freenell evans
1928-1983
Life Story
Early Life and Family Background
Freenell Evans, whose name also appears in some records as Frenelle Evans, was born in Mississippi around 1928 or 1929, the daughter of Sam Evans and Lillian Evans. She grew up in a large African American farming family in Newton County, Mississippi, as one of eleven children.
Her siblings included Mattie, Ed, Lorene, Ovetta (Oneta), Annie, Sophia, Irma, Willie, Sam Jr., and Johnny Evans. Together, the children were raised in the rural communities of Newton County during the years of the Great Depression and segregation.
The 1930 United States Census recorded one-year-old Freenell living with her parents and older siblings in Beat 4 of Newton County.¹ At that age, she was among the youngest members of a household that would continue to grow during the following decade.
Childhood in the Roberts Community
By 1935, the Evans family was living in the Roberts community of Newton County, where they remained when the federal census was taken five years later.
In 1940, twelve-year-old Freenell was living with her parents and siblings and attending school. The census reported that she had completed the second grade.²
Her childhood unfolded within the same rural farming environment experienced by her brothers and sisters. The census records provide only brief glimpses of those years, but they place Freenell firmly within the large household established by Sam and Lillian Evans and within the broader African American community of rural Newton County.
Later Life
The surviving records currently available tell us considerably less about Freenell’s adult years than about her childhood. At some point in her later life, she resided in Whitfield, Mississippi, the community associated with the state hospital in Rankin County.
Freenell eventually died at Whitfield State Hospital.³
The circumstances that brought her to Whitfield are not established by the records presently available. For that reason, it is best to allow the historical record to speak only to what can be documented rather than speculate about her health or the reasons for her residence there.
Death and Family Connections
Freenell’s life ended in 1983 while she was at Whitfield State Hospital in Whitfield, Mississippi. Following her death, funeral services were held at Jerusalem Baptist Church in Lawrence, Mississippi, reconnecting her final rites with the Newton County community in which she had been raised. Brown Mortuary handled the arrangements, and she was laid to rest in the church cemetery.³
At the time of her death, Freenell was survived by two brothers, Ed Evans and Willie Evans, both of Lawrence, Mississippi, and three sisters: Lorene Moffett of Taylorsville, Mississippi; Sophia Dungen of San Diego, California; and Mattie Jones of Chicago, Illinois.³
The obituary is also valuable genealogically because its list of surviving siblings shows that by 1983, Ovetta, Annie, Irma, Sam Jr., and Johnny Evans were apparently no longer living, assuming the newspaper’s survivor list was complete.
Legacy
The documentary record of Freenell Evans is not as extensive as that of some of her brothers and sisters. There may be no long occupational history, military record, or series of newspaper articles through which to reconstruct the details of her adulthood.
Yet her life remains an important part of the history of Sam and Lillian Evans’s family.
The little girl recorded at age one in the 1930 census and attending school in the Roberts community a decade later belonged to a generation of Evans children whose lives eventually followed very different paths. Some remained close to Lawrence and Newton County. Others established families elsewhere in Mississippi or migrated hundreds and even thousands of miles away.
Freenell’s own life ultimately remained connected to Mississippi, and at its conclusion she was brought home to Lawrence, where her funeral was held and where she was laid to rest at Jerusalem Baptist Church Cemetery.
Her story, though preserved in fewer records, represents another branch of the large family raised by Sam and Lillian Evans and another individual life within the broader history of the Evans family of Newton County, Mississippi.
Resting Place
Union Chapel United Methodist Church Cemetery
Photos/Albums
Sources
- 1930 United States Federal Census, Newton County, Mississippi, Beat 4, household of Sam Evans, including Freenell Evans, age 1; digital image, Ancestry.com.
- 1940 United States Federal Census, Newton County, Mississippi, Roberts community, household of Sam Evans, including Freenell Evans, age 12; digital image, Ancestry.com.
- Hattiesburg American (Hattiesburg, Mississippi), October 13, 1983, 2.
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