leroy evans
1939-1991
Life Story
Early Life in Lawrence
Leroy Evans, whose name appears as “Lorey” in an early census record, was born on December 17, 1939, in Lawrence, Newton County, Mississippi. He was the son of Elmo Evans and Dora L. Crudup, later known as Dora Lee Slaughter.
Leroy entered the historical record while still an infant. In the spring of 1940, at approximately five months old, he was living in Newton County in the household of his paternal grandparents, Tom and Lillie Evans. The household included several generations of the Evans family, among them Leroy’s parents, Elmo and Dora, his sister Bobbie, and other relatives.
His earliest years were therefore spent within an extended family household in the rural Lawrence community, surrounded by relatives whose connections to Newton County would remain important throughout his life.
Life Beyond Lawrence
As an adult, Leroy continued to make his life in Mississippi, with records connecting him particularly to Jackson. Residential records place him at addresses on East Bell Street and at post office boxes in Jackson. Other records also associate him with a post office box in Millington, Tennessee.
Although these records show that Leroy’s adult life extended beyond Lawrence, his connection to Newton County did not disappear. One of the clearest examples came in 1987, when the death of his father, Elmo Evans, left questions concerning ownership of family property in Newton County.
The Heirs of Elmo Evans
In 1987, Dora Lee Slaughter, Leroy Evans, and Bobbie Nell Camper appeared together as plaintiffs in a case before the Chancery Court of Newton County, Mississippi.
The proceeding, Civil Action No. 13,008, sought to confirm title and ownership to real property in Newton County. The published summons described the plaintiffs as persons who “claim to be the sole heirs at law of Elmo Evans, Deceased.”[1]
The three plaintiffs represented Elmo’s immediate surviving family identified in the proceeding: his widow, Dora Lee Slaughter, and his children, Leroy Evans and Bobbie Nell Camper.
The Evans Property in Newton County
The property at the center of the case was described as the west half of the southwest quarter of Section 26, Township 6 North, Range 10 East, less thirteen acres in the southern portion and less a 220-foot-wide strip that had previously been conveyed to the Mississippi State Highway Commission.[1]
The highway conveyance had been recorded in Book 103, page 474, among the records of the Newton County Chancery Clerk.[1]
The legal description is valuable for the Evans family history because it identifies precisely where the property claimed through Elmo Evans was located. Rather than merely showing that the family lived somewhere in rural Newton County, the chancery proceeding ties this branch of the Evans family to a specific tract of land.
The summons had been formally issued on June 10, 1987, by Newton County Chancery Clerk Janice Nelson. By bringing the action, Dora, Leroy, and Bobbie were asking the court to confirm their title and ownership against anyone else who might claim a legal or equitable interest in the property.[1]
The published summons documents their claim; the final decree in Civil Action No. 13,008 would be needed to establish exactly how the court ultimately ruled.
Later Years and Death
Leroy remained connected to Mississippi during his adult years, particularly the Jackson area, while retaining the legal connection to his family’s property in Newton County demonstrated by the 1987 chancery proceeding.
He died in February 1991, at the age of fifty-one.
His death came less than four years after he had joined his mother and sister in seeking judicial confirmation of their family’s ownership of the property associated with his late father.
Legacy
Leroy Evans’s surviving records connect two parts of the Black experience in twentieth-century Mississippi: family and land.
He began life in an extended Evans household in rural Newton County, surrounded by his parents, grandparents, sibling, and other relatives. As an adult, his life extended beyond Lawrence to Jackson and elsewhere, but the land associated with his father continued to connect him to the community where his life began.
The 1987 chancery proceeding is therefore more than a legal notice. It preserves the names of Dora Lee Slaughter, Leroy Evans, and Bobbie Nell Camper together as the claimed heirs of Elmo Evans and identifies the actual Newton County property they sought to preserve under their ownership.
For family historians, that record provides something census schedules and death indexes cannot: a documented connection between people, inheritance, and a specific piece of land.
Leroy’s story thus remained tied to Lawrence even as his adult life carried him elsewhere. From the infant recorded in his grandparents’ household in 1940 to the fifty-one-year-old man whose life ended in 1991, Leroy Evans remained part of an Evans family story deeply rooted in Newton County, Mississippi.
Resting Place
Unknown
Photos/Albums
Sources
- “Summons,” The Newton Record (Newton, MS), July 1, 1987, 13, Newton County Chancery Court, Dora Lee Slaughter, Leroy Evans and Bobbie Nell Camper, Plaintiffs, v. All Persons Having or Claiming Any Legal or Equitable Interest in the Lands Described in the Complaint, Defendants, Civil Action No. 13,008. The summons, issued June 10, 1987, states that the plaintiffs sought to confirm title and ownership of the described Newton County property and claimed to be the sole heirs at law of Elmo Evans, deceased.
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