emma lou evans mctizic
1944-2015
Life Story
Early Life in Mississippi
Emma Lou Evans was born on August 19, 1944, in Mississippi, the daughter of Thomas Evans, Jr. and Armanda Harris Evans, whose given name appears in other records as Maudy, Mondy, or Mandy.¹ Emma was one of the younger children in the large Evans family whose roots were firmly planted in the rural communities surrounding Union in east-central Mississippi.
By 1950, Thomas and Mandy Evans were raising their family on a farm outside the Union city limits in Newton County. Their home was located off the highway running between Little Rock and Union.²
Emma appeared in the census under the name “Anny Lou Evans.” She shared the household with her parents and siblings Lela Mae, A.C., Lillie Mae, Nathan, Dewey, A. Ether, Charlie, Joe Lewis, R.C., Jerlene, and Larry.²
The census recorded Emma Lou as four years old. Her documented birth date of August 19, 1944, however, would have made her five at the time of the 1950 enumeration.¹ ² This small discrepancy is similar to variations found in the recorded ages of several of her brothers and sisters.
The Evans household was classified as a farm. Emma’s older brothers Nathan and Dewey were already working as unpaid farm helpers, illustrating the agricultural environment in which Emma and the younger Evans children spent their early years.²
From Mississippi to Nebraska
Emma eventually left the rural community of her childhood and moved hundreds of miles north to Nebraska.
Her move became part of a larger geographic transformation within the Evans family. While some of Thomas and Armanda’s children remained in Mississippi and others eventually established homes in different parts of the country, Omaha became an especially important destination for several members of the family.
By the late 1960s, Emma was establishing her own life there.
In January 1969, Emma L. Evans married Thomas McTizic in Nebraska.³ She was approximately 24 years old.
The marriage began a new chapter that would keep Emma in Omaha for much of the remainder of her life.
Marriage, Children, and a Home in Omaha
Emma and Thomas built their family in Omaha and became the parents of two children: a daughter, Teresa McTizic, and a son, Thomas Ray McTizic.⁴
Over the years, the McTizic family established deep residential roots in the city. Public records repeatedly associate Emma with 5614 North 39th Street, an address that became part of the documentary record of her adult life.⁵
The importance of that address is reinforced by newspaper records. A November 2008 legal notice in the Omaha World-Herald identified Thomas McTizic and Emma L. McTizic at 5614 North 39th Street.⁶
The address represented a world far removed from the farm outside Union where Emma had appeared as little “Anny Lou” in 1950. Omaha was no longer simply the place to which she had migrated. It had become home.
Family Ties Back to Mississippi
Although Emma built her adult life in Nebraska, surviving records indicate that her Mississippi connections endured.
A November 1991 newspaper reference in the Newton-Union area identified Emma Lou McTizic in connection with her mother, Mandy Evans.⁷ The reference is significant because it connects the adult Emma in Omaha with the family she had left behind in Mississippi decades earlier.
Those family connections were part of a much larger network. The Evans children who had once lived together under Thomas and Armanda’s roof eventually became scattered across several states, but surviving obituaries and community notices repeatedly show brothers, sisters, children, and extended relatives remaining part of one another’s lives and family records.
Emma’s story therefore became one of both migration and continuing connection—building a permanent home elsewhere without disappearing from the story of the family in Mississippi.
Financial Difficulties in Later Life
The surviving public record also preserves evidence of a difficult financial period for Emma and Thomas.
In 2008, Thomas McTizic and Emma Lou McTizic filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in Nebraska. A notice published in The Daily Record identified the couple at their longtime North 39th Street address and, importantly for genealogical purposes, identified Emma as **“Emma Lou McTizic fka Emma Lou Evans.”**⁸
The filing reported assets of $108,215 and liabilities of $116,267.⁸
The record establishes that the couple experienced financial difficulties serious enough to seek bankruptcy protection, but it does not explain what caused those difficulties. There is no basis in the surviving notice to attribute the bankruptcy to illness, unemployment, debt, housing costs, or any other particular circumstance.
It represents one documented chapter in a marriage and household that had already endured for nearly four decades.
Children and Grandchildren
As the years passed, Emma’s family grew beyond the two children she and Thomas had raised.
She became the grandmother of Kiana Rae McTizic, Khya McTizic, Jasmine Williams, and Elijah Williams.⁴
By then, the little girl who had once been surrounded by brothers and sisters in a crowded Mississippi farm household had become the center of another family generation in Nebraska.
The geography had changed, but the pattern of family continued.
Final Years and Death
Emma Lou Evans McTizic died on August 7, 2015, in Douglas County, Nebraska. She was 70 years old and only twelve days away from her seventy-first birthday.¹ ⁴
She was survived by her husband of more than four decades, Thomas McTizic; her daughter, Teresa; her son, Thomas Ray; and her four grandchildren, Kiana Rae McTizic, Khya McTizic, Jasmine Williams, and Elijah Williams.⁴
By the time of Emma’s death, many of the brothers and sisters who had surrounded her during childhood had already passed away. Her surviving brothers were Rev. Larry Evans and his wife, Ruth Mae; Joe Lewis Evans; and Hubert Evans and his wife, Margie. Her surviving sisters were Lela Mae Lewis and Lillie Mae Evans.⁴
Funeral arrangements were handled by Roeder Mortuary’s Ames Chapel in Omaha. Emma was laid to rest at Mount Hope Cemetery in Omaha, Douglas County, Nebraska.⁴ ⁹
Her burial in Omaha reflected how firmly Nebraska had become part of her family’s history. Unlike some members of the Evans family whose remains were returned to Mississippi after death, Emma was laid to rest in the city where she had spent much of her adult life.
From “Anny Lou” to Emma Lou McTizic
Emma Lou Evans McTizic’s life connected two very different places.
Her story began on a farm outside Union, Mississippi, where she was one of the youngest children in Thomas and Armanda Evans’s large household. The 1950 census captured her there as “Anny Lou,” surrounded by parents and siblings in an agricultural world that had shaped generations of her family.
Within two decades, her life had taken a dramatically different direction.
She moved to Nebraska, married Thomas McTizic in 1969, and established a home in Omaha. Together they raised Teresa and Thomas Ray and eventually welcomed four grandchildren. Their marriage endured through decades of family life and, as the surviving records reveal, through financial difficulties as well.
Yet Emma’s move to Nebraska did not erase Mississippi from her story. Newspaper and family records continued to connect her with her mother, brothers, sisters, and the Union community from which she came.
When Emma died in 2015, only a handful of the brothers and sisters from that once-crowded Mississippi household remained.
Her life therefore represents something larger than a journey from one state to another. It is part of the story of a rural Black Mississippi family whose children grew up together on a farm and then carried the family into communities across the country.
Emma Lou Evans left Mississippi, but she carried the Evans family story with her.
In Omaha, she added another chapter.
Resting Place
Mount Hope Cemetery in Omaha, Douglas County, Nebraska
Photos/Albums
Sources
- “U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936–2007,” entry for Emma Lou Evans McTizic, born August 19, 1944, Mississippi, daughter of Thomas Evans and Armanda Harris; death information for Emma L. McTizic, August 7, 2015; digital database, 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; “Anny Lou Evans,” recorded as age 4, living with her parents and siblings on a farm outside the Union city limits, off the highway between Little Rock and Union; digital image, Ancestry.com, accessed 2026.
- Nebraska marriage record/index, Emma L. Evans and Thomas McTizic, January 1969; digital database, Ancestry.com, accessed 2026.
- Emma L. McTizic, obituary and funeral information, Roeder Mortuary, Ames Chapel, Omaha, Nebraska, August 2015. The obituary identifies her husband, Thomas McTizic; children Teresa McTizic and Thomas Ray McTizic; grandchildren Kiana Rae McTizic, Khya McTizic, Jasmine Williams, and Elijah Williams; and surviving siblings Rev. Larry Evans, Joe Lewis Evans, Hubert Evans, Lela Mae Lewis, and Lillie Mae Evans.
- “U.S., Public Records Index, 1950–1993,” and related public-record databases, entries for Emma Lou McTizic, including residence at 5614 N. 39th St., Omaha, Nebraska 68111; digital database, Ancestry.com, accessed 2026. Some public-record entries contain a conflicting September 1, 1948, birth date; the earlier census and Social Security evidence support the August 19, 1944, date used in this biography.
- Legal notice concerning Thomas McTizic and Emma L. McTizic, 5614 N. 39th St., Omaha, Omaha World-Herald (Omaha, Nebraska), November 7, 2008, 29.
- Emma Lou McTizic [surname rendered with spelling variation], family/local news item, The Newton Record and/or The Union Appeal (Mississippi), November 13, 1991. The item identifies Emma in connection with her mother, Mandy Evans.
- Bankruptcy notice for Thomas McTizic and Emma Lou McTizic, formerly known as Emma Lou Evans, case no. BK08-82747, Chapter 7, The Daily Record (Omaha, Nebraska), October 27, 2008, 6. The notice identifies the couple at 5614 N. 39th St., Omaha; reports assets of $108,215 and liabilities of $116,267; and identifies Francis X. Skrupa as attorney.
- “Emma L. McTizic,” memorial, Find a Grave, Mount Hope Cemetery, Omaha, Douglas County, Nebraska, 1944–2015; digital memorial database, accessed 2026.
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