family stories, funerals, churches, cemeteries, and return visits. For Charlie, those same landscapes remained part of everyday life.
The roads changed. Addresses changed. Generations grew older and family members moved away. Yet Charlie’s documented life continued to center around Union.
Death and Burial
Charlie W. Evans died on June 22, 2013, at the age of 75.¹
He was laid to rest at Little Mountain Missionary Baptist Church Cemetery in Union, Neshoba County, Mississippi.⁵
The location of his burial provides a fitting conclusion to the geographical story preserved in the records. Charlie had spent his childhood moving with his family across the Newton-Neshoba county line, grew up on a farm near Union, and remained associated with the Union community throughout his adult life.
After seventy-five years, he was buried in the same part of Mississippi where his story had begun.
The Brother Who Stayed Close to Home
Not every story of twentieth-century Black life in Mississippi was a story of migration.
Charlie W. Evans’s life reminds us that while some members of a family left, others remained close to the communities that generations before them had called home.
Born into Thomas and Mandy Evans’s large rural household, Charlie witnessed that family gradually spread far beyond central Mississippi. His own documented path, however, remained centered around Union.
From the family farm of his childhood to the rural roads and neighborhoods associated with him in adulthood, Charlie’s life remained connected to the landscape that had shaped the Evans family for generations.
His story is quieter in the historical record than those of some of his siblings. There is no dramatic newspaper account or lengthy obituary among the records presently available to tell us about his personality, occupation, marriage, children, church involvement, or the events that mattered most to him.
That absence should not be filled with assumptions.
What the records do reveal is something important in its own right: Charlie stayed close to home.
And when his life ended in 2013, he was laid to rest there, among the communities and family roots of east-central Mississippi that had surrounded him from childhood.
Resting Place
Little Mountain Missionary Baptist Church Cemetery
Photos/Albums
Sources
- “U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936–2007,” entry for Charlie Evans, born November 10, 1937, died June 22, 2013; Social Security number issued in Mississippi in 1959; digital database, Ancestry.com, accessed 2026.
- 1940 U.S. census, Neshoba County, Mississippi, Mogulusha, enumeration district 50-13, sheet 13A, household of Thomas “Earns”; Charles W. “Earns” enumerated in the household of Thomas and Maudy “Earns”; family reported residence in rural Newton County, Mississippi, in 1935; digital image, Ancestry.com, accessed 2026.
- 1950 U.S. census, Newton County, Mississippi, enumeration district 51-18, sheet 11, dwelling 211, household of Thomas and Mondy Evans; Charlie Evans enumerated as a son in the family household on a farm outside the Union city limits; digital image, Ancestry.com, accessed 2026.
- “U.S., Public Records Index, 1950–1993, Volumes 1 and 2,” entries for Charlie W. Evans, Union, Mississippi 39365, including addresses associated with Route 4, Box 151; Short Road; James Street; and Hudson Chapel Road; digital database, Ancestry.com, accessed 2026.
- “Charlie Evans,” memorial, Find a Grave, Little Mountain Missionary Baptist Church Cemetery, Union, Neshoba County, Mississippi, born November 10, 1937, died June 22, 2013; digital database, accessed 2026.
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