hattie mae evans johnson
1911-bef. 1990
Life Story
Hattie Mae Evans lived through a period of profound change in African American life in the twentieth-century South. Born into the Evans family of rural Newton County, Mississippi, she came of age during the Jim Crow era, married young, moved from Newton County to Laurel, and eventually joined the movement of Black Mississippians to Chicago. Later in life, she returned to the community where her story had begun.
Her surviving records also illustrate something common in family-history research: a life must sometimes be reconstructed from scattered pieces—school records, marriage registers, census schedules, military records, and family memories. Together, those records reveal a woman whose life stretched from the rural communities of Newton County to one of the great destinations of the African American Great Migration.
Early Life in Newton County
Hattie Mae Evans was born about 1911 or 1912 in Mississippi, into the family of Eligah Evans and Fannie Chapman Evans of Newton County.¹
By 1920, approximately eight-year-old Hattie was living with her family in Beat 4 of Newton County, a rural area that included the African American communities surrounding Lawrence. She grew up alongside a large group of siblings whose lives would eventually extend far beyond Mississippi.
Education records provide another glimpse of Hattie’s childhood. A Mississippi Department of Education List of Educable Children for the Newton Separate School District records Eligah Evans as the parent or guardian of Hattie and several of her siblings. The children listed under his name were Hattie, Fred, Elijah, Jr., Charlie, Juary, and Huey. Hattie was recorded as twenty years old on that particular school list, demonstrating that the ages appearing in surviving records do not always agree precisely.²
More important than the age discrepancy is what the document preserves: Hattie belonged to a generation of Evans children receiving an education in segregated Mississippi.
Marriage to L. B. Wash
On October 1, 1928, Hattie Mae Evans married L. B. Wash in Newton County.³ His name appears with some variation in the surviving records and has at times been interpreted as L. D. Wash, but later records identify him as L. B. Wash.
The couple established their early married life in Mississippi. By the 1930 census, Hattie—whose name was apparently recorded as Hallie—was living with her husband in Beat 4 of Newton County. She was approximately eighteen years old and was keeping house. The census recorded her as able to read and write.
Her young adulthood therefore initially remained closely tied to the same Newton County countryside in which she had been raised.
From Newton County to Laurel
The next surviving records place Hattie and L. B. farther south in Laurel, Jones County, Mississippi.
L. B.’s World War II draft registration provides an unusually personal snapshot of this period. Born May 6, 1906, he identified his birthplace as Newton, Mississippi, and listed his wife, Hattie Mae Wash, as the person who would always know his address. Hattie’s address was given as 923 South Seventh Avenue, Laurel, Mississippi. L. B. was then employed by the Laurel Oil and Fertilizer Company.⁴
The card also contains evidence of a major transition. The Laurel address was altered and a Chicago address was subsequently entered on the document. This suggests that L. B. moved north after the card was originally completed.
A later Army record helps establish what happened to their marriage.
On December 16, 1942, L. B. Wash enlisted in the United States Army in Chicago, Illinois. His residence was recorded as Cook County, Illinois, and his civilian occupation was associated with the production of industrial chemicals. Most importantly for reconstructing Hattie’s story, his marital status was recorded as **“divorced, with dependents.”**⁵
This establishes that Hattie and L. B.’s marriage had ended in divorce by December 1942. The actual divorce record has not yet been located, so the precise date and circumstances of their separation remain unknown.
The Army record’s reference to dependents should not be interpreted as evidence that Hattie and L. B. had children together; the record does not identify those dependents.
Hattie’s Journey to Chicago
Hattie eventually made the journey north herself.
Her relocation placed her within one of the largest movements of African Americans in twentieth-century American history. Chicago became one of the principal destinations of Black migrants leaving Mississippi and other Southern states, and members of Hattie’s own extended family would become part of that migration.
For Hattie, however, the documentary evidence allows us to establish the move without assigning a motive to it. We know that she eventually established herself in Chicago; we do not yet know exactly when she arrived or why she chose to leave Mississippi.
What is clear is that by the late 1940s, she had begun another chapter of her life there.
Marriage to Hugh Johnson
On June 25, 1949, Hattie Mae Evans married Hugh Johnson in Cook County, Illinois.⁶
The marriage is significant for another reason. Hattie married under her Evans surname rather than Wash, further supporting the evidence that her first marriage had already ended.
By 1950, thirty-seven-year-old Hattie Mae Johnson was living with Hugh in Chicago. Their household also included members of Hattie’s extended family, demonstrating how migration often preserved family relationships even while relocating them hundreds of miles from Mississippi.⁷
Among those living in the household were Hattie’s brothers Elijah Evans, Jr. and Reharb Evans, along with other relatives or household members. Hattie was recorded as keeping house.
The household offers a small but meaningful example of the family networks that accompanied migration. Hattie had left rural Mississippi, but she had not necessarily left her Mississippi family connections behind.
Chicago and the Evans Family Migration
Hattie’s migration becomes even more meaningful when viewed as part of the larger Evans family story.
She was not simply an isolated individual who happened to relocate from Mississippi to Illinois. Members of the extended family increasingly established themselves in northern cities during the twentieth century. Brothers, sisters, cousins, nieces, nephews, and in-laws could provide connections between the rural communities they had left and the cities in which they established new lives.
Hattie’s 1950 household captures that process particularly well. Under one Chicago roof were people whose lives had begun in Mississippi but were now being reshaped in an urban Northern environment.
For descendants researching the Evans family generations later, households like Hattie’s help reveal how family migration actually occurred—not always as the movement of a single nuclear family, but through overlapping networks of relatives.
Returning Home to Newton County
Hattie’s story eventually came full circle.
According to family history, in her later years she returned to Newton County and built a house on family land.⁸ That detail is particularly meaningful when placed beside the documentary record of her earlier life.
The land to which she returned represented more than geography. Newton County had been the setting of her childhood, education, first marriage, and earliest family relationships. After years that carried her from Newton County to Laurel and eventually Chicago, she returned to the place where the Evans family’s roots remained.
Because this portion of Hattie’s life is presently preserved primarily through family knowledge rather than the records examined here, it should be identified as family history until property, tax, deed, directory, or other records can further document the house and her return.
Death
Hattie Mae Evans Johnson is remembered as having died sometime during the 1980s, after returning to Mississippi.⁹
Her exact date and place of death have not yet been established from the records currently available. Until a death certificate, obituary, Social Security record, cemetery record, or other contemporary source is located, it is better to leave the date approximate rather than assign her a specific year.
Legacy
Hattie Mae Evans’s life followed a path experienced by many African Americans born in rural Mississippi during the early twentieth century, but the surviving records make her individual journey visible.
She began life in Newton County, where her name survives among the Evans children in segregated school records. She married L. B. Wash as a young woman and moved with him from Newton County to Laurel. Their marriage ended before the close of 1942, while L. B. was establishing himself in Chicago.
Hattie later made her own journey north. In Chicago she remarried, becoming Hattie Mae Johnson, and shared a household that included members of the Evans family who had also left Mississippi.
And then, after years away, she came home.
Her return to Newton County and decision to build on family land gave her life an almost circular geography:
Newton County → Laurel → Chicago → Newton County.
Yet Hattie’s story should not be reduced simply to migration. It is also a story of family continuity. The places changed, marriages changed, and members of the Evans family scattered across the country, but connections to family and home endured.
Her life provides another piece of the larger Evans family history—a history in which the rural communities of Newton County remained a point of origin even for those whose lives eventually stretched hundreds of miles beyond Mississippi.
Resting Place
Unknown
Photos/Albums
Sources
- 1920 U.S. Census, Newton County, Mississippi, population schedule, Beat 4, Eligah Evans household. Hattie Evans was enumerated at approximately eight years of age with her family. The census supports an estimated birth year of about 1911–1912.
- Mississippi State Department of Education, List of Educable Children, Newton County, Newton Separate School District, Colored, Eligah Evans family, p. 258. The record lists Hattie with Fred, Eligah, Charlie, June, and Hugh Evans. The age recorded for Hattie differs from that suggested by the federal census and should therefore be treated cautiously.
- Newton County, Mississippi, Marriage Records, marriage license and certificate for L. B. Wash and Hattie May Evans, October 1, 1928, p. 110. The record documents their marriage in Newton County. The groom’s initials are difficult to interpret in some reproductions and have sometimes been transcribed as “L. D.,” while later records identify him as L. B. Wash.
- 1930 U.S. Census, Newton County, Mississippi, population schedule, Beat 4, L. B. Wash household. Hattie, whose given name appears with a spelling variation in the census, was living with her husband and was recorded as able to read and write.
- U.S. Selective Service System, World War II draft registration card for L. B. Wash, born May 6, 1906, Newton, Mississippi. Wash identified Mrs. Hattie Mae Wash as his wife and the person who would always know his address; her residence was recorded as 923 South Seventh Avenue, Laurel, Jones County, Mississippi. Wash listed the Laurel Oil and Fertilizer Company as his employer. The card was subsequently amended with a Chicago address.
- U.S. Army World War II Enlistment Records, L. B. Wash, service no. 36388478, enlisted December 16, 1942, Chicago, Illinois. The record identifies Wash as a resident of Cook County, Illinois, and records his marital status as divorced, with dependents. This establishes that his marriage to Hattie had ended by December 16, 1942, although the divorce record itself has not yet been located.
- Cook County, Illinois, Marriage Records, Hattie Mae Evans and Hugh Johnson, June 25, 1949. This record documents Hattie’s second marriage.
- 1950 U.S. Census, Chicago, Cook County, Illinois, population schedule, Hugh Johnson household. Hattie Mae Johnson, approximately thirty-seven years old, was enumerated with her husband and members of her extended family, including her brothers Eliga Evans and Reharb Evans.
- Evans family oral history, information concerning Hattie Mae Evans Johnson’s return to Newton County, Mississippi, and construction of a house on family land. Until supported by a deed, tax record, directory, or other contemporary document, this portion of her later life should be identified as family history.
- Evans family information, concerning the death of Hattie Mae Evans Johnson sometime during the 1980s. Her exact date and place of death and burial have not yet been established from a contemporary record.
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